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Midnight Son
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Jinga Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (5th October 2023). |
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The Film
 Starving artist Jacob (Haunted Echoes' Zak Kilberg) moonlights as a security guard and sleeps during the day. This is no mere lifestyle choice. As he has grown into adulthood, he has developed an aversion to the sun so severe that its rays have actually burned his skin and left scars. His only confidante is nightclub cigarette vendor Mary (Leeches!' Maya Parish) who also deals other substances on the side to which she is also secretly addicted. When she jokingly suggests that Jacob might be a vampire, he does some research and discovers that he is not repelled by crosses but the taste of blood does assuage his debilitating hunger pangs. He subsists on animal blood from butchers who don't ask questions, but that soon seems like a slippery slope when he recognizes a news photo of a dead woman from his increasingly-vivid nightmares of preying on humans. Jacob gets caught trying to break into a hospital hazmat bin for expired blood by orderly Marcus (Next Day Air's Jo D. Jonz) who strikes a deal with him to provide a supply. When Jacob discovers just how Marcus and his kid brother Russell (Friday the 13th's Arlen Escarpeta) are obtaining the fresher supply for which they charge more, he is disgusted and attempts to go cold turkey. Jacob fears that he may be a danger to others, including Mary, and tries to turn himself in to Detective Ginsleigh (The Gingerdead Man's Larry Cedar) for the murder of the woman; however, in doing so, he learns of the effect his feedings have on live victims, and that he may have inadvertently "created" an equally-dangerous enemy. Despite the occasional jittery camera shots preceding something unnatural, the color palette, and some soulful glances between the two protagonists, Midnight Son isn't so much a retread of the current tiresome glittery emo brand of vampire films; rather, it seems like an attempt at a throwback to the handful of nineties arty-indie vampire films like The Girl with the Hungry Eyes and particularly Habit, and The Addiction with a side of Let the Right One In with an emphasis on vampirism as addiction and the underlying question of what it means to be human. Although the film is advertised as being "from the director of The Blair Witch Project" (that is, producer Eduardo Sαnchez), actual director and former Industrial Light & Magic concept designer/art director Scott Leberecht applies his design talents to the practical design elements from Jacob's paintings to the lived-in aspects of the settings along with an eye for moody found locations that do not steal focus from the central performances. While Jacob's pale, sickly loner and Mary's tragic addict seem like textbook indie characters, Kilberg and Parish give them warmth and "life" while Jonz heavy reveals additional disturbing layers about previously unspoken reasons for his choice of vocation in a monologue once he is transformed. The ending of the film is a bit abrupt and predictable, if only because it leaves the viewer wanting more about its two main characters (or at least the quirky janitor character played by Repo Man's Tracey Walter in a guest apperance). Just as Jacob's research into vampirism is illustrated with a licensed clip from Fright Night, a clip from Midnight Son turns up in the similarly-low key vampire film The Transfiguration. 
Video
Shot in high definition by Lyn Moncrief (The Wind) with the then-new Panasonic HVX200 camera one of the first high definition cameras to allow file-based recording onto P2 cards which were introduced shortly before SD cards (which even Panasonic uses these days) Midnight Son never tries to look like film, but the digital-ness of the image is never really distracting due to the moody (sometimes just available) lighting, shallow focus, and emphasis on tight shots and close-ups creating an alternately claustrophobic and merely intimate world that only ever opens up to a wider sense of periphery in the film's night exteriors. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray rendering is a step up from virtually-identical-looking 2012 U.S. DVD and 2013 U.K. DVD (both of which were NTSC), offering up slightly finer delineation of color and shadow where the standard definition iterations could look a bit more "lifeless" when it came to detail. Here, video noise may hinder the rendition of finer detail in HD but at least dances around like grain rather than blocking and smearing with movement as it did in SD. 
Audio
While the earlier DVD edition only included a Dolby Digital 5.1 option, the Blu-ray features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track as well as an LPCM 2.0 stereo downmix. For the most part, the track is front-dominated with the surrounds used mainly for some subtle atmosphere (apart from some scenes depicting Jacob's heightened senses or delusional perception of them). There are no captions or subtitle options.
Extras
All of the extras from the earlier DVD edition have been ported over here, starting with an audio commentary by writer/director Scott Leberecht & actors Zak Kilberg, Maya Parish, and Jo D. Jonz in which they point out what parts of the film were part of the original twenty-two-night shoot from 2007 and what was shot a few years later the film was not released until 2011 Kilberg trying to stay pale in the summer, creative framing to make some locations more believable (including some bits from the later shoot where the original locations were not available), some subtle digital effects by Academy of Art students including a bit of blood splatter, as well as the influence of photographer Bill Henson's book "Lux et Nox" on the film's visuals.  Also included are deleted scenes (2:11) that provide Mary with a little more character depth, as well as a series of interviews in which writer/director Scott Lebrecht (17:48) discusses the concept behind the film and the Jungian shadow element of the protagonist, actor Zak Kilberg (4:46) recalls his fasting routine to look sickly for the film and enjoying the night shoots, actress Maya Parish (5:06) recalls a film in which she appeared playing at the same time as Lebrecht AFI final project, contributing to the development of the script during its long gestation, and finding some investors Parish is among the credited producers actor Jo D. Jonz (5:03) recalls liking the script because he found his character to be multi-faceted, and cinematographer Lyn Moncrieff (8:11) discusses the use of available light in some scenes and their decision to make the video noise a visual element of the film. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (2:38), a teaser trailer (0:39), as well as trailers for other MVD horror titles.
Packaging
The package also includes a DVD copy of the film in standard definition with lossy Dolby Digital audio options and all of the extras, as well as a CD soundtrack with sixteen tracks (the U.K. DVD featured only four tracks with different track titles and lengths). 
Overall
Having little in common with its emo-glittery contemporaries, Midnight Son is the throwback to the arty-indie vampire flicks of the nineties we didn't know we needed.
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