After Midnight (1989)

directed by Jim & Ken Wheat
USA
90 minutes
3 stars out of 5
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So this is a horror anthology directed by some guys whose only other claim to fame is a movie about Ewoks. The wrap-around story is a professor teaching a class on "the psychology of fear" and doing things that should get him super duper arrested, like brandishing a gun in class, putting said gun to the forehead of a student, and faking his own suicide. I mean, I get that it's supposed to hype up the movie and it's not meant to be believable, but it just made me roll my eyes at how try-hard it was.

The first segment follows a couple stranded out on a dark country road who decide to go up to the dark country manor to see if they can find a dark country telephone. This is a recurring theme: people blundering into scary places thinking they might find a phone. It's also a staple of pre-cell-phone slashers, all the characters constantly stumble into nooks and crannies going "phuh-phuh-phoooonne????" as if every dark corner of the world is supplied with a working phone booth that they'll surely find if they just grope around in the shadows a little bit more. Anyway, this short is pretty good, and it involves an accidental death that- although cheesy (flying head!)- is genuinely upsetting to think about.

The second one is about four girls who run afoul of a creepy guy living with a bunch of dogs in an abandoned gas station after- you guessed it- one of them decides an abandoned gas station is a perfect place to look for a phone. The guy I could do without, I've seen a million films where girls get chased by guys with knives, but the best part about this one was the dogs. I felt like it was really good at making the dogs into characters themselves, not just a blind snapping mass of fangs getting in their Schutzhund training. They had good dog actors for this part, I give props for that. Also that the girls are resourceful instead of flailing around helplessly the entire time.

The third has Marg Helgenberger in it. That's about all that can be said. It isn't original (is any of this original?) and it felt like it was over too soon. Again, After Midnight seems too concerned with being edgy and pleasing a crowd to feel like a genuine examination of fear. Maybe these scenarios had the potential to scare people in the 80s, but I think modern viewers would appreciate more of a look into why things are scary, not just a rehashing of "these are some plots where people are scared". I did like the telling-ghost-stories aspect of it though, those are my favorite kind of anthology horror films. I'm mad that I fell asleep before I got to see the stop-motion skeleton with an axe at the end.