Five-Legged Iguana

¡Qué horror! 2012

Candidate # 25

MIDNIGHT SON

(July 2011)

Let’s get down to brass tacks: writer/director Scott Leberecht’s debut feature, Midnight Son, is an excellent vampire film, the sort of atypical bloodsucker title that I’ve always been predisposed to.

I waffled a bit on this, since the “horror” isn’t as apparent in it as in other ¡Qué Horror! candidates, and I thought I’d sneak this out of the ¡Qué Horror! madness (as I’ve done this year with titles like Steven C. Miller’s The Aggression Scale). Ultimately though, this is a horror movie (at least, to my way of thinking it is), so here it is, an official ¡Qué Horror! 2012 candidate.

As with Tomas Alfredson’s Låt Den Rätte Komma In, the centerpiece of Midnight Son is a burgeoning relationship between a human and a vampire, though in this case, it’s a decidedly adult relationship. There’s also the added complication of the vampire (Zak Kilberg’s Jacob) not even knowing what it is he’s becoming exactly.

There are muted strains of body horror in this, as Jacob gradually succumbs to the bizarre urges that are consuming him, which then neatly segue into vampirism as metaphor for addiction.

This may be the kind of vampire film that isn’t for everyone, but as I said before, I’m a (heh) sucker for atypical vampire films.

And let’s face it, these days, any vampire that doesn’t do the whole Sparkle Motion thing, that’s instantly a big plus in my book.

In addition, this has got Eduardo Sánchez (whose Altered and Seventh Moon I love and reviewed here at the Iguana, and whose Lovely Molly I’m so looking forward to) as one of its executive producers, and as I’ve also found myself to be predisposed to Sánchez’s post-Blair Witch films, it made putting Midnight Son up here an awesome doubleplusgood.

Parting shot: Speaking of doubleplusgood, I’m also so looking forward to what Leberecht chooses to direct next, as well as Sánchez’s Bigfoot movie, Exists.

(Midnight Son OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)