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.
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.