10 To Midnight (1983)
Well, since 10 To Midnight stars Charles Bronson, you know it's going to be a cop/drama kind of film, and as it was made in the early eighties when everyone was churning out a slasher film, this one sorta rolls em' all into one. Oh, and to entice you even more, it's from the Golan Globus boys over at Cannon Films. Sounds like a winner. No, seriously, to us at The Apocalypse it really does...we're sick like that!
Bronson plays Leo Kessler, an old school cop (shock of shocks) who's partnered up with an idealistic rookie partner to try and solve a recent spat of killings against various college coed types. Our killer is a sick little fuck who strips bare ass naked to kill his victims, via either a switchblade or, when the mood strikes, something a little larger, like a Michael Myers style butcher knife. His motivation for killing seems to be that whenever a broad rejects his advances, well, he has to kill her. Pretty basic, I suppose. Eventually Bronson's daughter (Lisa Eilbacher) becomes the main focus of our naked psycho, and well, you can sorta guess the rest...right??
10 To Midnight seemed to gather quite a bit of bad reviews, but really, I sorta enjoyed this one. Bronson seemed to be in really fine form here, playing in a sort of more relaxed role and, shock of shocks, he only kills one person in the entire film! The killings are sorta basic and filmed without much suspense, but it's all given a rather weird edge by our psycho's desire to strip butt nekkid every time he does his thing. There was just something comical about seeing Bronson chasing after a bare assed psychopath through the streets. But you want to know what's the most fucked up thing here? What really caught my interest the most was the, gasp, "love angle" between Bronson's daughter and his rookie partner. Maybe it was Eilbacher's over powering cuteness or the fact that I would love to date Charles Bronson's daughter, but man, I really was curious to see what was going to happen here. No, seriously, I was!
So in conclusion, this review is sort of a first here for the many years this site has been up. Notice it wasn't Charles Bronson or the wonderful early eighties sleaze element that I liked about this one, it was the goddamn "love story' angle. What's that Zombo? You hear locusts in the distance....?