After Midnight is the year’s most underappreciated horror movie—and its most surprising
Film Features Watch This
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: For the final Watch This series of the year, we’re again highlighting some of the best movies of 2020 that we didn’t review.
After Midnight (2020)
Defiantly a Florida film, with the afternoon rainstorms, liquor sweats, and chaotic wildlife that such a description suggests, After Midnight is also a deeply romantic story about fucked-up people and a wickedly funny monster movie that delights in the seduction of the unexpected. Equally concerned with women’s pleasure and men’s issues, encompassing the perceptive romantic sprawl of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy as well as the adrenaline rush siege mentality of Aliens, it is what its original festival title promised: something else.
A house looms above all. The backwoods two-story monstrosity, beautiful and dilapidated, has been in the family for as long as Hank (writer, co-director, and star Jeremy Gardner) can remember. Unafraid to get loosey-goosey with time as it teases out a languid mystery seasoned with bacon, booze, and the human drive to not be alone, After Midnight unfolds Hank’s relationship to the property in parallel with his relationship to Abby (indie horror icon Brea Grant, a bedrock of moving and effective performances in genre film for several years now). Abby has been gone for a while, and in her absence, something has been attacking the house, leaving behind massive claw marks that could be the handiwork of a wild animal (this is Florida, after all) or something worse.
From its first shot, the film seems determined to use the audience’s expectations of contemporary genre cinema against it. Gardner and co-director Christian Stella—whose joint zombie movie, The Battery, was so good that it rendered the whole of The Walking Dead redundant—eschew easy subtext and worn-out tropes. Hank and Abby’s relationship, which culminates with a breathtaking 13-minute single take where the two have it out about who they are and what they’re doing, would be captivating even without the monster. For all those who might admire After Midnight as a pure creature feature (the monster, to be clear, is superb), there are plenty more who will appreciate its extrication of the toxic masculinity inherent to so much genre fandom. Still others will admire the little pleasures, like a breakout turn from Last Podcast On The Left’s Henry Zebrowski as Hank’s hunting buddy, Wade, who steals every scene he’s in, chugging bar mat juice (don’t ask) and popping peanuts like it was his job.
After Midnight is a strange movie, and the rare one that can be called genuinely surprising. It pulls off all its tonal shifts, baring its heart with unexpected musical moments (more films should have Verdian karaoke throw-downs in the third act), landing the occasional jump scare absolutely crucial to the plot, and never betraying its characters. Comedy, horror flick, love story, hang-out film, relationship drama, crucible narrative wherein characters have to confront the absolute moral truth of themselves: After Midnight is all of these things at once, and it accomplishes its genre fusion without stretching itself thin, or getting tangled up in its moving parts.
Availability: After Midnight is currently streaming on Hoopla or Kanopy with a subscription. It can also be rented or purchased digitally from Amazon, Google Play, Apple, YouTube, Fandango, and VUDU.
65 Comments
I had forgotten I watched this movie months ago. I did not care for it. I found the pacing to be problematic, and it wasn’t particularly funny or scary to me. I also did not feel invested in the relationship-drama aspect of it all. The film ended just fine, and it seemed like there was heart behind the making of it, but I had hoped to enjoy the entire project much more than I did.
man Julie Delpy really let loose in this one
After midnight, she gonna let it all hang down.
Just added this to my Kanopy watchlist. First among the “Related Videos” is Beyond the Black Rainbow, which is encouraging – and a bit alarming.
Whoa, in my mind, the Beyond the Black Rainbow comparison is the greatest thing that can be said about After Midnight. Definitely going to add this to my list.
I’m worried that I’ll be a bit disappointed – it can’t possibly be as amazingly loopy as BTBR – but it is an encouraging comparison.
Oh, it is nothing like BTBR. Don’t want you going in with false expectations there. I’d imagine it got put in “related videos” due to both being early films from relatively underground filmmakers, though I can definitely see fans of one enjoying the other, and vice versa, so maybe the connection is just that simple!
Yeah, topping Beyond the Black Rainbow probably won’t be happening, but I’m still game to go into this with normal expectations and hope for the best.
I found that movie to be a lot of style over substance. For all the things it was aping, I’d rather just watch the films it drew from.
I hear ya, but it was such an experience for me in the theater that I just felt transformed by the mood and the score and everything.
I honestly can see how seeing it on a big screen would benefit the film a lot.
They’re absolutely nothing alike
Well, it’s still on my list, so… Game, set, match, my internet friend.
I promise I am not a corporate shill (much), but in the UK Arrow Video released a limited edition After Midnight Blu-Ray with a shit-ton of extras, one of which being the above-mentioned film The Battery.Also, if one of you AV Club mothers could make it so I’m not grey anymore I’d be realllllllllly happy.
“writer, co-director, and star”Does AV Club have a boner for these goddam hyphenate types or something? I feel like every indie recommendation on this site features a writer-director-star-caterer-DP-script supervisor-location scout.Yes, I’m fun at parties.
If they’re talented and put out good entertainment, who gives a good goddamn how many hyphens are in their titles? Calm down, friendo.
Two big ifs to start with.And I’m sorry that I care about artists getting work. If one guy or gal does three jobs, that’s two people who AREN’T working.
Counterpoint: That’s one person’s vision being produced and presented precisely how they want it to be done, and hopefully the outcome is good.
That’s not a counterpoint. That’s defining a hyphenate. I know what the term means.*Of course* hopefully the outcome is good. I certainly don’t want BAD art.How about you address the lack of accountability point? Or limiting work for other artists? I’m open to *actual* counterpoints to my dislike of hyphenates but if all you have is the definition then jog on.
God, you’re insufferable.
Sorry I think you don’t have an argument. I guess holding you to some kind of critical standard is “insufferable”.
‘How about you address the lack of accountability point?’Uh…*checks conversation up to this point*…you didn’t make any point about a ‘lack of accountability.’ Really, you’re coming across as an unemployed film crewmember with a grudge.
Well I hate to copy and paste an entire post that you apparently didn’t read but“Of my hyphenate criticisms, the lack of creative accountability is foremost. What I appreciate about separation of jobs is the increase in checks and balances. No artist is perfect and it’s helpful to have specialists in the various fields to push back. I’m a big fan of Charlie Kaufman as screenwriter but most of his scripts are crazy self-indulgent. He’s best, imo, when grounded by a director who shares his sensibility but a better grasp of audience appeal. Aykroyd’s Ghostbusters script before Reitman got a hand in (with help from Ramis) was batshit. My own field is screenwriting so I know more stories about writers needing guidance but I’m sure there are stories about directors needing to be guided by actors and writers. And personally the idea of an actor guiding their own performance and those of their peers as director has always felt blech.”
So your argument is that people who are good at one aspect of filmmaking should just stick to their lane. Fine, I agree with you. But, again, you’re missing the point of my argument, which is: if someone is good at multiple aspects of filmmaking and want to flex their skills, why shouldn’t they?
I get your point. I’m not in any position to stop them. I’m not trying to. I’m bemoaning the way hyphenates get treated by film students and critics, which is largely with breathless awe. Nobody seems to want to acknowledge that guys like Neil Breen are ALSO hyphenates. His type gets dismissed as vain loons but how are filmmakers like Miranda July any different? You could argue quality and I wouldn’t disagree but that’s not a comment on the concept of hyphenates. That’s a comparison of artists.Look at the way someone like Ron Howard is treated by film buffs as compared to Quentin Tarantino. Both men have done fantastic work and awful work but if you asked a self-identified film nerd which is the better director I guarantee you the majority would say QT. Because of the two he’s the writer-director.If anything, I think the “should” is a matter of job opportunities. But I’m generally easy on that argument because indie means cheap, so multitasking is often just (ostensibly) pragmatism. Though even there I tend to argue that plenty of struggling artists are flexible, so why not negotiate? And I’ve dealt with indie auteurs who use pragmatism as a justification but I look around at our mutual filmmaker friends who aren’t booked like… no? Not him? Not her? They’ll work for free or cheap! No? Why not? Oh, cuz you have a fucking Artist complex.ETA: I think it’s probably important to say that confidence is frequently an element of successful artists. Having the confidence to say “I have a vision” is not inherently a bad thing. I just think that hyphenates too often veer from confidence into hubris.
I can’t help but feel that you’re taking a passing mention in the article wildly out of context. In one spot they parenthetically mention that the main character is played by a person who happens to be the writer/director/star. Nowhere do they state that they think the movie is good because of that fact.As to your specific example, I can only speak for myself, but I would say that I think that QT is better than Howard simply because all of his films have been wildly entertaining to me, while a fair number of Howard’s have been just okay (in my opinion).Granted, I haven’t attended film school, nor have I studied much on my own, so I just judge by the final on-screen product (like most consumers), so I don’t know how much of a movie’s success or failure is due to screenwriting/direction/production/post-production/editing (I’m sure it’s all of those things, to varying degrees)…but I suspect that a talented ‘multihyphenate’ (to borrow your term) would lessen the amount of miscommunication between departments, therefore resulting in a good product.
Crappy multihyphenates like Neil Breen are ALSO valuable treasures, for entirely different reasons. How else is RedLetterMedia going to get more content?
While communication is essential, it’s rarely the cause of, for lack of a less potentially inflammatory term, artistic failure. Or weakness, if that’s less critically rough. I will definitely concede that vision tends to be “purer” with fewer participants, but “pure” doesn’t equal “good”. Film as an art, particularly a mass consumed narrative art, is extremely complicated. I know that polymaths exist but surely not every would-be hyphenate is a polymath. It’s less about talent (which is useful and good) than mental flexibility. Without deriding any profession in the art, I think a writer can likely also be an audio mixer. One is preproduction, the other is post. Someone in transportation can probably also set up crafty (food). I’m generally not concerned with directors who act as their own DP since they’re probably looking at the shot composition anyway (though I do often find that directors who shoot their own films require strong actors who don’t need as much feedback – shooter/directors often let performance come last). This gets to accountability. The fewer participants in the process, the easier it is for things to slide. And like I say, I’ve worked with and am friends with these types and if you look past the justifications, even sincerely meant, there’s always ego.And as tends to be the case when I bitch about hyphenates, I know I’m not entirely fair about them. Hence the “fun at parties” self-crack.
Though you may be making a valid overall point about collaboration, I still think you’re missing the tree for the forest, as it were. You’ve taken a single line from a review and turned it into a personal crusade against multi-talented people in the film industry. And the penultimate sentence of your last reply…‘And as tends to be the case when I bitch about hyphenates, I know I’m not entirely fair about them.’…kind of invalidates everything you’ve been saying, as no one can rightly be sure when you’re being disingenuous. Are you just venting jealousy toward those more skilled than you, or what?
I’m not jealous of talent. (Or as I often find, *perceived* talent. Cult of fucking personality is a problem in the arts.) I appreciate talent, though I find it’s FAR less useful than discipline, dedication to craft, critical sensibility, etc. (Talent, imo, is just too goddam ephemeral and inborn. Give me a hard working artist from a blue collar family who went to film school or made dozens of shitty short films with their buddies) I’m also not DISingenuous. I’m hyperbolic. I know I paint with a very broad, sometimes unnecessarily antagonistic brush. That doesn’t mean I’m not genuine. Just that I acknowledge that I take my criticism too far into tirade territory.I mean everything I say about film criticism. I just don’t always mean it as stridently as it sounds.
Acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step.
P.S. I’m sure you didn’t hate to repost your paragraph. You strike me as the sort who loves to hear themselves talk.
“Hate” is strong. I genuinely would rather have not but I don’t know if you’ve looked at my other responses, where I feel I’ve covered some of this ground.
But he really wants to grip…
I mean, given limited budgets, isn’t it kind of unsurprising that an indie film would have a lot of people wearing lots of hats?
It’s not. I tend not to be too chuffed by the pragmatism of multiple hats when it’s a matter of jobs that could reasonably be done concurrently but I bristle at actors directing themselves or scene partners using text they wrote for themselves. It just always feels like either massively control freak or hugely egotistical. You’re telling me NONE of their actor friends could play the part? NONE of the directors they know could handle heading the film? It HAS to be their script?
I take your point, but get ready: Post-Covid, you are gonna be seeing a looooooot of cheapo movies from multi-hyphenates set entirely in their apartments.
Fair.
I guess it does not really surprise me that, early on in someone’s career, the only people willing to direct their script are they themselves. I guess the actor side does make more sense as finding another lead actor would likely be easier. But, honestly, I tend to support a cheap production keeping the number of employees low and decently paid over the “all my friends work for free to make my magnum opus” approach.
I don’t disagree, though I know from being in the local indie no/low budget world that pay can be very flexible if the project is good. It’s largely anecdotal but most of my experiences with hyphenates has been that there’s a lot of ego and control issues mixed in with the pragmatism.
Fair enough. I imagine if you’ve taken on every important role in production, it might be a warning sign of heavy egoism That said, though I think it’s very admirable for people to sacrifice money in order to support a project they love, I don’t think it’s desirable at all. So, given the choice, I’d favor many-hats-but-everyone-gets-paid-decently productions when possible. Maybe the real take away is that many hats is fine, but make sure you share leadership to keep yourself in check.
Of my hyphenate criticisms, the lack of creative accountability is foremost. What I appreciate about separation of jobs is the increase in checks and balances. No artist is perfect and it’s helpful to have specialists in the various fields to push back. I’m a big fan of Charlie Kaufman as screenwriter but most of his scripts are crazy self-indulgent. He’s best, imo, when grounded by a director who shares his sensibility but a better grasp of audience appeal. Aykroyd’s Ghostbusters script before Reitman got a hand in (with help from Ramis) was batshit. My own field is screenwriting so I know more stories about writers needing guidance but I’m sure there are stories about directors needing to be guided by actors and writers. And personally the idea of an actor guiding their own performance and those of their peers as director has always felt blech.
An interesting point. I guess it’s easy to fall into the “lonely artist” myth, without acknowledging how so much of art is a group project – and for good reason. Even authors (who we imagine typing away alone) are often greatly improved by strong support and guidance from their editors.
The mythologizing of hyphenates is so huge. Auteur theory is a widely accepted and academically supported promotion of that myth. I mentioned that I’m in the indie sphere. I’m also an educator. It can be frustrating to see how youthful hubris combines with the egoism of arts academia in students to create this “I am The Artist!” attitude, backed by programming of the more successful hyphenates. I think these film kids need to be equally exposed to the Jon De Harts and Neil Breens and Tommy Wiseaus. And not just in a casual hipster irony way. Make it clear that these vain weirdos have just as much right to the title “auteur” as any French New Wave master.And while it’s probably clear, I should add that I 100% acknowledge my bias. I have a bad attitude about hyphenates that they don’t fully deserve.
You do sound fun at parties. I’d invite you but we dress up as our own party guests. Christian Stella – co-director/DP/co-editor/colorist of After Midnight
“whose joint zombie movie, The Battery, was so good that it rendered the whole of The Walking Dead redundant”Please. Fulci’s Zombie did that and 30 plus years earlier…HELLO, zombie fighting a shark!
Let me set the scene. Actress Auretta Gay decides to go Scuba Diving. She is topless and is only wearing a barely there sheer white T-back. Okay, so naked scuba diving, the movie now has my attention. During scuba diving, she comes across a giant shark. I figure an incredibly lucky happenstance for the director. This is a real shark in the ocean. There was no CGI in 1979, and no mechanical shark has ever looked this good.I do not understand how they could have filmed this. It is one of the most fascinating scenes of movie magic I have ever seen.
Good scene. But it has nothing to do with what the reviewer was saying. If the shark wore an ironic toque and was vaping, maybe.
God I love that movie (and scene)
Wait, naked zombie scuba diving? OR does a zombie show up to threaten the hero and battle the shark?
Naked woman, Zombie on the sea floor and an actual shark in the same scene. Shark then fights zombie.
Damn, this movie sounds like a winner. Going on my watch list!
So happy to see this getting featured here. I caught it at a Horror-focussed film festival last year alongside Extra Ordinary, Sword of God, Color Out of Space and Vivarium (and a bunch of others I didn’t get chance to see, including Why Don’t You Just Die!? which I’ve seen since, and is also great) and this was the one that I, and the group I was with, loved the most.I wouldn’t really call it Horror… though I’m not sure what I would call it… but it definitely stole the show. It just felt extremely real and honest and relatable from start to finish. Gardner is definitely a developing talent (I enjoyed both The Battery and Tex Montana) and I hope he keeps making movies and they keep on getting better.
“Hank and Abby’s relationship…would be captivating even without the monster.” Variations on this sentiment are the #1 cliché for film writers who don’t like horror.
I really liked After Midnight. I’m glad to see it getting some love.
“…streaming on Hoopla or Kanopy…”You’re telling me it’s streaming free there but not on Seeso, or Quibbi, or Crayze, or Zwirl, or Smaks, or even Tantrick?
Ever since Tantrick changed its name from Tanflix, the content got 100% hornier.
The writers on this site just love to throw in quirky words and make flatulent descriptions, just for the sake of trying to sound sophisticated. Most of their reviews are a pain to read.
I just watched The Battery (which, in-movie, is called Ben & Mickey vs The Dead). Its fair to say I hated it. The closest I can come to a comparison is Hipsters vs Zombies. I think there might be 4 zombies all told. If that’s what passes for a recommended indie horror film these days, I think the Evil Dead crown is safe.
I watched this on Prime a few months back. Fair to say I appreciated more about it than I liked, despite wanting to like more. The ending karaoke stuff was pretty jarring and I didn’t think it nailed the tonal shifts as deftly as described here, but I did appreciate the uniqueness and the way it went for its weirdness.
The Henry Zabrowski appearance has gotten me pretty interested… I’ve been bingeing Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell, and *loving* it!
I fucking hated this
I just got a phone call from After Midnight (2020), and I’m sorry to report that it said it hated you.
I’m glad somebody said this. It was pretty much unwatchable.
Yeah, I don’t get it. The relationship flashback scenes are so cheeseball, badly written and poorly acted and they just look like shit. The main character is an irritating assailed that’s hard to feel bad for and the karaoke scene is genuinely one of the most terrible things I’ve ever seen
I know I’m in the greys, so no one cares about my opinion. But just wanted to say I could not get into this. Felt like a bad indie romantic drama with a really bad indie horror movie awkwardly tacked onto it.