The Dark Side of Midnight (1986) (USA)

aka The Creeper/Blood City

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

A quiet California town is besieged with terror when a homicidal maniac, who goes by the name The Detroit Creeper, begins to target the citizens after moving on from the streets of Michigan (probably shouldn’t call him by that name anymore). The small town police force and their mustaches do what they can to catch the killer and calm the residents of Fort Smith. A slew of actors turned away from a basement-porno casting call awkwardly attempt emoting as The Creeper uses his bare hands and other lame-ass weapons to murder children and young girls. Police chief Ned is forced to hire a professional criminologist to help him on the case. Brock Johnson arrives after Ned uses the threat of violence and photos of violence to convince the penny-pinching mayor to put the funds through and pay for Brock’s time. Supposed youngster Brock (he claims to be in his twenties but somehow manages to look at least forty and maybe twelve at the same time) falls for Ned’s daughter, who upon initial viewing I assumed was Ned’s wife because they are definitely the same age. This causes Ned to shout at himself about the situation concerning his daughter and the young criminologist who reeks of the kind of sexuality one finds in a dumpster behind an Arby’s everyone forgot about. The mayor and a scuzzy police lieutenant (who may be the physical manifestation of somebody’s hazy and wrong memory of Tom Selleck) team up to scheme against our heroes because public image and the construction of a new university are way more important than protecting the townspeople. The scumbag mayor looks like someone slapped a mustache on a poorly made Taiwanese action figure of Tom Bosley and everyone else is equally roaming the uncanny valley where they belong. The creeper looks like somebody mixed the DNA of Svengoolie and Brion James and then gave their godless creation gigantism because the world wasn’t quite cruel enough. There’s an especially annoying kid who gets his throat slit named Timmy whose ginormous melon is a set-piece in and of itself and remains the most horrific thing that turns up in this movie… even more-so than the nauseating mustaches on parade. As far as a thriller goes; it misses the mark completely but as an exercise in watching people who were all probably on their community’s record-setting bowling team; it’s essential viewing. Trash horror that holds the title without even trying thanks to the important mixture of inexperience, apathy, inanity, family BBQ charisma and a dash of natural insanity. I love movies like this and yes, that makes me the problem.