Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

10 to Midnight Blu-ray Movie Review

Time's up.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 24, 2015

Charles Bronson was such a one of a kind actor that some enterprising producer probably could have cast the stone faced performer to recite the phone book on screen, and veritable droves of ticket buying audience members would have probably happily plunked their dollars down to watch the proceedings. Watching Bronson recite the phone book might have made more putative sense than large swaths of 10 to Midnight, a film whose very title seems to have, well, nothing to do with the film (as even producer Pancho Kohner mentions in the commentary including him which is featured on this Blu-ray), and whose “plot”, such as it is, barely skirts with logic as it traffics in some elements culled from the slasher craze (which was in its last throes of cinematic excess) while also positing Bronson as a no nonsense cop trying to bring a serial killer to justice.

10 to Midnight eschews any hint of suspense in terms of “whodunit” (or at least “who’s doing it?”) by offering up the film’s villain from virtually the get go. Office equipment repairman Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) is a sexually repressed guy whom women regularly classify as a “creep”, something that makes his dating regimen a bit of a problem. His first victim is a young woman named Betty (June Gilbert), a character not exactly a teen but one who, in true slasher film fashion, escapes to the woods for a little sexual healing with her boyfriend. Warren attacks the pair while they are engaged in lovemaking in the back of the boyfriend’s van, and it’s during this sequence that one of Warren’s oddities, and one of this film’s dubious “calling cards”, is revealed: Warren strips down to his birthday suit to perform his dastardly deeds. This first killing sequence therefore grants the audience the perhaps questionable sight of not just a naked victim marauding through the woods in a complete panic, but also of a similarly unclothed perpetrator chasing her.

Warren is obviously an incredibly troubled individual, but he’s no dummy, and the film makes it clear that he’s more than smart enough to craft fairly bullet proof alibis for his killing sprees. That proclivity initially puts up a few obstacles for hard nosed cop Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson), who suspects Warren fairly early on, but is distracted both by Warren’s skill at covering his tracks as well as the inexperience of his new partner, Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens). William Roberts’ by the numbers screenplay also offers up a daughter for Leo, a nursing student named Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher), and fans of this sort of enterprise will probably be twiddling their thumbs awaiting the inevitable sequence where Warren puts the young woman in his sights.

That predictable plot development is presaged by another hoary crime film trope, namely that of a cop who can’t quite manage to gather enough evidence to bring down the bad guy the old fashioned way, and who therefore decides to manufacture a bit himself, leading to the expected lack of a conviction when push comes to shove. In fact, huge swaths of 10 to Midnight seem to have been cobbled together from elements lifted from any number of any other films, with the sole differentiating factor the totally bizarre element of Warren’s nudity while slicing and dicing various female victims.

As is also mentioned in the commentary, at this point in the history of Cannon Films, an era which was headed by infamous Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the studio had split into a triptych of sorts where incoming scripts were tossed into piles meant for Cannon’s trifecta of action stars, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and, of course, Charles Bronson himself. What’s at least a bit unexpected about 10 to Midnight is the fact that, aside from the climax which caps the film (literally, in one sense), Bronson’s Leo is not the marauding vigilante that the actor had become so well known for in Death Wish and its (Cannon released) sequels. Instead, Leo is almost something of a flat footed detective, knowing what the truth is but unable to tie everything up with traditional methods. Only once it’s clear that Warren will never let a mere jail sentence deter him from his dastardly ways does Leo really take matters into his own hands, leaving the film with at least a bit of a catharsis, but a pretty thorny wake for those who care to think about the ramifications of Leo’s actions.

10 to Midnight Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

10 to Midnight is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is another title licensed from the MGM vault, and this release is largely in line with other recent Blu-ray releases we've seen from this same catalog. Elements are in generally surprisingly good condition, with very minimal damage and only occasional dust and dirt showing up to dot the image occasionally. Grain is fairly gritty looking a lot of the time, but resolves naturally. There are some recurrent issues with crush in a number of the dark sequences (a lot of the film takes place in dimly lit or nighttime environments). In the more brightly lit moments, the palette pops quite convincingly and naturally, and fine detail is well above average in close-ups (see screenshot 2).

10 to Midnight Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

10 to Midnight's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix is expectedly narrow and even shallow sounding, but it also lacks a bit of force and amplitude (as a brief toggling between this and the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 iteration of the score and effects track will show). That said, dialogue is always cleanly presented (which is not necessarily a good thing, considering the dialogue in this film), and is typically well prioritized. I personally found Robert O. Ragland's score overwrought and not particularly helpful at several key junctures, but it sounds fine in this lossless presentation.

10 to Midnight Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Radio Spots (1:34)


• Original Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2:13)


• MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (1080p; 2:06)


• Audio Commentary features David Del Valle hosting producer Pancho Kohner and casting director John Crowther.


• Isolated Score Track also includes some effects and is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.

10 to Midnight Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

10 to Midnight is just so unabashedly wacky that it may actually appeal to certain curmudgeons who might otherwise be less than enticed by the thought of a crazed nudist slashing his way through a number of similarly unclad females. Even those folks may have a hard time swallowing several looming examples of illogic which dot the film, but Bronson is his typically monolithic presence, adding gravitas to a film which is badly in need of it. Technical merits are generally very good for those considering a purchase.