Into the Dark: Midnight Kiss ** (2019, Augustus Prew, Scott Evans, Ayden Mayeri , Lukas Gage, Chester Lockhart, Adam Faison) – Classic Movie Review 12,459

In the 2019 horror film Midnight Kiss, a group of edgy, bickering longtime gay best friends and their female bestie gather at a beautiful resort home on New Year’s Eve, and play a game called Midnight Kiss. Then a masked killer joins them…

In director Carter Smith’s 2019 queer horror film Midnight Kiss, a group of edgy, bickering longtime gay best friends and their straight female bestie gather at a beautiful desert resort home on New Year’s Eve, and play a game called Midnight Kiss.

The purpose of the game, an annual tradition with them for some years now, is for each person to find someone new and special with whom to start the New Year. Then a masked killer joins them…

So what we have here is The Boys in the Band meets Scream, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, though queer horror is very welcome if you can do it well.

The cast  are Augustus Prew as Cameron, Scott Evans as Joel, Ayden Mayeri as Hannah, Lukas Gage as Logan, Chester Lockhart as Zachary, and Adam Faison as Dante.

Midnight Kiss is the 16th film (season two, episode 4) in the Into the Dark American horror anthology streaming TV series produced for Hulu by Blumhouse Productions, with founder Jason Blum executive producing every episode, all set around a holiday, this one New Year’s Eve. It is directed by Carter Smith, is written by Erlingur Thoroddsen, and was premiered on December 27, 2019.

It is tolerable, and watchable, but there are too many unlikeable bitchy stereotypes, not enough suspects, and the killer is astoundingly obvious, one of the small gang we haven’t seen in a while. Trying to liven it up, and camp it up, the actors stray into overacted performances, but then the script is overheated anyway.

Ironically the token female, Ayden Mayeri as the straight bestie Hannah, is by far the best actor and most interesting and entertaining character, though the best thing about the movie, and its real star, is the to-die for house that provides the main set. The script has not got a lot of credibility, or much freshness in a well-trodden ground, and it’s the gay thing that is supposed to provide that. Carter Smith does however build up some suspense, and an eerie, unsettling atmosphere.

It is quite gruesome and grisly two or three times, with some nasty murders, establishing its credentials as a horror film, and quite forthright sexually, with plenty of male butts, establishing its credentials as a queer horror, but there are carefully no full frontals.

Apparently Blumhouse required that the filmmakers cast gay actors for the gay characters.

Talking queer horror, Carter Smith also directed the 2022 low-budget nightmare film Swallowed.

Into the Dark enjoyed a very successful two seasons of 12 episodes each.

Scott Evans (born September 21, 1983).

Scott Evans (born September 21, 1983) is the younger brother of actor Chris Evans. He came out at age 19. Augustus Prew married fellow actor Jeffery Self on 13 January 2018 in Culver City, California.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,459

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AC Augustus Prew (born 17 September 1987).