AFTER MIDNIGHT: A Lovesick, Country-Fried Creature Feature

Directors Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella are no strangers to the horror genre, with the pair most likely known for having previously co-created 2012’s The Battery, a low-budget zombie apocalypse film. While not exactly a barn-burner, the picture found a small but appreciative audience, perhaps aided by its humorous subject matter in baseball players versus the undead, and the duo’s knack for making a meal out of morsels – the budget was reportedly a mere thousands of dollars.

This year, Gardner and Stella have returned with After Midnight, a creature feature with a decidedly southern bent. Well, “creature feature” may be too strong of a descriptor; there are the occasional bumps in the night, but in actuality the film takes its aim at observing the dissolution of a relationship, and the paranoia that comes with being left alone in one’s abode for too long.

With the film being co-produced by fellow genre aficionados Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson (both recently of The Endless fame, with the latter taking a supporting role in this film), After Midnight proves it has the solid credentials and low-fi production design needed to deliver something promising. The trouble is, the picture never quite takes off, fizzling out instead of exploding, and often taking large portions of its brief runtime to do so. There are moments of tension in After Midnight, but almost nothing of consequence happens.

It Comes At Night

In the town of Barlow, Kentucky, lovers Hank (Jeremy Gardner) and Abby (Brea Grant) have moved into the former’s familial house, nested in a cozy spot on the edge of the woods. Hoping to lay the foundation for their future together, Abby abruptly leaves Hank in the middle of the night, leaving only a vague note as to explain her whereabouts and her need for some time away from him.

Alone and confused, Hank seeks refuge at his local bar during the day, passing time with drinking buddy Wade (Henry Zebrowski) to numb his pain. At night, he’s forced to barricade the front door of his house with a couch and stand guard with a shotgun, as something outside makes repeated attempts to claw its way in.

After Midnight (previously titled Something Else) is good with introductions. We first meet Hank and Abby as they inspect their new home together, a fixer-upper that is not without its charms. She even teases that it looks like something out of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. They enjoy music, drink wine (she’s a tasting expert), and even adopt a kitten together. Things take a jarring turn with a sudden shotgun blast, as Hank now has a metaphorical hole in his heart and a literal hole in his door, leaving the desperate man alone and confused, with an unseen entity trying to end him.

It’s clear that Gardner and Stella are having fun tinkering with the film’s structure. The aforementioned shotgun blast that interrupts the proceedings indicates that all of the romantic interludes with the couple have been set in flashbacks, as it becomes evident that Abby’s been out of the picture for quite some time, and Hank has been battling the unseen evil for weeks now, struggling to keep a precious grasp on his sanity.

Don’t You Want Somebody To Love

The attempted home invasion sequences are the strongest moments of After Midnight, offering genuine tension as Hank, fueled by a seemingly endless supply of alcohol and rage, struggles to make it through each proceeding night. Questions are teased: Is there something really out there? Is the monster a metaphor for the dying relationship? Is Hank slowly losing his mind?

Unfortunately, the monster sequences only manage to take up a small portion of the film’s narrative, making it almost feel perfunctory. Gardner, who wrote the screenplay, is much more interested in exploring Hank and Abby’s failing relationship, building to an ultimate confrontation between the pair where they air out their grievances in an extended, unbroken, thirteen-minute two-shot (roughly fifteen percent of the film’s brief 83-minute runtime) that pits the pair against each other. It’s an intriguing conceit on paper, but it never quite comes alive on screen. Hank and Abby aren’t exactly compelling characters, helped in no part by Gardner’s and Grant’s lackluster performances, and this bit of technical bravado is wasted on an empty, student film exercise.

That’s not to say the picture doesn’t look great. As they’ve proven before, Gardner and Stella make the most out of a film that is largely set in a single location, with the house itself acting as its own character, firmly planted amongst a sea of lush and ominous-looking flora. But the real star of the show is co-director Stella’s cinematography, utilizing gorgeous, artfully-composed landscape shots that make the most of the cinemascope aspect ratio. It’s often a fine-looking picture to watch, that’s for sure.

After Midnight: Finality Through Shock

Things come to a head during a house party in the final reel of the film, wherein the cathartic power of karaoke and a shocking jump scare attempt to slap any drifting audience members awake. After Midnight goes for a bloody conclusion, but it feels completely rushed and unearned, as if Gardner and Stella are merely throwing their hands up to say “here you go.” After Midnight shows much potential in its early-goings, which makes the lack of a satisfying follow-through all the more disappointing.

Is After Midnight as effective as a relationship drama as it is a horror movie? What’s your favorite horror love story? Let us know in the comments!

After Midnight was released in limited theaters and on VOD in the U.S. on February 14, 2020.