As a general rule, horror fans have always been pretty open-minded about the genre. Horror may come in many shapes and sizes – some transgressive, others comforting – but as long as something is going bump in the night, audiences will give your film a fair shake. That’s certainly the case with Alex Cherney’s The Mid-Night Driver, a low-budget ghost story that slots neatly into the notion of gateway horror. Modest in both concept and budget, Cherney’s film still offers us an eerie little horror story that captures the best kinds of nostalgia.
Claire (Devan Delugo) is bored. Bored of spending her summer nights sleeping over with friends and losing at the same old video games. Fall has hit her small town, and she wants something different – something spookier – to celebrate the season. So when Claire’s friend shares a rumored demonic ritual, one that summons a mysterious driver (Al Reno) to take you on a late-night adventure, Claire pushes through her friends’ unease and encourages the group to give it a shot.
There are several steps to summoning the driver. You must count down from eight, then dial a number on the phone before and after you pick up the receiver. Finally, you can only hold the receiver with a piece of string, before finally asking for a ride. But when the girls work their way through the steps, methodically checking the ritual against their notes, nothing happens. The driveway remains empty, and Claire goes to bed slightly embarrassed.
Then, the following night, she tries again. Tired of the low-budget horror movies playing on television, Claire gathers up the components and decides to try to summon the driver one last time. And this attempt works; a battered red convertible pulls up alongside her house, with a scarred man of indeterminate age behind the wheel. He never says a word, but Claire decides to throw caution to the wind and buckle herself in for whatever happens next.
At the heart of The Mid-Night Driver is the film’s urban legend, which, in the tradition of all good tall tales, is somehow both too specific and utterly vague. The film wisely picks and chooses which elements to expand upon, giving us very little about the driver – he works best as a mystery – but plenty about the rules of the ride. The driver cannot speak; instead, his messages to Clair are delivered in a few short words on the car’s tuner. Through the screen, she is told to leave the car in search of various items, often being pushed into confrontations with the kinds of oddballs who only move around in the earliest hours of the morning.
It’s a simple structure – summoning, passenger seat, side quests – but Cherney seems to draw inspiration from the kinds of cautionary tales found in the pages of anthology tales. It’s not hard to imagine Claire lifted directly from a classic horror comic, brought to life in brilliant dot patterns on the pages of back issues of Tales From the Crypt or The Vault of Horror. Here is the grizzled visage of the driver backlit by neon green dome light; there, the profile of Clair caught in headlights sprinting across an open field. Cherney aims for an eerie collision of the modern and the supernatural, and it’s the kind of concept that would make the editors at EC Comics proud.
And while most of the action takes place at night, the films also wisely intersperses the action with Claire’s daytime routines. Delugo gives us everything we need to know about Claire through her expressionless wanderings around her community. She’s bored – looking for adventure and unimpressed by the interactions she has with friends and strangers alike – and the picturesque fall atmosphere only accents the lack of things to do. Small towns are comforting as long as you get to leave, and Claire’s combination of braveness and boredom provides her every reason she needs to wander off into the night.
That’s what gives The Mid-Night Driver its low-fi charm. Cherney’s film barters in nostalgia, but nostalgia without specifics. It evokes the restlessness of childhood, of that period of your life when you begin to want more than what you grew up in, while also celebrating the kinds of half-frightening, half-innocent urban legends that spring up in those voids. In a genre where so many filmmakers want to be two things – story and allegory – Cherney's The Mid-Night Driver is content to just be a little spooky. Horror can be very self-serious these days; it's nice to see there's still room for movies that want nothing more than an old-fashioned creep show. [3.5/5]
The Mid-Night Driver is now playing at the Chattanooga Film Festival.
