Heart of Midnight.
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Well here's another film that i've been meaning to catch up with ever since i used to see the VHS when i rented films out with my mum as a kid, it always intrigued me but i thought it looked too sexy to watch with a parent.
My UK dvd has the cover on the left, but this is misleading as Jennifer Jason Leigh never looks like this in the film, the cover on the right is much more apt.
Anyways, on to the film.
JJL plays a young woman who lives with her mum but wants to escape, she has a history of mental illness and seems fragile and ill at ease with the world.
Her Uncle dies and leaves her a run down nightclub called the midnight, the mother tries to talk her into selling the place, but seeing her way to escape she takes on the club and moves in to renovate it.
Once at the club she struggles with the new responsibility and discovers it contains many fetishistic rooms that seem to have been used for sexual activities.
This disturbs her and after being raped by some of the workers she starts to question her sanity once again.
To me this comes across as a mixture of Polanski's Repulsion, with elements of The Shining as she is seemingly taunted by ghostly activity while she roams the isolated building, but also contains elements of Blue Velvet with the seedy underworld setting.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an actress that i always like whenever i see her in a film,
here she is very good and really holds the film together, seeming determined to succeed but also very fragile and vulnerable. Peter Coyote turns up as a detective who is helpful and sympathetic to her plight, but seems to be hiding something, he is also very good.
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This seems to be a film that has been overlooked, maybe it is because it is not really straightforward and is hard to read, seemingly heading in different directions, looking at others reviews it seems a marmite type film, I wouldn't class it as an out and out horror, but it definitely contains many elements of one.
I enjoyed it because of that and was happy to go along with it, unsure of where the story was heading even as the end approached, this is always a plus point in my book.
Also the film has a disturbing undercurrent that is very sordid and sleazy although nothing is really shown, even the rape scene is tastefully done.
(Steve Buscemi pops up in this scene although not literally, thankfully.
)
I'm not gonna recommend it to someone who want's gore and titillation, it's a bit of a slow burn affair but for me it surpassed my expectations, if you're into weirdly plotted 80's obscure stuff then it's worth a go.
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8/10.
