Midnight Madness

I always used to say that Weird Science was my favorite movie until I found this movie. I grew up in the 80's but had not seen this movie since we didn't have HBO or cable TV back then. By the time the late 80's hit we (my brother and my friend down the street) were all watching horror movies at sleepovers so I missed seeing this somehow. Fast forward to the days of the Internet and I found this movie for free on YouTube but broken into parts and I was delighted to find the perfect movie. There's no cuss words or bloody violence, no nudity or sex, and no drug use. (except for when Blaylak jumps into the vat of beer at the Pabst Brewery, but I give it a pass). This movie transports me back in time to a time when I was still watched over by my parents and older brother and sister only being 4 years old in 1980. This was a time when if you went out to eat at a restaurant it was with your whole family. There was no one speaking about reptilians back then, however Land of the Lost had come out, so people did know about Sleestaks. I love the whole progression of the scavenger hunt, and especially at the beginning when they're looking up at the stars, knowing that the sky wasn't polluted with as many satellites as there are today. I still like to go outside and look at the stars and pretend that I'm under the protection of this movie. You know when people check up on you and ask if you've been keeping it PG? I think this would have been the movie that they had in mind, as this movie can't really be faulted for too much, no matter how bad the Siskel & Ebert review is of this movie. Midnight Madness truly is good clean family fun in an old school way. I need the same protections today that I would have had back then when the movie came out, being watched over, cared for and loved.

Well I just discovered IMDb from my twin sister, Carol. Carol and I played the "Fat Identical Twin" in Midnight Madness. We didn't have to prepare much for the fat part, that came with us, and well and the rest was natural. ;) It was our first major film role and we had a blast making it. We were 21 at the time and lived about an hour and half from The Disney Studio in Burbank and the Hollywood, California area. We grew up in front of the TV and probably some of the first generation of latch-key-kids. Twenty years later, we still have lots of fun and are still 'heavy' or what ever is politically correct these days. We don't pursue acting any more but have been know to 'come back' when the right opportunity arrives. Carol is a Chiropractor in our home town of Southern California and I am in the Information Technology field in Georgia.

I maybe bias, but I thought the film was cute, clean and fun. We knew it wasn't a master piece or an Oscar nominee, however, it was and still is a movie the whole family can watch and have fun together. It's nice not to have to worry if your young children can watch a video without having to fast forward certain parts. And no one was more exited when it was released on video as Carol and I were. Carol found it at Kmart for $6.99! Now that's an inexpensive way to capture one's memories and share it with others.

Sincerely, Betsy Lynn and Carol Gwynn; The Thompson Twins

I watched this film for the first time not too long ago. What I found was a nostalgia trip to the early eighties with the extremely "happy" disco laden theme song and the 2 roller skating beauties with nice "smiles" in the opening credits. There was an innocence and sense of fun to this movie that is lacking in today's movies. The film doesn't try to be too clever for it's own good or cynical which I actually found to be refreshing.

The plot centers around a scavenger hunt around L.A. set up by a future Bill Gates type named Leon who is adorned by his lovely assistants. The invitees for this challenge are 5 color coded groups representing every campus comedy stereotype (Jocks, Nerds, Alienated girls, the protagonists and the villains). They find themselves at Griffith Observatory, a Video arcade and the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery among other places hunting down clues to get them to the next location and ultimately the big prize that awaits them at the end. The film loses its campy momentum when it addresses the big brother-little brother issue between David Naughton and Michael J. Fox, these actors play extremely bland characters compared to the madcap supporting cast.

I found myself smiling and even chuckling in parts although the film was predictable, contrived not to mention, dated but upbeat and entertaining all the same.

It's good to be entertained and not have your brain taxed every now and again in this day and age of cynicism and self-referential smugness which runs in abundance in today's cinema.

This is the perfect antidote to the dark malaise seen in too many films now.

It doesn't quite deserve the disproportionate number of "10" votes it's received on this web site, but "Midnight Madness" is still a lot of fun. The eccentric Leon (Alan Solomon) organizes a cross-city scavenger hunt for five groups of college students ranging from nerds and jocks to babes and good guys. Each team must decipher a series of clues ("Mr. Carson's obese male child" leads to Johnny's Fat Boy Restaurant, and so on) before racing to the next location to do it again, all the while battling some occasional dirty tricks from rivals. The actual laughs few and far between, but you can't deny "Midnight Madness" carries heaps of cheesy '80s appeal. Look for Michael J. Fox (billed without the middle initial) in his film debut.

They don't make movies like this anymore – though some may say that's a good thing. Although this was amongst the first of Disney's PG rated films, it has more of the feel of the G films their studio turned out in the‘70s (i.e. "Freaky Friday," "The World's Greatest Athlete") than the PG films that came out in the early ‘80s (i.e. "Watcher in the Woods," "Tron," "Something Wicked This Way Comes"). Because of Disney's backing, "Midnight Madness" obviously had a large budget. A huge cast and a ton of diverse locations go to show that. But zaniness, a madcap scavenger hunt, and spectacular visual style weren't enough to save the film from being an enormous flop... A failure at the box office, most of us were introduced to the film on HBO in the early ‘80s, back in the days when the same films would be shown 29 times a week (Oh, wait – they still do that!). Essentially HBO did for this film what CBS did for "The Wizard of Oz" – they created an enormous cult audience for a sugary-sweet mega-flop....

The biggest problem that makes this a "bad" film is that there's too many characters and very few of them are fleshed out – Eddie Deezen's "squad" don't even have names! The blue team, although they're the villains, are the most endearing and have the most work put into their characters (with the exception of the girl, who can't act & doesn't have enough to do). Harold, perfectly played to the hilt by Stephen Furst, is really the only one whose character is fully realized in the film. The other standout character is goof-off Melio, played with tons of charm by now-director Andy Tennant. Although then-Dr. Pepper spokesman David Naughton was supposed to be the star, his character often comes off obnoxious, particularly when pitted against his brother Adam, Michael J. Fox. While everyone has favorite characters, I don't think anyone who loves the movie could disagree that Furst and Fox are the only two characters that you really learn anything about.

Despite the film's many flaws and bad actors (most of whom fell off the face of the earth after this movie) it still works because the actors appeared to be having fun -- and fun on the set equals fun on the screen. Come on, what college jock doesn't dream of floating around in a beer vat and what zoftig girl doesn't dream of stealing the show at the local discotech... er... I guess it would be at a rave nowadays... Campy, squeaky-clean fun for anyone who was young in the ‘70s & ‘80s, it's only fitting that this has finally gotten the massive video release that it deserves. But where the hell's the widescreen DVD release with the commentary, trailer and the full version of the song that plays in the disco?