Rent After Midnight (2019)

2.8 of 5 from 109 ratings
1h 23min
Rent After Midnight Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
  • General info
  • Available formats
Synopsis:
Ten years into his small-town romance with Abby (Brea Grant), bartender Hank (Jeremy Gardner) wakes up alone in an empty home with nothing but a cryptic parting note for company. As Hank drinks himself into heartbreak and depression, Abby's sudden departure soon becomes the least of his concerns as a mysterious monster starts clawing at his door on a nightly basis.
As the threat outside his door intensifies, Hank calls on Abby's police officer brother Shane (Justin Benson) and best friend Wade (Henry Zebrowski) for help, but with no trace of the monster - and his behaviour becoming more erratic - his friends remain unconvinced of the creature lurking outside and Hank slips further into his own paranoia and loneliness.
Actors:
, , , , Ashley Song, Nicola Masciotra, ,
Directors:
,
Producers:
Justin Benson, Arvind Harinath, David Lawson Jr., Aaron Moorhead
Writers:
Jeremy Gardner
Genres:
Drama, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers
BBFC:
Release Date:
Not released
Run Time:
83 minutes
BBFC:
Release Date:
08/06/2020
Run Time:
83 minutes
Languages:
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English LPCM Stereo
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.35:1
Colour:
Colour
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • Audio commentary with directors Christian Stella and Jeremy Gardner
  • Lakeland Florida Q&A, featuring Stella, Gardner, actors Ashley Song, Nicola Masciotra and Taylor Zaudtke, script supervisor Elise Stella and 2nd assistant director Juan Ortiz
  • Pitching 'Something Else', Stella and Gardner pitch the character of Wade to Henry Zebrowski. Featuring an intro by producer Aaron Moorhead
  • Self-interview while self-quarantined during the coronavirus outbreak. Brand new interview with actor and producer Justin Benson, recorded exclusively for this release
  • Brea and Barak find Fantastic Fest Scooters. Actors Brea Grant and Barak Hardley hunt down scooters following the Fantastic Fest screening of 'After Midnight'
  • Behind-the-scenes Featurette
  • Outtakes
  • Behind-the-scenes image gallery
  • Official international and UK trailers

More like After Midnight

Found in these customers lists

Reviews (2) of After Midnight

A strange creature thriller that's actually a relationship drama - After Midnight review by BG

Spoiler Alert
07/07/2022

Probably mis-marketed, 'After Midnight' is likely to irritate a lot of people. It suggests you're in for a suspense-filled exploration of why a mysterious creature is besieging a lone man in his house, and instead delivers a slow-paced slacker-esque relationship drama with occasional creature weirdness.

The vast majority of the plot is based around Hank (Jeremy Gardner) and shows a broad spread of his relationship with Abby (Brea Grant). Hank's a local hunter and likeable, but very much rooted to the area. Abby's seen glimpses of the wider world and is desperate for a better look outside their town, but stays because she and Hank have a strong (and quite cutesy) relationship.

Things go sideways all at once, when Hank wakes up to find her gone and nothing but an uninformative note to explain her continuing and lengthy disappearance.

Slowly the couple's friends and Abby's cop brother (Justin Benson) begin to question Hank's grip on reality and sobriety as he starts drinking harder, shooting at ill-advised targets, and complaining about a mysterious beast scratching to get into his house...

This is not the movie for you if you're looking for a 'creature thriller'. Although there are startling moments, they're very few and far between. For every minute that the creature plays a part in the script, there are 20 filed with relationship flashbacks, amusing drunken conversations, or scenes of Hank acting frustrated.

The script is very freewheeling, and seeing Benson and Moorhead's name as producers helped it make sense to me, as it feels tonally a little similar to their movie 'The Endless' (although not as polished) where scenes of gentle mystery and confusion give way to occasional bursts of brief amusing character silliness, and then something creepy.

By the time the ending nears, you'll have either jacked it in, or be decently invested in Hank and Abby's relationship, and finding out what's going on with them - to the point that you almost forget about the creature side of things.

There are special effects, and they're pretty good, but this film is all about the characters. If you think they're a little charming and kind-of-amusing in the first ten minutes, I'd stick with it - you might be pleasantly surprised with what you get, as it's definitely inventive. If they just annoy you, ditch it - the monster element isn't major enough to make up for it.

1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.

Not what you might expect. - After Midnight review by NP

Spoiler Alert
05/08/2022

Whatever you were expecting from this film, you probably weren’t expecting what you got. One thing it did for me was confounded my expectations, threatened to bore me, charmed me, and at the end, shocked me into thinking – what?

But that’s good, I suppose, because I imagine all those reactions were what the filmmakers intended. Billed as horror but basically a character study between a man and his partner - he’s a hunter, in love with his life and his house; she’s glimpsed a world beyond that and wants to explore.

The acting is naturalistic and all the characters are very appealing. For a while, I feared that Brea Grant’s role as Abby was simply to look pretty and react to director/writer/actor Jeremy Gardner as Hank. At the mid-point, however, things changed in her favour – and not before time.

The moments of shock are exactly that. We’ve virtually forgotten about the monstrous element by the time it shows up; and yet the moment that stuck most in my memory afterwards is the karaoke scene, which could have been saccharine-sweet, but succeeded in provoking genuine emotion. My score is 7 out of 10.

0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.

Unlimited films sent to your door, starting at £15.99 a month.