Midday Black Midnight Blue (2022)

Our past can often come back to haunt us, to wreak havoc on our present. That’s the reality that Ian (Chris Stack) is living right now, haunted by an ex-lover, a person who he believed to be the one he would spend forever with. Midday Black Midnight Blue is Ian’s story as he recollects his past, both the truth and the falsities that he’s fabricated in his head. As he navigates his harrowing past, his hopes and dreams are slowly crushed, and any chance at a productive future seems to be headed out the window.

Stack gets to play a little bit of everything throughout the course of Midday Black Midnight Blue. He gets to be the thriving man with everything he could ever want, the fractured and crippled individual struggling at every turn–and then there are times when he plays the delusional, borderline psychotic (understandably) person who can’t come to terms with his reality. Stack has a difficult job, having to run the gamut of emotions, having to be almost every emotion for viewers–and he never misses a beat.

While Midday Black Midnight Blue is absolutely a drama, I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say that it’s also somewhat of a horror film as well. We get all of the emotion from beginning to end, but as Ian’s thoughts swirl around in his head, as he feels like he’s trapped inside of his own mind, viewers are thrown into the deep end of a psychological horror film. This smooth and subtle transition, something that happens time and time again throughout the course of Midday Black Midnight Blue, we get the best of both worlds. Every minute is dripping with emotion, and an incredible balance is created that transcends the entirety of the film. Between horror and drama, this film grips viewers from the opening moments and constantly finds new ways to appeal to them. The in-depth look at the human mind finds a series of avenues by which it touches viewers, and the heavy, brilliantly accurate emotion is real and beautiful.

Midday Black Midnight Blue is an intentionally fractured film, one that bounces from place to place and blends fiction and reality. This initially feels like it might hinder the film, like it might be a reason why the film can’t function properly and why it’s incapable of appealing to viewers. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Midday Black Midnight Blue is a story that exists almost entirely in Ian’s head, and the human mind doesn’t always work in a linear fashion, bouncing from place to place and sometimes making no sense whatsoever. We can’t control our thoughts, and this film does a wonderful job of representing the often unruly nature of the human mind. That is what captivates viewers, that’s what will, more than anything else in the film, appeal to them and keep them engaged.

This film is brilliantly constructed. It’s aesthetically wonky, all over the place and sometimes hard to follow. Writer-Directors Samantha Soule and Daniel Talbott understand how their film is constructed, and they are well aware of the fact that it is sometimes challenging–so they always bring viewers back to a place where they can regroup, where they can find solid ground. They expertly craft Midday Black Midnight Blue, and they know just how to reach their viewers emotionally, ruffle some feathers, travel to a horrifying (almost otherworldly) dimension, and then ground us. Midday Black Midnight Blue is stunning, and I loved every minute of it.

Written & Directed by Samantha Soule & Daniel Talbott.

Starring Chris Stack, Samantha Soule, Merritt Wever, Will Pullen, Addie Johnson Talbott, McCaleb Burnett, etc.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10