Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the guys behind Spring and The Endless, were attached to this project as producers (while their new movie, Synchronic, doesn’t appear to have a distributor yet) so I knew this was a movie I was going to have to see at some point. After Midnight made the festival rounds in 2019 and was initially slated for a theatrical release early in the year but 2020 had other plans. Fortunately for me, many indie properties such as this have made their way to streaming services.
In a nutshell, the story follows Hank (Jeremy Gardner) after his longtime girlfriend, Abby (Brea Grant), left a note and disappeared with no explanation. In the wake of her absence, he’s left alone to try and solve the “why” of it, keep their business afloat, and ward off nightly visits from an alleged monster in the woods. Exactly the kind of weird premise that piques my interest.
I’m not gonna lie, the first 5-10 minutes were pretty rough. The filmmakers attempted to set the tone by intertwining flashbacks with Hank’s present reality. Unfortunately, Gardner and Grant have next to nothing in the romantic chemistry department so the effort to paint their relationship as this idyllic jewel that’s now missing from Hank’s life just doesn’t fit. I get the point they’re trying to make: guy misses girl he loves and his life is in shambles with her gone. Simple, right? However, the more they go to the flashback well, the more apparent the lack of chemistry is and the more it does to undermine the point they’re trying to make.
Oddly enough, it’s through the other relationships in Hank’s life that we begin to feel for him. Getting to know him through his friends paints him in a different light and opens the door to a redemptive arc for the character down the line. Henry Zebrowski is great as Hank’s buddy Wade, who brings some much needed and grounded humor to the table, and his presence starts the process of rebuilding Hank’s character. It’s in this middle ground where the plot departs for a moment and the humor in Gardner’s script shows itself as an integral part of the experience, rather than an outlier.
The aforementioned Justin Benson actually plays a fairly large role in as the would-be brother-in-law who’s first in line to discredit Hank’s accounts of potential monsters. Watching him give a soapbox speech about supernatural conspiracies, looking comfy as hell in his bathrobe while preparing bacon and grits for his friend, is certainly one of the film’s most defining moments. Through those characters, we get a much better idea of who Hank is and it makes the adversarial moments he has with Abby pay off in a way that their romantic connection doesn’t quite achieve.
This was a small circle. Jeremy Gardner co-directed with cinematographer Christian Stella and wrote the screenplay while also starring in the lead role and doing back end work with Stella in the editing room. Considering the limited locations, the pair got the most out of the environment on film.
You’re not going to mistake this with a modern horror masterpiece but there’s more than enough present to recognize the ways in which the movie excels and no shortage of originality. Don’t sleep on the soundtrack either.
Recommendation: If you enjoy, weird offbeat indie films that don’t fit neatly into the standard industry categories, this movie is just the right kind of weird to defy the genre norms.