12 to Midnight features Charles Bronson lookalike Robert Bronzi (Exorcist Vengeance, From Hell to the Wild West) and a title reminiscent of Bronson’s film 10 to Midnight. The movie even starts with Detective Toth (Robert Bronzi) killing a couple of armed robbers who are standing between him and his beer yes, standing in his way, and bloodily dispatching them in true theatrical style. You look familiar the cashier tells him, and in a state of shock. I get that a lot, he shakes back. But, more importantly, it has something Bronson never had to deal with, a werewolf.
Unfortunately for Toth, he was off work and already off-duty and reeking of booze, so instead of a commendation, he is punished with suspension by Captain Rhodes (Daniel Roebuck, Hunting for the Hag, Las Vegas Frankenstein). Tell me, Toth do you have your shit together? he questions. To which Rhodes responds, I have to make sure it is. To this, Toth responds, I just want another drink.
But what could have upset him so much? A month prior, his wife Tammy (played by Valerie Bittner from Monsters in the Closet and Beaster Day: Here Comes Peter Cottonhell) was viciously killed in what seemed less like a human attack and more animalistic. Toth trapped himself in a self-loathing loop for not saving her, reaching for the nearest bottle. When the violence escalates and the killer explicitly dares Toth, he goes back on the force to hunt the killer.
The film blends horror and police action into one seamless narrative, thanks to the creative minds of Mark Savage (Purgatory Road, Circus of Dread) and Joe Knetter (That’s a Wrap, Strip Club Slasher), who directed and produced 12 to Midnight. Jeff Miller (Inoperable, Clown Town) and Tom Parnell (Painkiller, Stressed to Kill) also contributed to the script.
The cast is also made up of familiar faces like Tito Ortiz (Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, Operation Black Ops) who plays Marco, one of the last Centralia PA residents, the town that helped inspire Silent Hill, Sadie Katz (Wrong Turn 6 Last Resort, Automation) portrays Sheriff Cooper who ends up working rather closely with Toth after the creature takes a couple of victims in her jurisdiction and Helene Udy (My Bloody Valentine, Deadly Dealings) has a cameo as one of the victims.
Though there’s no question that the killer is a werewolf and even Rhodes and Toth come to that conclusion rather early in the movie, the question of who it is remains up for debate with several contenders including a sleazy security guard (A.C. Bernardi) and Peter (Patrick Voss Davis, Lucky Louie, The Fries Rebellion), a young man whom Toth talks out of suicide and possibly even his friend Marco mente.
And that is where 12 to Midnight runs into its biggest problem, one of the subplots takes up way too much of the film’s runtime. It isn’t bad in itself and it does deliver some gunplay and chase scenes, but it occupies so much of the film’s midsection that it cuts out most of the other plot threads and characters. I was wondering if this was imported from another script and if the plot with the werewolf was worked around it.
Fortunately, there is still space for several werewolf attacks, and the filmmakers do not shy away from showing intestines and other internal limbs as the assaults become more brutal throughout the film. The gore effects done by Oliver Poser (The Black Mass, Stan Against Evil) and his crew are solid, along with what we got for the transformation scene. The creature itself is oddly looking, and in some well-lit scenes could almost be Bigfoot. They probably would have been better off keeping him in the dark while Michael Su (Hell’s Coming for You, Dante’s Hotel) shot more atmospheric scenes with the beast in the shadows.
As long as it maintains the overall focus on the search for the creature and skips scenes like the overly embarrassing encounter in Toth’s hotel room with Cooper, 12 to Midnight is a fun creature feature, indulging in its grindhouse roots with copious amounts of violence and even some nudity. And that is exactly what I needed after the Wolves Against the World disappointment.
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