source: Heart of Midnight

Moviecut—Heart of Midnight

OK. In a nutshell (no spoilers i promise), the main character (Jennifer Jason Leigh) inherits this big old building that has a night club downstairs and living quarters upstairs. As soon as she moves in, strange things start happening. Things move around, crash.. feelings of being watched, etc. This guy, who gibes you the impression that he is some sort of City Official/Detective type, starts showing up trying to calm JJL down as she is scared witless due to the aforementioned abnormalities. Soon enough, she gains the strength to explore this dwelling and finds more rooms and doorways. OK, I gotta stop here. It gets weirder... and KINKY!!!

Heart of Midnight had really great potential. Writer/director Matthew Chapman had some really great ingredients for this `old dark house' melodrama. The `hedonist nightmare' set which makes up the interior of the `Midnight' Theater is a genuine classic. Jennifer Jason Leigh is just so good, I didn't really mind she was playing the cliche `neurotic (psychotic?) damsel in distress' and Peter Coyote was a masterful choice as `Detective Sharpe`. It's too bad director Matthew Chapman let down writer Matthew Chapman. He should have realized by the rushes that he was blowing the mystery too early, leading to a tedious, if satisfying conclusion. NOTE TO DIRECTOR CHAPMAN: Jennifer Jason Leigh is NOT Nora Jones. DON'T have her waste celluloid and my time filling screen minutes with boring songs. WARNING: SPOILERS Chapman should have used a LOT tighter camera work on the `maintenance guys' in the beginning and their plotting to rape Leigh. This would have given this sequence more impact without necessarily resorting to the lurid `rape' subplot. It would also have been better to have the real `Detective Sharpe` delayed from visiting Leigh. His murder happens too early and doesn't really add all that much to the drama of the film. Also, the mystery of Coyote's `true' identity and behavior would have been more tense and the exposition stretched out over several scenes. Having several scenes of mistaken identity between Leigh and Frank Stallone muffles the tension and undermines credibility. Certainly the police would have searched for Sharpe when he turned up missing. Having Coyote turn out to be `Uncle Fletcher's' partner could have been handled better as well. This taints the character unnecessarily and makes his responsibility for failing to help his sister seem an even graver sin. Throwing in the hallucination sequences for shock was annoying and unnecessary. A little restructuring of the story would have enabled the director to milk the truly scary sequences for maximum shock value. Maybe having Leigh taking psychotropics for recurring nightmares rather than a full-fledged mental patient would have made it easier to relate to her character. Having the `psycho sister' explain the story dissipated the shock value even more. Better to have Coyote reveal what was going on before he was shot. I wasn't quite clear what sexual acts `Uncle Fletcher' had performed on Leigh and the `psycho sister'. Rape, sodomy? Pretty hard to do on a 2 year old without leaving physical evidence. If `Uncle Fletcher' liked little girls, why was the `psycho sister' dressed and coifed like a boy? Too many kinky questions, too little time. The major plus of `Heart of Midnight' is the last scene, revealing a ravishing, sexy Leigh dancing with Coyote. Chapman and Leigh and Coyote reveal in one skillful, sensuous, romantic scene sexual and emotional catharsis. Had the rest of the movie been so skillful, he would have created a masterpiece. Leigh once again demonstrates why she is one of the screen's finest actresses. How she looks in the last scene alone is worth the price of admission. I love to redo this movie with a more coherent storyline. If writer/director Chapman is interested, I'd love to run a few ideas pass him.

In my opinion, horror/thriller movies aren't very good, but The Heart of Midnight has to be the best horror/thriller movie I have ever seen, (apart from Scream 1 & 2!!) it was simply excellent. Jennifer Jason Leigh is my all time favorite actress, and she was excellent in this movie. Leigh plays a mentally ill young women, who inherits a night club from her dead uncle. All goes well untill she discovers the heart of midnight...... great movie, I guarantee it!:)

'Heart of Midnight' is an unusual, bizarre thriller. Jennifer Jason Leigh, in her trademark weird roles, plays an emotionally disturbed young woman who leaves home after a bout of extreme instability and tries a spat of independence upon inheriting her mysterious uncle's strange nightclub and home. But, cheerful Uncle Fletcher is not quite the endearing relative that the young woman remembers as she discovers more and more things about the house--many rooms designed for some weird sexual fantasies. After an attempted rape, the young girl alerts the police who become involved in an investigation. Well, actually, one man does. Claiming to be a police detective from internal affairs investigating the death of one of the culprits, killed when fleeing the police who had arrived on the scene. But, the detective is not who he seems, and the young woman's paranoia becomes increasingly more unbearable for her and those who around her. The game of cat and mouse introduces a bizarre psychological thriller, although a doubtful one at that when it seems that the young woman sees hints of another presence in the house, but can't convince others of the same, never having enough evidence to make such claims credible. The movie is especially bizarre, given the motives of those responsible for bothering the girl. The viewer is given little backstory on the uncle and his strange habits are eluded to only through what evidence the woman also receives. What are all of these rooms for? What was her uncle like? And so forth. Just as the girl's own background is strange, the viewer experience everything with such suspicion and to some extent, revulsion, as she does since we only get as much detail as she does. It is done stylishly so, at least as far as visual efforts, but may be for a certain audience. For those who enjoyed the early 90s noir thriller, Liebstraum, you might enjoy this less sophisticated, but equally odd tale of suspense.

I LOVE Jennifer Jason Leigh, but I thought this was the worst movie she's ever done. It probably won awards in some universe, but not mine. She was the reason I bothered watching it to the end. The whole thing was disconcerting. Maybe I was in a bad mood when I saw this or something. The two redeeming qualities in this movie were Jennifer Jason Leigh and Steve Buscemi. I gave this film 2 stars, one for each of them. If I see it again and change my mind, I'll be sure to change my vote, but not before then.

I recently re-watched Paul Verhoeven's gloriously sleazy medieval epic Flesh + Blood, and was once again taken by just how hot Jennifer Jason Leigh was in the '80s. Keen to see a bit more of the actress in her prime (not that Flesh + Blood left much more of her to be seen!), and having already watched the hell out of my Fast Times at Ridgemont High DVD, I thought I'd give Heart of Midnight a go: the DVD cover depicts the actress on the cover wearing a very tight rubber lace-up dress, so it seemed like a good choice Sadly, Jennifer clad in kinky attire only makes a brief appearance in the film (right at the end) and isn't very indicative of the movie's content as a whole (it's not the first time a salacious promotional image has been used to dupe viewers). The bulk of this weird-as-hell thriller is about as sexy as a game of Monopoly (a normal game—NOT strip Monopoly!). Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Carol, a mentally fragile young woman who inherits a nightclub from her Uncle Fletcher, only to discover that it was actually a sex club that catered for swingers with unusual tastes. While overseeing the renovation of the building, Carol lives in one of the many rooms above, but suffers from strange visions and witnesses bizarre happenings. Is she starting to lose her marbles or is there a more sinister explanation for the strange occurrences? The simple answer to that question is "Yes, there is a more sinister explanation for the strange occurrences", but in order to find out precisely what that is, one does have to trudge through an awful lot of sub-Lynchian weirdness that suggests a world of debauchery, degradation and depravity (the three De's) without ever having the balls to show it in any detail. Heart of Midnight wants to be daring, but never really succeeds. Finally, after lots of not very effective creepiness, only a fleeting glimpse of skin from Jennifer as she takes a shower, and some surreal imagery (the strangest moment being a giant eyeball crashing through a door), the film reveals its deep, dark secret, which is so lame that not even the eventual sight of JJL in her shiny, figure-hugging S&M dress makes it worthwhile.

From the opening scene of Matthew Chapman's Heart of Midnight, we know we are in for a visual tour-de-force. Jennifer Jason Leigh begins a new life in a bizarre, sinister, Lynchesque apartment complex, formerly occupied by her weird uncle, a pervert of sorts, whom Leigh slowly begins to remember. Writer/director Chapman breathes sinister life into this creepy abode of a building. It seems to take on a life of its own in between the shadows, macabre lighting and ethereal noises that emanate from nowhere. The film instantly draws us into a dark world where we are never sure what is exactly real and what is a figment of Leigh's imagination. Like any good psychological thriller, circumstances and events are revealed to us slowly, as we need to know them, and always advancing the plot. More than anything else, the film sustains a brooding, macabre feel that always keeps us feeling uneasy, which seems to mirror Leigh's character. She is excellent here as a woman trying to come to grips with both her mental illness and a sordid past. The musical score is both eerie, yet powerful, further luring us into the film's creepiness. The only flaw in the film is the villain, a victim of Leigh's Uncle's sexual perversions. Where the character makes sense from a psychological standpoint, the writing here is definitely over the top, a circumstance which takes away some of the film's credibility. Yet, it is a movie not to be taken so seriously so that this character does any major damage. The overall effect is left intact. Those who are fans of David Lynch and of movies that create a convincing, yet creepy world of their own, should enjoy Heart of Midnight.

Heart Of Midnight is a perverse, disturbing, highly underrated atmospheric thriller with a knockout turn from Jennifer Jason Leigh, a superb actress who isn't afraid of taking risks, going to some dodgy places and travelling to the dark side of the soul in her excellent work. In this film she plays a girl who inherits a dilapidated, out of business night club from her creepy dead uncle in a part of town that's the last place she wants to be in. She takes up residence their and attempts to fix it up, utilizing a lazy construction team that's about as productive as a paper mâché bulldozer. She realizes something isn't right about the place pretty quick though. There are various rooms in this scuzzy labyrinthine hell hole that look like they are for violent * rituals and shadowy, illegal stuff. She starts having vivid, surreal nightmares that begin to bleed into her waking life. When she calls the police a mysterious detective (Peter Coyote) shows up, but he's distant and only vaguely cooperative, adding to the mystery. I love this films atmosphere to death. There's an ambient, voyeuristic, abstractly horrifying aspect to the cinematography, that makes us feel like we're in a sleazy Gothic nightmare where nothing makes sense and every clue only points in the opposite direction. It's like Mullholland Drive meets 8MM by way of The Sentinal, with a touch of Ken Russell just for fun. It's not without it's absurd comic relief though. Frank Stallone (Sylvester's brother) is hilarious as a kooky police sergeant. At one point Jennifer walks into his office and the entire staff are in full song as he belts out a rollicking set on a ukulele. That's how delightfully strange this films vibe is. They just don't make these extremely atmospheric, enigmatic fright fests anymore. Or at least not with the hazy, scarily bizarre haunted house vibe they had back then. Be warned though: it goes to some pretty dark, messed up places and is definitely not for the average cookie cutter film goer. It's incredibly niche, relentlessly strange and altogether special just for those reasons. Anyone willing to step over to the dark, weird side, give it a go.