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The Midnight Hour

 

31 Days of Halloween is here. Tonight we had our 2nd annual family jack-o'-lantern cutting contest where we were all winners. Above is my offering to the Halloween spirits. I managed to carve 2 jacks this season. Next year I'm going big and bold, and attempting 31 jack-o'-lanterns, one for each day of Halloweentober! Where am I going to put them all, you ask? EVERYWHERE. I may drop them off at unsuspecting neighbors homes, lit of course. Staring at their door, I'll ring their doorbell and run off. Little adoptable jack-o'-lanterns in need of a new home.


This is the lineup. It was a solid year for jack-o'-lanterns this year at the House of Dolan. Tonight we watched The Midnight Hour on DVD. The Anchor Bay DVD is long, long OOP. I settled for the Spanish DVD years ago, which used the old VHS cover art. Transfer is not too bad. I pray annually for a Blu-ray release. T fell asleep. I woke her up and told her to go upstairs to bed. She was not amused.

Ad from my 1985 TV Guide

This made-for-TV movie is a commitment under my roof. I expected more from her. I wanted her to love and cherish this flick like I have since 1985. But she's watching this for the first time in her 40s, that's just not going to happen. I was not even 9 the first time I watched it. I do have faint memories of watching this live, but to my horror and dismay, it premiered the day after Halloween. That's a giant WTF, my friend.

Critically, this film is barely regarded gateway horror. I'm sure it has a cult following now. But this film gave me my favorite song, The Smith's How Soon is Now and I will always love it for that. Mr. Reading Rainbow is in this film, LeVar Burton himself. At the time that's the only familiar actor I knew of. Years later I'd grow fond of Peter DeLuise in 21 Jump Street.

One thing about the film that never quite made sense was that the kid's ancestors included an infamous witch and a famous witch hunter. But the witch, Lucinda Cavender, when resurrected, is actually a vampire. Did I miss something even after 20 viewings? But they never attempt to stake the witch, I mean vampire. Yet the vamp-witch Lucinda goes around turning their friends... Meanwhile, the film's protagonist is out foolin' around with a ghost from the '50s. By the way, Phil is in high school but looks to be about 34 years old. Mitch Crandall is lineman huge! What's with the water in Pitchford Cove? And Dedee Pfeiffer is in this, and I think I've always had a crush on her. She was in Vamp too, so double vampire bonus.

For those of you who haven't seen The Midnight Hour yet, it's got a small cameo or two by Kurtwood Smith as the Police Captain and Kevin McCarthy is the judge (and father of Peter's DeLuise's Mitch). And Wolfman Jack is on the radio. The script is not that tight, but it is a fun, Halloween film of the 1980s, just about everything I love today. I have been looking for a VHS recorded from TV tape for years now, a sort of white whale for me to collect.
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