MIDNIGHT PEEPSHOW movie poster | ©2024 Dark Star Pictures

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Richard Cotton, Sarah Diamond, Mark Hampton, Roisin Browne, David Wayman, Ocean M. Harris, Miki Davis, Jack Fairbank, Jamie Bacon, Derek Nelson, Chiara D’Anna, Ryan Oliva, Bethan Walker, Zach Galligan (voice), Melanie Thompson
Writers: Airell Anthony Hayles & Jake West and Andy Edwards, concept by Airell Anthony Hayles
Directors: Ludovica Musumeci, Airell Anthony Hayles, Andy Edwards, Jake West
Distributor: Dark Star Pictures
Release Date: February 13, 2024 (digital, DVD)

 MIDNIGHT PEEPSHOW is quasi-anthology horror, with segments bound together more firmly than is usually the case. It also successfully straddles the line between the supernatural and mundane cruelty, though we start wondering how and why that line is breached here.

An onscreen title establishes that we’re in Soho, London, England, and that it’s Valentine’s Day (or, more accurately, Valentine’s Night).

Graham (Richard Cotton) wanders through the rainy darkness. He’s clearly desolate, not even caring when his pocket is picked. Already drunk, he finally makes his way to a hotel bar. His friend Miles (Mark Hampton) is there, investigating a “Dark Web” site called Black Rabbit.

Miles eagerly tells Graham about Black Rabbit, the subject of urban legends dating back to the pre-Internet ‘80s. Supposedly, people pay big money to see their darkest fantasies acted out (with others, not the customers), as arranged by Black Rabbit. Miles is extremely curious about all this.

Graham, however, heads back out into the night. After scoring some drugs, he stumbles through the fog and encounters a building with a neon sign proclaiming “Midnight Peepshow.”

We then get a few of those Black Rabbit episodes before returning to Graham.

While Airell Anthony Hayles came up with the concept for MIDNIGHT PEEPSHOW, he shares directing and writing duties. Hayles wrote and directed the “Personal Space” vignette, and co-wrote “The Black Rabbit” with Jake West, which West directed, and “The Peepshow Wraparound Story,” which is directed by Ludovica Musucemi. Andy Edwards wrote and directed the installment entitled “F*** Marry Kill.”

Despite the variety of hands on the wheel, there is a shared sensibility throughout, albeit “F*** Marry Kill” goes for more dark humor than the others. The aesthetic is reminiscent of SAW, with lots of grim cement environments, along with lonely alleyways. Even rooms that start out as homey wind up looking bare and ominous.

We’re genuinely curious as to how all this works. We get answers to a point, although the scenarios ostensibly devised by the Black Rabbit customers aren’t as bizarre as we might expect from the set-up. They’re also not really scary, although they are arguably sexually icky (there’s a lot of coercion).

But we wind up spending so much time trying to figure out who the innocent bystanders are, who instigated what, and when various individuals got involved that it becomes a little distracting. Characters are written in ways that make us pity them more than we actually like them. The women seem especially arbitrary in their behavior, and there are times where we want to ask several of these folks, “What did you think was going to happen here?”

Cotton makes a good lost soul, Sarah Diamond registers as one of Black Rabbit’s most enthusiastic employees, and Ocean M. Harris creates some sympathy for a man who gets very caught up in a scene.

MIDNIGHT PEEPSHOW is both more nasty and less frightening than may be to some viewers’ tastes. Nonetheless, it is genuinely unsettling and has enough nightmarish consistency to be memorable.

Related: Movie Review: NO WAY UP
Related: Movie Review: LISA FRANKENSTEIN
Related: Movie Review: OUT OF DARKNESS
Related: Movie Review: ARGYLLE
Related: Movie Review: DEPARTING SENIORS
Related: Movie Review:MILLER’S GIRL
Related: Movie Review: CULT KILLER
Related: Movie Review: THANKSGIVING
Related: Movie Review: HELLHOUNDS
Related: Movie Review: SUNRISE
Related: Movie Review: MEAN GIRLS
Related: Movie Review: NIGHT SWIM
Related: Movie Review: MAESTRO
Related: Movie Review: RACE FOR GLORY: AUDI VS. LANCIA
Related: Movie Review: A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE
Related: Movie Review: FREUD’S LAST SESSION
Related: Movie Review: LORD OF MISRULE
Related: Movie Review: THE SACRIFICE GAME
Related: Movie Review: ORIGIN
Related: Movie Review: A NIGHTMARE ON 34th STREET
Related: Movie Review: IT LIVES INSIDE
Related: Movie Review: A CREATURE WAS STIRRING
Related: Movie Review: MAY DECEMBER
Related: Movie Review: EILEEN
Related: Movie Review: WISH
Related: Movie Review: NAPOLEON
Related: Movie Review: TROLLS BAND TOGETHER
Related: Movie Review: SALTBURN
Related: Movie Review: THE MARVELS
Related: Movie Review: IT’S A WONDERFUL KNIFE
Related: Movie Review: HELL HOUSE LLC ORIGINS: THE CARMICHAEL MANOR
Related: Movie Review: PROJECT Z (PROSJECT Z)
Related: Movie Review: FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S
Related: Movie Review: SUITABLE FLESH

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: MIDNIGHT PEEPSHOW

Related Posts: