First let me say that I'll be on pins and needles for the next couple of days as I noticed I have had over 99,400+ visitors and I'm biting my nails wondering when it will 'turn over' to 100,000...
I hope whoever put together this Midnight Horror: Terror & Torment package got fired. Actually I hope somebody hung him/her by their toes and flayed just a couple of inches of skin off so they would know in the future the definition of terror and torment. This is not even labeled as a horror movie, but a thriller. And it wasn't even that.
Why did I watch it? I would point at the title of my blog but I'm too tired. But it was that and three other reasons: Jeffrey Donovan, who I watched on Burn Notice (before I got tired of waiting to find out who burned him and why), Miranda Bailey, and Zach Selwyn. If you don't know those last two names friend, you've never seen Dead And Breakfast, which was a very weird but funny zombie-ish movie. Miranda played Lisa, the recordskeeper of Lovelock who owned plenty of firepower for whatever reason, and Zach Selwyn, also known as Zachariah who plays with his band The Lobos Riders, is a singer who kept the movie going with little intervals of dialogue/singing and this Thriller-like number:
You know they're dead 'cause we feel so alive when we kill, kill, kill...
A movie with a 2 million dollar budget, filmed in Santa Clarita, California, this movie is about a couple selling a baby to a richer couple, but they plan to take the money and baby and run. That's about it.
The whole thing is narrated by mother-to-be Dina (Miranda Bailey) in hindsight... to an old man, Peter (Richard Riehl) she hitches a ride from. She and the reluctant daddy Ron (Waylon Payne) are homeless, staying in a motel, yet they correspond with this rich couple on the internet and arrange a meeting. Hmm, living in their car, but exchanging emails and having internet. Well, at least their priorities are in order.
The rich couple are in a new development that will be a gated community - their house is the only one finished (the 'model') and is the kind no normal person can afford ever. This is where the idiots - umm, I mean hopeful Paul (Jeffrey Donovan) and Maria (Leonor Varela, who has a long film and TV history with Blade II, Arrested Development, Stargate Atlantis, etc.) live. They seem to be rich and eager, but... something is off.
The two cash seekers try to play nice, but it's hard to be civil with wine drinking yuppies when you're total white trash (that's according to the movie, not me). While playing a game similar to Pictionary, the daddy not-to-be loses his temper and slaps Dina. After that, Paul orders them to go. He had figured out that they were probably trying to rip them off anyway. His wife, however, is desperate for a baby and promises to get them the deposit they were to receive before the birth. Paul, however, claims to have taken the deposit and put it back in the bank. The mother-who-wants-to-be gets angry at Paul and goes into convulsions. Among other medical problems, she's diabetic.
Paul can't find her medication - of course. On my horror movie worksheet (patent pending), one of the rules of horror (even though this movie is NOT horror) is if you have a condition (for instance, asthma) you never keep spare medication where you can easily use it if needed - it is always hidden or you're out of it.
Paul tears drawers apart like he's looking for a little bottle or something but comes back with this shaving kit sized bag full of needles and medication - he had to search for that? He gets a sterile needle and prepares the insulin. Now, anyone who's ever seen someone suffering from Diabetes Type 2 know they inject themselves daily, usually in the thigh or stomach. The needles are tiny, since the patient has to subject themselves to injections daily.When Paul prepares to inject his wife in the abdomen, all of a sudden the needle is this huge honking metal abomination that I wouldn't let anywhere near me. It certainly wasn't the same needle he filled from the vial. I have no idea why they'd do that - it was the only frightening thing in the whole damned movie.
The white trash couple are imprisoned - the pregnant one in a closet that locks on the outside (WHAT THE HELL WOULD YOU NEED THAT FOR???) and the idiot boyfriend Ron gets away, looking for the promised money. He soon learns that they have been thoroughly researched (including jail records). We also find out that the couple's money mostly belongs to the wife, Maria.
Dina is apparently a racist - she keeps calling Maria the 's' word since she is Hispanic. But Leonor in real life was born and raised in Chile so... wouldn't that make her a chick? Oof, that was... a bad, bad, joke. Sorry about that - must be this movie.
During this whole thing Dina is still talking to 'Peter' as they drive down the road, stop at a diner (he is behind the counter serving the coffee - whaaa?), keep driving, stop at a garage where he seems to be comfortable with the place while she's in the bathroom staring at a pregnancy test... uh, wait a minute that's not... never mind. 
There isn't another single soul around. That's a big hint by the way. Leaving the garage he says 'Are you ready to move on?' instead of just saying 'Are you ready to go?' And he keeps giving her all this sage advice which is worthless since all this is in 'hindsight'.
So the 'chick' (sorry) is going to cut the baby out of Dina. Her stomach expands every time the camera focuses on it I swear, until it's like a balloon. The two men are fighting in the garage of the house. Ron stabs the Paul in the leg with a screwdriver. In other words, nothing important is happening.
Finally Ron is killed with the screwdriver. Paul tries to kill Dina but the desperate Maria kills him with a wine bottle - and (ahem) a piece of glass hits Dina's neck and slashes it open. Umm, no. That wouldn't... oh never mind. Maria gets an emergency kit from the car...Now we're back at the motel from the beginning of the movie - the sign says no vacancy but nobody's there except Dina and Peter standing in doorway.
Flashing back to dying Dina - Maria has the kit which carries an all-steel scalpel (of course) and obviously is going to get her baby. She cuts out the baby, Dina dies and the story's over. Peter tells Dina it's 'time to go' and they drive off into WHAT THE BLOODY HELL? land...
And I am done.
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