|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Jack (Lawrence R.Griffin) is a writer who has written one cult novel
about time travelling mutant vampires from Mars ... and can't think about
half a sentence to write since. He's also hopelessly in love with his
upstairs neighbour Michelle (Mia Chiarella) - but she's in a relationship
with abusive Jeremy (Michael Hodge), who beats her black and blue for no
discernable reason more than once. In other words, Jack's life couldn't
be much worse ... and then he finds a bottle full of blood on his doorstep
- and suddenly his life changes for the better, the much better - well at
least it seems to ... Thing is, the night he has received the blood, a
weird but sexy lady (Katie Foster) steps out of his closet (where she had
no business to be), drinks the bottle, and types page after page of the
book Jack was going to write into his typewriter - and it's brilliant. The
next day, the lady, whom Jack soon dubs his muse, appears again, but
disappears after all he has to offer her is animal blood. But then Jeremy
shows up, with the intention of beating him up. Jack knocks Jeremy out
though, and soon enough the muse feasts on him. The not-at-all unwelcome
side effect: Suddenly Michelle needs a friend, a shoulder to lean on, and
who's got better shoulders than Jack (which might be a bad metaphor, but
you get it I guess)? The situation soon gets out of hand though, because
the muse needs more and more blood, and because he desperately needs the
book she writes for him, Jack supplies her with some, picking up and
taking home hookers like nobody's business, even sacrificing his best
friend (J. Mooy) and an all too nosey police officer (Ann Pratten) just to
have enough blood for his muse. He only draws the line when it comes to
Michelle, but that can't work out forever, especially since she grows more
and more curious about what happens in his study he forbids her to enter
...
Click
here to open the Spoiler Pop-up!
Obviously
made on a very low budget, The Midnight Disease is one of these
films that manages to easily outgrow its budgetary limitations and make up
for the lack of funds with a nice, macabre and cleverly told story that
finds just the right balance between black comedy, self-irony and serious
drama and that puts the concepts of films like Little
Shop of Horrors and Bucket
of Blood into a more modern context. Add to that a directorial
effort that never puts spectacle over content and a cast that plays it
straight despite the film's ironic undercurrents, and you've got yourself
a really nice movie. Recommended.
|