“Being our first festival,” said Director Jack Messitt, “I couldn’t have asked for more than this amazing start to the life of this movie. And having grown up in Chicago, it means even more to me to receive it from a hometown crowd.”
The Portage Theater was filled with costumes, gory movie props and horror fans not only from across the country, but around the world. More than just a local crowd, people had flown in from New York, Dallas, Los Angeles and even as far as South Africa to attend the festival. And with a make-up effects artist in the lobby, many of the energetic crowd looked as if they had been pulled out of the very movies they were watching.
Messitt said, “The Portage Theater was the perfect place to watch Midnight Movie. It is a theater with such history, it really added to the experience of a film that pays homage to the theatergoing experience. It was the perfect place for the world premier of the film.”
As well as being thrilled with the success of the film, Messitt said the experience in itself had its own merit for other reasons: “More than the award, it was great to see a crowd of die hard horror fans enjoying the film - laughing at the right spots and getting scared when I wanted them to be...”
In regard to the acknowledgement of the film’s outstanding cinematography, Messitt is proud of the team effort that created the final product: “As a former cinematographer, making sure the film had really strong visuals was something that we really worked hard with. Getting this award means that we succeeded. It is a real testament to my DPs Clyde Smith and Ruben Russ.”
The Chicago Horror Film Festival is a three-day event in its tenth year and took place this past weekend, August 26-28th. Fifteen short films and eleven feature films were screened; they were chosen from hundreds of entries. Midnight Movie was well received by horror fans. The Q&A session after the screening lasted almost 30 minutes. Being the last show of the night, the questions lasted past 12:30 a.m., a testament to the strong interest in the film.
Midnight Movie was also nominated for Best Actress (Rebekah Brandes), Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Special Effects. The film is Bigfoot Entertainment’
Midnight Movie is a slasher film set in a run-down theater in a sleepy, suburban town. A group of friends attend a midnight screening of a 1970s cult horror film and heckle the old black-and-white scenes. The film turns deadly when the killer emerges from the screen to hunt down each viewer one-by-one. An homage to ‘80s slasher films, Midnight Movie generates a scary, funny duality using traditional special effects and recreates iconic scenes from cult classics to provoke a nostalgic reaction from horror movie fans.
