Jack Bender

Cheesy and fun effort set at Halloween in the sleepy town of Pitchfork Cove, where a group of teens unwittingly unleash an ancient curse that sees assorted zombies, vampires and werewolves rising from the dead. The newly arisen monsters head for the school dance while the kids run around trying to put things right. “The Midnight Hour” is a made-for-TV effort and is therefore lacking in blood, gore, profanity or nudity, but is fully loaded with stupidity, stereotypes and lashing of cheese. William Bleich’s script and Jack Bender’s direction has a fun, throwback to yesteryear atmosphere and comes across as an extended version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. This feel is assisted by an enjoyable soundtrack that includes Wilson Pickett (“In the Midnight Hour”, of course!); Del Shannon; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs and Three Dog Night amongst others. The main cast seems to be made up of the unknown relatives of well-known performers and includes Shari Belafonte, Peter DeLuise, Dick Van Patten and Deedee Pfeiffer. Kevin McCarthy and Kurtwood Smith put in enjoyable turns as the town judge and police captain and it was great to see LeVar Burton in a non-Star Trek role. “The Midnight Hour” isn’t a particularly good film, but it has plenty of good-natured charm, plenty of nostalgia value and enough corny cheesiness to keep you relatively amused even through the most stereotypical and stupid moments.… (meer)

Catherine's (Cindy Williams) world is turned upside down after her seemingly perfect husband, Donald is murdered in the flat of prostitute Marla (Markie Post). Turns out Donald has been involved in some shading doings and Catherine and Marla have to team-up to get to the bottom of it before a gang of killers get to them. This is a mild and occasionally amusing made for TV effort. It has a fairly naïve view of prostitution and crime, but you wouldn't really anticipate otherwise. Cindy Williams and Markie Post make for a nice team as the odd couple from different sides of the tracks. The comedy is slight and inoffensive; the story patently ridiculous and the direction workmanlike. All that said "Tricks of the Trade" still makes for a mild and likable little comedy.… (meer)