Violent Midnight

Excellent!

Pretty good low-budget black-and-white early 1960's thriller about a killer on the loose. Beautiful girls, some from the nearby women's college are being offed in a bloodily gory fashion. Who is the killer? Is it the wealthy, short-fused artist, the motorcycle driving, loutish delivery guy, or the peeping tom college professor? Filmed in lushly treed western Connecticut, apparently Stamford. Supposed to take pace in early autumn, but looks like late spring or early summer. Made by the same folks that graced us with The Horror of Party Beach and The Curse of the Living Corpse. Also available from Sinister Cinema under the title Psycho-Mania in an edited form, only about 83 minutes long. The Dark Films DVD release is excellent quality and more complete with some slight nudity thrown in. This one is the one to get. Highly recommended.

The first film produced by low budget indie filmmaker Del Tenney is a lurid, voyeuristic but interesting murder mystery. A wealthy war veteran turned artist finds himself implicated first in the brutal murder of his nude model then in the murder of a promiscuous college coed. But there are a couple of other suspects acting suspiciously...one of whom is an actual voyeur. The b&w film is set in a small college town with the college being all women. The acting is passable to good with a few familiar faces: Sheppard Strudwick as a lawyer, Dick Van Patten as a cop, Sylvia Miles as a bar floozy and James Farentino as a motorcycle thug. They all have good-sized roles. The murders (stabbings) are brutal, there's a surprising amount of (female) skin for 1962 and the ending is kind've a surprise. You do keep guessing at times who the killer really is. The DVD print is excellent. Not bad viewing for those who appreciate low budget but pretty good films. Actually, "Violent Midnight" is kind've an American "giallo" with it's lurid, near-exploitation values and creepy set-ups. In fact, giallo afficianados may go for this as well. Worth checking out as an obscure find. Enjoy.

The disc casing came damaged. The DVD was rattling around. It seems to be undamaged so far.

When Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO opened the door, many other films followed, and the early 1960s saw a glut of low-budget, black and white thrillers that held scantily clad women at the point of a knife. Released in 1964, VIOLENT MIDNIGHT (also known as PSYCHOMANIA or BLACK AUTUMN) is fairly typical of the genre but better than most.When Delores is found stabbed to death in her rooms there are two very obvious supects: Elliot, the reclusive artist who has employed her as a model, and Charlie, her tough-guy boyfriend. After all, the two men had a bar room knife fight over her the night before! Fortunately Elliot has his half-sister, who has just arrived to attend a local all-girl college, for support. But before too long the student body becomes precisely that, and both Elliot and Charlie come under renewed suspicion.The cast is unexpectedly solid. Leading man Lee Philips (in the role of artist Elliot Freeman) and supporting actor Shepperd Strudwick (as his attorney) both had long and respectable careers both before and after VIOLENT MIDNIGHT; James Farentino, Sylvia Miles, and Dick Van Patten would go on to notable careers of their own. Even so, there's nothing subtle about the script, which crams everything from biker chicks to college sirens into the mix, and most viewers will probably identify the killer in the first twenty minutes of the film.Even so, and in spite of a budget that was clearly just this side of zero, VIOLENT MIDNIGHT isn't a bad little flick, and it easily holds its own with the likes of the better-known DEMENTIA 13. It will probably lack appeal for the casual viewer, but fans of 1960s B-movies will have a good time.GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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