It Came Upon a Midnight Clear review.
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear suffers from the unavoidable traps of low budget films. But it also benefits greatly from the quality of performance it gets from its two lead actors. If you can forgive the shortcomings…there’s a decent, if derivative movie here.
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It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Directed by Stephen Allen Gutierrez
Written by Stephen Allen Gutierrez
Starring Drew Pipkin, Jaeden Riley Juarez, Katerina Sifuentes and Michael Berryman
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Review
The two easiest ways for a low budget movie to overcome what it can’t do are to have a unique idea and a great screenplay. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear has neither. It’s unfortunate. The movie actually does a fair amount better than it should. Without that great script or great idea, however, a movie can only do so much.
Let’s start with the idea. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is unapologetic about its desire to be an homage to the post-Scream teen horror boom. The killer begins a scene by asking the same “Name the killer in Friday the 13th” question that stumped Casey Becker in 1996. It’s derivative…but it serves a purpose. In this movie the character answers correctly. It’s a clever way of stating that these characters are even smarter than those ones were. The rest of the script cannot make the same claim.
So, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is a meta slasher whodunnit. It doesn’t hide this, and it wears its influence proudly on its sleeve. A unique idea is out the window. That’s not a deal breaker on its own. Scream was commenting on and putting its own spin on an established genre after all. It did so with one of the cleverest scripts in modern horror. Scream established rules so that it could rewrite them and leave an influence on par with those that influenced it. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear can not hold a candle to the mother of all 90s teen horror whodunnits screenplay.
What it does offer viewers is two good lead performances and a mystery that isn’t completely uninteresting. Its budget means that you will have to put up with some of the usual problems. That empty air feeling that scenes tend to have. You know what I’m talking about. But It Came Upon a Midnight Clear looks better than it should. A case of people knowing what they are doing…they just lack the equipment and time to do it as well as they can.
Not every performance hits…but the two main ones do. That’s important. Better productions have created far worse movies due to their acting. Drew Pipkin and Jaeden Riley Juarez elevate It Came Upon a Midnight Clear as Jeremy and Minka as much as they can with a lacking script. They present likable characters that you root for. The story centers around Jeremy scoring a date with his dream girl Amanda (Katerina Sifuentes) only for her to be kidnapped. Minka joins him in trying to track down the serial killer who has taken her. There is a will they/won’t they dynamic more akin to an 80s movie…but it is a most welcome addition to the proceedings.
The killer is known as the Santa Slayer. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear also has a Christmas horror component for some reason. I guess they felt it wasn’t wearing enough hats. We get some decent kills here. Another area where the movie does manage to defy expectations and overdeliver in an area of need. It’s not Terrifier level competence in gore…but it’s not ignored. Aside from weak gunshot wound work…the violence in It Came Upon a Midnight Clear works well enough.
As mentioned, this is a whodunnit. The script doesn’t allow you to care about much of what is going on other than Jeremy and Minka’s relationship…so you aren’t likely to care about the who or what of any of this. It’s not bad. It’s underwritten. Perhaps It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’s most consistent theme. A few different backstory elements are thrown around for clues or red herrings. It all feels very cursory and unsupported. Things that were recognized as necessary for the story but without the ability to write them in an engaging way.
A lot of this review has been negative…and you’ve probably already figured out that the score will reflect that. But there are clear signs of potential in It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. It wouldn’t be surprising to see writer/director Stephen Allen Gutierrez deliver something memorable in the near future. The talent behind the camera shines through budget limitations. Perhaps just a unique idea or a great script away.
Scare Value
Too much of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is unfocused. There are certain limitations expected from small budget horror…and in reality…this movie gets better acting than usual and some decent effects. It’s the script that doesn’t overdeliver. A necessity if a low budget film is going to overcome those limitations. It’s not bad. But it’s lacking that thing to make it special or memorable and elevate it beyond “not bad”.
2/5
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