This is How Movies Should Be Made

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's easy to forget that in the 80s, action movies were every bit as violent as horror films and 10 to Midnight is pretty harsh. It feels like they're attempting to make both a Friday the 13th and a Death Wish movie AT THE SAME TIME!Charles Bronson plays a tough cop dedicated to his job. He stumbles onto a serial sex killer and obsessively hunts him down only to have the system fail him leading to a truly shocking bloodbath at the finale. 10 to Midnight is Cannon film, thus it's over-the-top with lots of sex and violence. It's also through and through a Bronson film so there's a lot of tough guy grandstanding and complaints about a broken legal system that values the rights of the accused over those of the victim. The positives of this movie are that it has a truly solid cast. Bronson actually seems to care about his performance (not always the case in his later films), the villain is creepy and frightening (he likes to attack his lady victims while he is totally nude), and the kills are intensely effective. The negatives are that the movie is just a little too slow. There are too many cop movie cliches and I didn't care at all about Bronson's partner. Honestly, I feel that this movie would have worked much better as a straight forward giallo film. This is a cop movie that occasionally turns into a slasher film which leaves a movie that can't find a consistent tone. Fans of slashers and cop flicks are both likely to be put off by the movie but it is unique enough that I get why it has a cult following. It's an above average latter day Bronson film and probably at least worth a look for fans that don't mind a little (or a lot!) of bloodshed.

This is quite an unusual movie, about a serial killer (Gene Davis) who strips naked before slashing beautiful women to death. These women rejected his advances and he lashes out by hurting them.Only this time, his latest victim is the friend of the daughter (Lisa Eilbacher) of the very detective (Charles Bronson) who is investigating the murder.Because the serial killer leaves no traces behind his murders, it is nearly impossible for Bronson to prove his guilt. Bronson goes to lawless means to get the serial killer, only to have the serial killer acquitted due to lack of evidence, and Bronson losing his job. Bronson continues harassing the free serial killer and tries to get him into trouble again, and the serial killer flips out and targets Ms Eilbacher.It's a sleazy cop-action-slasher, with cameos from several 1980s babes, such as Kelly Preston and Ola Ray.The final climax/ massacre is disturbing and not for kids.

Paul McAnn teams up with Detective Leo Kessler to investigate the murder of Betty Johnson and her boyfriend, by a naked killer in a park. Kessler recognises the victim, as they lived in the same neighbourhood many years ago. The killer, Warren Stacey, goes to the funeral and overhears Betty's father telling Kessler that his daughter had a diary. He breaks in Betty's apartment and kills her roommate trying to find the diary. But Karen had already delivered the journal to Kessler, who is sure that Warren is the killer and her plants evidence in his apartment.Now Warren is stalking his daughter to revenge against her father....In the eighties, The Cannon group made some really good films, the kind you would watch on a Friday night with your dad. And Bronson was the king of Cannon movies.This has to be one of his best, because its not just straightforward action, in fact, Thompson pulls a double whammy, cashing in on the Death Wish movies, and cashing in on the slasher movies of the early eighties.Other than that, its Bronson being Bronson, staring at people from bridges and nosing through people's bathrooms.The rest of the support are good, particularly Elibacher as his daughter. But unfortunately he same cannot be said for the guy who played Stacey. I'm sure he thought his motivation was 'robots' because he moves like one, and seems to think that he should approach his victims in the slowest way possible.But he's my only gripe, its a brilliant thriller, and it must have threw audiences back in 1983, as its so ungeneric, compared to other cop thrillers around his time.Its obviously influenced by Bundy, but if you like Bronson and Cannon, this is for you.

Charles Bronson and director J. Lee-Thompson made nine movies together, and 10 To Midnight certainly makes a worthy attempt at being the kinkiest, sleaziest and most violent of the lot. I expected this to be a real bottom-of-the-barrel entry considering the subject matter, and the fact that Bronson was appearing in one tired revenge-fantasy after another at this point of his career, but Ten To Midnight isn't a total loss. It has a few entertaining set pieces, an interesting moral core, a modicum of suspense during some of the murder sequences, and a decent enough soundtrack courtesy of Robert O. Ragland. Alas, when all is said and done, it is still a fundamentally unpleasant exploitation piece in which the slaying of nubile – and often nude - young women, by a naked knife-wielding psycho no less, is served up for our viewing pleasure. It's not exactly art… it's one of those movies you need to come into accepting for what it is.Weird and voyeuristic office youth Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) has a real problem with women, especially when his overbearing advances are met with rejection and humiliation. However, he gets his revenge by tracking down any women that have refused him and brutally murdering them with a huge knife. Rather perversely, he commits these killings in the nude to avoid leaving any fibres or other incriminating evidence at the crime scene. Old-fashioned cop Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson) is assigned to catch the killer, and partnered with inexperienced rookie Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens). It doesn't take them long to figure out that Stacy is their man, but pinning evidence on him proves a much trickier challenge. Ultimately Kessler decides to plant incriminating evidence to get the killer jailed, but his plan goes awry and Stacy is soon back on the streets feeling meaner than ever. With Kessler's daughter Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher) the next in line to be killed, it becomes a race against time to stop the psycho before he strikes again…10 To Midnight is not an especially well-acted film. Bronson is in his typically wooden '80s mode; Stevens spends the movie looking handsome but vacant; and Davis looks physically powerful as the bad guy but sounds kind of goofy as soon as he speaks in his peculiar "idiot-drawl". Of the main characters, Eilbacher at least does OK as Kessler's daughter and the killer's potential next target. There are some lulls between the murders and action bits, and the film struggles to maintain much interest when it isn't focusing on these sensational aspects. But fans of Bronson's unique style of squalid, simple, blood-and-thunder action flicks will probably come away satisfied, while the rest of us are left to pick at occasional morsels of quality in an otherwise exploitative potboiler.