The Beast Comes at Midnight (2023) by Christopher Jackson

Director: Christopher Jackson

Year: 2023

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Werewolf

Plot:

Trying to work on a new story, a teen working on a special series of broadcasts on the events in his town stumbles upon a series of mysterious disappearances that seem to be caused by a vicious creature hunting the town, and when he and his friends discover it’s a vicious werewolf set out to stop the creature.

Review:

This was a really likable and enjoyable kid-friendly genre effort. Among the brighter aspects here is the film’s incredibly fun storyline that provides the proper context and motivation for what’s going on around him and still retains the same kind of low-key atmosphere at its core. With the kids being the main focus and feature in the film the most, the idea of treating them with the treatment it presents to them where the interactions around the town or the building romance angle that comes into play show off a lighthearted approach to things that keep this one fairly well-grounded in this kid-friendly mindset through their interests and comedic touches even though the need for the continuing creature attacks are still present. The ability to wrap these factors together into a workable and rather likable setup as the brotherhood that builds between everyone to stop the creature following this starting point.

This comes together quite well into the strong finale where it brings about some great action and confrontations while still keeping the family-friendly tone to it. Realizing what’s going on and firmly aware of its purpose, the series of confrontations throughout the town leading it back to the carnival display that was established early on which is all highly enjoyable, this offers quite a lot to like. The strong pace, suspenseful stalking throughout the facility with some tense moments featured here, and a nice bit of bonding that occurs between the group which is carried over nicely into the post-credits sequence, this has some fantastic aspects on display that goes along with the appropriately cheesy and silly practical werewolf effects which are perfectly in tone for the type of film this is. It all comes together here for quite a lot to like about it.

There isn’t much really wrong here as the few flaws don’t hold it back all that much. The main feature here is that for all the fine build-up it does into bringing the two of them together as a couple, the idea of jumping into the chase for the werewolf is a bit rushed and doesn’t come off that well. While it starts off showing that they can bond over his weird hobbies and interests mainly detailing the strange and odd, the jump to werewolf is a major one and it’s brushed aside so quickly that there’s not a logical build-up to the incident that makes it feel like a natural part of their time together. It’s much the same with the incident at the donut shop where she gets assaulted by the homeless man which is supposedly enough to slightly traumatize her after the fact but is never brought up or mentioned again when they meet moments later.

As well, while not a truly genuine flaw this one still deals with the kid-friendly mindset in terms of its gore and bloodshed which can be a slight problem for some. Even though there’s a pretty solid and higher body count than expected here, none of this is visible even in the aftermath or attack scenes so it can come off like a bit of a cheat in places. The constant nature of zooming behind objects located at the scene of the crime or fading to black before the strike can occur even though the attack definitely took place through audible cues rather than visual. That doesn’t mean it’s a full flaw of this one and that instead, it’s a choice of the film to get past going into it from the very start so this has to be something that’s kept in mind here should you choose to give it a shot, but is otherwise quite fun overall.

Overview: ****/5

An immensely impressive kid-friendly creature feature, that there’s not a whole lot to hold this one back which makes for a highly enjoyable time here with so many positive points helping this one overall. Those who are intrigued by this kind of genre effort or are big creature feature fans will have a lot to really like here while only fans turned off by the type of material present should heed caution here.