MIDNIGHT SON

Jacob (Zak Kilberg) lives a lonely life in a small basement apartment which has had its windows blacked out from the sun on account of a mysterious affliction that makes his skin burn in daylight.

He works as a security guard by night, and lives on a diet of bloodily rare steak. Now and then, upon picking up his meat from the local butcher, he’ll pour out the excess blood into a coffee cup and casually guzzle it down.

One night at work Jacob spies a plastered cut on the cheek of a cleaner (Tracey Walter) and promptly faints. The consequent visit to his doctor reveals that Jacob – a skinny, pale proposition – shows signs of malnourishment. This is despite Jacob’s insistence that he eats "like a horse".

Jacob feels like a change is coming over him but he doesn’t understand what it may be. The cleaner suggests that, now that Jacob has reached 25 years of age, his body is going through its final transformation – soon he will become a butterfly. Jacob shrugs this off, and later laughs at his own decision to place a crucifix on his forehead to see if it has the same effect on him as it did on a vampire in the film he’d watched earlier that night on TV (the original FRIGHT NIGHT, if you’re wondering).

One night after work Jacob frequents a local bar and meets cigarette seller Mary (Maya Parish). She’s as weird and lonely as he is. Over a smoke, she tells him about her last failed relationship and they hit it off. Their night ends with him taking her telephone number.

Their first date doesn’t go too well, but does at least introduce Jacob to the pleasures of human blood when Mary develops a nosebleed while snogging him. The taste of said blood gives Jacob a kick in the pants like nothing he’s ever felt before – suddenly he realises that this is what he needs to keep him strong.

Before long Jacob’s taken to visiting the bins area of his local hospital, where corrupt orderly Marcus (Jo D Jonz) makes a profit from supplying various addicts with whatever they may need. In Jacob’s case, that’s bags of fresh plasma.

As Jacob’s user/supplier relationship with Marcus begins to get quite hairy, he at least has a better thing going on with Mary. Well, the path to true love never runs smoothly (he tries his best to hide things from her, such as his addiction to blood and the fact that his eyes turn yellow when he’s hungry …), but she keeps coming back to his apartment to see more of him … so he’s doing something right.

Mary even arranges for an arts dealer to view the many paintings of sunsets that Jacob has created as decorations for his black-out windows. This could potentially earn him a fortune, he’s told. But what good will that do him, if he’s responsible for the murder of a woman where he works, as the detective investigating the case clearly seems to think?

As the murders mount, Jacob must try to recall what happened in each case, while keeping girlfriend Mary oblivious to his worsening condition and supplier Marcus on side. Easier said than done …

MIDNIGHT SON is a modern romance that’s built around the backdrop of vampire lore. But TWILIGHT this is not. Rather, writer-director Scott Leberecht’s feature debut is a considered, slow-burning meditation on loneliness and the inert desire in modern society to make a connection. Tellingly, Mary is just as messed up – herself, a possible cocaine addict – as Jacob. No-one is innocent in Leberecht’s picture, just as no-one is outright bad either. Even the reprehensible Marcus can be said to be nothing more than simply greedy.

While the romantic scenes between our two leads do come at regular intervals, they don’t damage the tone of the film: this is very firmly a horror movie. No question about it. As our protagonists are chic in a grungier manner, the romance is never twee. Meanwhile, the gory violence and encompassing sense of sombre foreboding ensures that no-one expecting a "serious" genre film from this will feel short-changed.

This low budget production really works thanks its across-the-board fine performances, assured and largely cliché-free writing and directing from Leberecht, and some magnificently arty cinematography from Lyn Moncrief. It’s easy to see why THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT co-director Eduardo Sanchez jumped on board in 2007 as a co-producer.

Ironically, MIDNIGHT SON – which is not really much like MARTIN or LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, despite other reviewers’ lazy analogies – is probably the best thing that Sanchez’s name has ever been attached to.

Monster Pictures’ UK DVD presents MIDNIGHT SON uncut in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The picture is anamorphically enhanced, and is a nicely warm one. Colours are strong and deep, detail in close-up scenes is great. Overall, for a relatively low budget affair, MIDNIGHT SON looks very good here.

Likewise, the English audio tracks provided in options of 2.0 and 5.1 are highly satisfying. The latter is perhaps a little laidback in terms of multi-channel playback. But both are fine accompaniments to the ambient visuals on offer.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with a solid, occasionally jovial but always insightful commentary track from Leberecht, Kilberg, Parish and Jonz.

We also get individual video interviews with all of the above, as well as a chat with Moncrief. The meatiest of these is the 17-minute stint enjoyed by the director, who speaks of his initial inspiration for the film, the troubles of shooting independently, the benefits of getting Sanchez on board and so on. Moncrief gets a good 8 minutes too; the others are allotted 5 minutes each, and speak of how the script first enticed them etc. Interestingly, Parish comments on how she first read the script circa 2004.

Four music-only tracks are complemented by screen-grabs. The tracks included in isolation are "Crystallines", "Rituals", "The Cavern" and "Urban Tales".

The film will enjoy a limited British cinema run in January 2013 and its original UK theatrical trailer is a decently atmospheric one which gets the overall tone just about right. It’s 2 minutes in length and is presented in anamorphic widescreen.

As are three inconsequential deleted scenes which, between them, run for a total of 2 minutes.

MIDNIGHT SON is an intelligent, affecting take on the vampire genre. It’s definitely worth 88 minutes of your time, as it’s one of the most distinguished indie horrors of the last decade. Monster Pictures have served it well with this impressive DVD.

Review by Stuart Willis