"10 to Midnight" is like any schlocky, inane 80's slasher picture except with some decent actors who don't give it much of a lift. How can they? It is indistinguishable from any slasher picture except it is uglier and has a pure disdain for women in general (and it is a Cannon picture). Sure, the killer who is barenaked when he stabs women is certifiably insane and clearly hates women, no question. The movie, though, hates women as well, often photographing them rather unflatteringly and as naked props set up for the kill. You know, like any rudimentary slasher picture.
Lisa Eilbacher, a sweet and engaging presence in many movies, is a nurse and the daughter of a cop who doesn't play by the rules (Charles Bronson). She is estranged from her father and has a thing for his clean-cut partner (Andrew Stevens), a diligently by-the-book cop who uses words like "inured" that leaves Bronson perplexed. I guess Bronson's cop doesn't have much of a vocabulary.
Other than Eilbacher, nothing else in "10 to Midnight" rates as entertainment even on the most basic sleazy, gore level. It is just nasty and disgustingly violent with repeated bloody stabbings of nude women - you never see the knife penetrating their bellies, which is I guess is sort of admirable. But you do see the victims covered in blood, one after another, with every thinly characterized woman as fodder (they include an early appearance by Kelly Preston, and Ola Ray from Michael Jackson's "Thriller"). One man is killed while having sex in a van with the killer's co-worker - the naked killer chases the naked girl when maybe she should have headed back to the van and took off (slasher victims in the 80's weren't too bright).
How is any of this acceptable for a Charles Bronson vehicle that should be of a slightly higher pedigree? The killer (Gene Davis - Brad Davis's brother) has the mentality of an overgrown child who doesn't get his way, his motive being that if women didn't keep rejecting his advances, they might live. How noble. And when he hears that he could use an insanity defense, he uses it to defend his actions against Bronson face-to-face. Sorry but between ten and midnight, I'd rather be sleeping than sitting through this atrocity again.
