After Midnight
Marg Helgenberger, who plays Alex in the segment "All Night Operator," and Alan Rosenberg, who plays the stalker Richard in the same segment, are married in real life.,In "Girls Night Out", the convertible top is black in the majority of the story, but when Amy gets out of the car to run from the dogs, when it is white.,Prof. Edward Derek (segment "Allison's Story"): He said I couldn't scare him, we all saw how wrong he was. How about the rest of you? Ready to be scared? I know I am... -holds gun to chin and fires...,Thanks to "Frankfurt, Garbus, Klein & Salz" - the four dogs in the film - a Doberman, Giant Schnauzer, and German Shepherd Dog. While only three were on screen at any one time, two different GSDs were used.,Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Fast & Furious/Adventureland/Sugar (2009),"After Midnight" appears to be a passable and insignificant late-80s horror anthology, and it really is to be honest, but I would definitely still encourage enthusiast genre fanatics to seek it out! The writers and directors, siblings Ken and Jim Wheat, are mostly famous for their scripting of "Pitch Black" and "The Chronicles of Riddick", but they also wrote an impressive number of adequate and versatile 80s horror & Sci-Fi gems, like "Silent Scream", "The Return", "Nightmare on Elm Street 4" and "The Fly 2". "After Midnight" is one of their sole attempts to also direct, and it became a modest but amiable little omnibus with a pleasantly deranged wraparound story and at least 2 out of 3 segments that are far above average.

In the wraparound, which is righteously also considered to be a fully independent segment, cute but worried student Allison reluctantly attends the first psychology class of the unorthodox teacher Edward Derek. He teaches his students about "fear" by threatening them at gunpoint and faking his own suicide in class. Naturally, the school doesn't appreciate this, and thus Prof. Derek invites a handful of students - including Allison - at his home to further plunge into the world of fear via telling each other scary stories. The first story, "An Old Dark House" is a traditional urban legend type of tale, but I liked the atmosphere and crazy ending. "A Night on the Town" is very similar to a contemporary childhood favorite of mine, namely "Adventures in Babysitting" (which was actually also known under the same title "A Night on the Town"), only this short features four yummy girls and a pack of wild dogs. The final story, "All-Night Operator", is the most known because it stars Marg Helgenberger of "CSI"-fame in one of her earliest roles. She's a switchboard operator in an apartment block and becomes the target of a maniacal stalker after refusing to transfer his calls to a famous actress. The tale is good, albeit derivative, and in this very brief episode Ken & Jim Wheat surely demonstrate they are capable of mounting suspense and generating a claustrophobic atmosphere.

The primary reason to watch "After Midnight" remains the demented wraparound tale, for sure. The classroom sequence is so incredibly surreal and bonkers that it literally has to be seen to be believed! Just imagine the lawsuits an act like this would spawn in real life! During the climax, the Wheat bros' scenario goes tremendously over the top, and it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the film. Who cares, though, as it's great fun!,