Into the Dark: "Midnight Kiss"
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Figure #1 - The poster for the
"Midnight Kiss" episode in
Hulu's original Into the Dark series. |
Slasher films are iconic for their standardized formula. Most, if not all, follow a similar structure when telling their story: the usage of a terrible place/location, the traits of the killer, the final girl, the weapons the murderer uses, etc. But have you ever stopped to consider if any slasher film handles its discussions in a modernized way? Making it perhaps... gay-friendly? Yes, I have found a film that tackles the slasher genre in a gay space... and it is amazing in its conversations! Be prepared to see how the LGBT+ community can also run a slasher film.
As part of the Into the Dark Hulu original series, "Midnight Kiss" remixes normal horror movie conventions with gay subject-matter. To provide brief and concise summary: a group of four gay men (Cameron, Joel, Zachary, and Logan) and one straight woman (Hannah) meet to celebrate New Year's Eve. As part of their yearly tradition, they continue to participate in the Midnight Kiss game: a self-created game where they are allowed to kiss and, essentially, hookup with whomever they like before and after the New Year arrives. To their surprise, a killer appears at their mansion's doorstep - savagely attacking and killing members of their group. Every male in this film is homosexual; the only heterosexual person shown is Hannah, and she is the only woman in the film. These concepts of gender are quickly modified with just understanding the cast. There is so much more within "Midnight Kiss."
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Figure #2 - The group of five friends, from top row to bottom row,
left to right: Cameron, Zachary, Hannah, Joel, and Logan. |
Clover's Terrible Place conversation is turned on its head. She states, "[w]hat makes these houses terrible is not just their Victorian decrepitude but the terrible families - murderous, incestuous, cannibalistic - that occupy them" (197). To ignite this conversation, the house that these murders happen in is not a decrepit Victorian building, but inside of a lavish and luxurious mansion. The mansion is 100% modern, and is equipped with everything a rich individual can purchase: massive outdoor swimming pool, multiple bedrooms with individual bathrooms, gate-protected driveway, outdoor office, etc. This mansion belongs to Joel and his family, and he arranges for his group of friends to celebrate New Year's here every year. Nobody is a stranger to Joel's home, except for his new fiancé, Logan. Through this, this group of friends have a makeshift family. Thus, introducing the incestuous discussion. As not literal blood-related incest, the gaggle of friends have a history of hooking up with one another. Despite their messy history, they continuously make these plans to celebrate this holiday together. (Zachary and Cameron hooked up; Hannah hooked up with Ryan (a gay male who is murdered in the first five minutes of the film), then Ryan hooked up with Cameron, Zachary, and Joel; Cameron and Joel once dated.) As a line directly pulled from the movie, Hannah says: "That's why we created the [Midnight Kiss] game, so we wouldn't be incestuous anymore" ("Midnight Kiss"). The characters in the film are all so close, practically family. They can self recognize how incestuous they are, and how they must fix it. Directly voicing what Clover says, it is fascinating to see how "Midnight Kiss" injects a homosexual flair into this normalized horror film trope.
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Figure #3 - Logan sitting on the
pool's edge while next to Joel. |
Furthering the conversation of gender in this film, Clover's Killer discussion is also altered in. Clover says that "[w]e catch sight of the[ killer] only in glimpses - few and far between in the beginning, more frequent toward the end. They are usually large, sometimes overweight, and often masked" (Clover 196). SPOILER ALERT: the killer is revealed to be Logan, Joel's fiancé. And he is not large, nor overweight. He is a very good-looking homosexual male; Logan is physically fit, blond, and what people might call a 'dreamboat.' While the audience sees few glimpses of the killer, we meet Logan in the very beginning of the film. We immediately see him as one of the new members of their close-knit group. His physical description does not fit the stereotypical image of the killer. Because of this, the way homosexual facets are included in the film are layered. There is not just one thing, said and done. There is a lot present.
As the upmost important aspect to any slasher film, The Final Girl is also changed in this film. Clover describes the final girl as "the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again... She alone looks death in the face" (Clover 201).
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Figure #4 - Cameron and Hannah
waiting for the police's arrival
after the murder spree. |
At the end of the murder spree, there are only three survivors: Cameron, Hannah, and Joel - even though Joel is shunned after he is discovered to have murdered Cameron's one-night fling, Dante, in lustful revenge. Even though there is a girl, Hannah, that makes it to the end of "Midnight Kiss," Cameron is the Final Girl. He sees Zachary's mutilated body, and finds the lifeless body of Dante. The whole murder spree is dedicated to him. It is revealed that Logan has wanted revenge for being Cameron's dismissed midnight kiss seven years ago. Logan wanted to see him suffer, and suffer he does. This is why he is the final girl; the final girl trope is reinvented into a final boy trope. Again, this film continues to find ways to insert homosexuality in the normalized horror film conventions.
"Midnight Kiss" revamps the slasher genre, adding multiple LGBT+ layers. The conversations this work has about gender is modern. The terrible place is an opulent mansion; the murderer is an attractive, homosexual male; the final girl (final boy) is a homosexual male. Nothing about "Midnight Kiss" reinforces conservative/old-fashioned ideas of gender. This work creates a small disruption in gender discussions, as it exudes LGBT+. The effect of this for the audience is striking: we witness that the LGBT+ community also can be phenomenal in the slasher genre.
Sources:
Clover J. Carol. "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film." Representations, Special Issue: Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy, no. 20, 1987, pp. 187-228. JStor, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928407.
"Midnight Kiss." Into the Dark, season 2, episode 4, 27 Dec. 2019, Hulu, https://www.hulu.com/watch/1025a39a-f965-4a95-87f9-c0fb65840f15.
Figure #1 - https://inreview.blog/2020/04/15/colorful-and-fresh-into-the-dark-midnight-kiss-2019-hulu-episode-review/
Figure #2 - https://screenrant.com/into-dark-midnight-kiss-cast-character-guide/
Figure #3 - http://www.nightmarishconjurings.com/2020/01/03/interview-actor-lukas-gage-for-into-the-darks-midnight-kiss/
Figure #4 - https://inreview.blog/2020/04/15/colorful-and-fresh-into-the-dark-midnight-kiss-2019-hulu-episode-review/
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