The Midnight Hour
| The Midnight Hour | |
|---|---|
 The Midnight Hour DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Jack Bender |
| Written by | Bill Bleich |
| Produced by | Ervin Zavada |
| Starring | Shari Belafonte-Harper LeVar Burton Lee Montgomery Peter DeLuise Dedee Pfeiffer Cindy Morgan Jonna Lee Kevin McCarthy Dick Van Patten |
| Cinematography | Rexford L. Metz |
| Edited by | David A. Simmons |
| Music by | Brad Fiedel |
| Distributed by | ABC (TV) Anchor Bay Entertainment (DVD) |
Release dates | October 27, 1985 (TV) July 20, 1999 (VHS) September 19, 2000 (DVD) |
Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | Template:Film US |
| Language | English |
The Midnight Hour (also known as In the Midnight Hour) is a 1985 comedy/horror television movie which aired on ABC on October 27, 1985, and stars Shari Belafonte-Harper, LeVar Burton, Peter DeLuise, and Dedee Pfeiffer.
Plot
It is Halloween in the small town of Pitchford Cove located somewhere in New England, and five high school friends, Phil (Lee Montgomery), Mary (Dedee Pfeiffer), Mitch (Peter DeLuise), Vinnie (LeVar Burton), and Melissa (Shari Belafonte-Harper), plan on making it a night they will never forget. They steal outfits from the town's historic museum and come upon other old artifacts, including an old trunk encasing a paper scroll which contains an ancient curse. When Melissa recites the curse at the local cemetery, things take a turn for the worse.
The town's dead, led by Melissa's great-grandmother Lucinda Cavender (Jonelle Allen), a witch who was put to death 300 years earlier, rise up from their graves and roam the town. As Melissa, Vinnie, Mitch, and Mary enjoy themselves at their annual Halloween costume party, Phil encounters a mysterious girl, named Sandra "Sandy" Matthews (Jonna Lee), dressed in a vintage 1950's cheerleader outfit, who warns him that the whole town is in danger.
Meanwhile, Lucinda and the various undead ghouls rise from the grave and crash the costume party. At first, nobody pays much attention to them since everyone is in costume. However, Lucinda begins turning the party guests into vampires, starting with Melissa, then Vinnie, and so on.
When Sandy discovers that Phil and his friends recited the ancient spell in the cemetery, they realize that the whole town is being overrun by the living dead and decide to team up to break the curse. The only way to do so is to find the Greenville Spirit Ring inside the grave of witch-hunter Nathaniel Greenville - who, coincidentally, was Phil's great-grandfather and slave owner of Lucinda Cavender's arch-nemesis - and use it to undo the curse. It's up to Phil and "good ghost" Sandy to restore the town to normal by midnight before it is too late and the curse becomes permanent.
Cast
- Lee Montgomery as Phil Greenville
- Shari Belafonte as Melissa Cavender
- Peter DeLuise as Mitch Crandall
- LeVar Burton as Vinnie Davis
- Dedee Pfeiffer as Mary Masterson
- Jonna Lee as Sandy Matthews
- Jonelle Allen as Lucinda Cavender
- Cindy Morgan as Vicky Jensen
- Kurtwood Smith as Captain Warren Jensen
- Dick Van Patten as Martin Grenville
- Sheila Larken as Janet Greenville
- Wolfman Jack as the radio DJ
- Kevin McCarthy as Judge Crandall
- Mark Blankfield as The Ghoul
- Hank Garrett as Sgt. Thompson
- Dennis Redfield as Lester Mitchell
- Mickey Morton as Vernon Nestor
- Vachik Mangassarian as Opera singer
- Joe Gieb as The Elf
- Bill DeLand as Man in Police Station
- Laura Owens as Mother
- Adam Myman as Son
- Jennifer Shockey as Tammy
- Macaulay Culkin as a Halloween kid (uncredited)
DVD release
Anchor Bay Entertainment released The Midnight Hour on Region 1 DVD on September 19, 2000.[1] The movie was previously released on VHS by Anchor Bay Entertainment on July 20, 1999.
References
External links
- The Midnight Hour at IMDb
- ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› The Midnight Hour at AllMovie
- The Midnight Hour at Rotten Tomatoes