Midnight

by John A. Russo

From the author of Night of the Living Dead and The Majorettes …John Russo. The little creatures came to play, and now in fresh-dug graves they lay. Cynthia and her three little brothers had heard the stories of their grandpa, who could summon demons and compel people to die with a curse. So, when the children discovered they, too, had the ancient power, they knew what to do. At first, they caught smallish demons who had assumed the shapes of rabbits and birds—and then larger demons, like the ones who resembled little Jimmy Peterson or his pretty red-haired sister. Now they are growing, their powers swelling, nourished by adult dreams and desires. Soon they will gather their own kind from the earth’s dark corners. Soon they will ready their rituals…the blood-red ceremonies performed one by one at… Midnight !

Genres: Horror, Audiobook, Horror Thriller

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1980

About the author

John A. Russo, sometimes credited as Jack Russo or John Russo, is an American screenwriter and film director most commonly associated with the 1968 horror classic film Night of the Living Dead. As a screenwriter, his credits include Night of the Living Dead, The Majorettes, Midnight, and Santa Claws. The latter two, he also directed. He has performed small roles as an actor, most notably the first ghoul who is stabbed in the head in Night of the Living Dead.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a blast from the past! This 1980 classic really did it for me. Runaway girl (abusive stepfather) meets some hick satanists on her way to California. Will she ever reach the promised land? Cynthia, leading witch and her brothers have other plans. Can their mom prevent them from doing worse? Well, you'll soon enough find out about mom and her condition... John Russo did another quintessential 80s horror novel full of nasty and explicit details. Some of the scenes are very shocking even for today's standards. Reads like a movie. And look at the cover illustration. This really was a novel of terror. Highly recommended!

[Sarah ♡ (let’s interact!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a few days late starting and finishing this Easter themed horror novella from the Night Of The Living Dead author John Russo.

Almost right from the start of this grizzly tale, I was filled with an absolute strong hatred towards Bert, the step father. He is easily one of the most detestable characters in fiction to me and I was hoping that he would get his comeuppance.
The story alternates between two families. The main being a young girl called Cynthia and her brothers carrying out horrible deeds to aid their Mother’s satanic needs.

I found the writing to be engaging in that typical pulp horror way, even when it felt like it was being padded out between killings and more gory details.
The twist with the Mother is really when the story picks up the pace and truly feels even more horrifying.
Midnight had that quintessential ‘80s horror feeling throughout, it plays out like one of those movies in your head which made it all the more appealing to me. 💀

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

The 70s/80s horror boom produced some schlock, some trashy pulp, and also John Russo. Russo co-wrote Night of the Living Dead with George Romero, and also wrote several other b movie screenplays; he even directed a few. Along with this activity, he wrote several b-grade horror novels that read like screenplays for b-grade movies. I love Night of the Living Dead, and some of the other films Russo worked on like The Majorettes. This book? Meh.

Midnight is kinda fun in a really campy, cheesy way, but drew upon so many tired horror tropes it felt like a bad pastiche of the horror genre. This starts off with a prologue in West Virginia somewhere where a family butchers someone caught in a leg claw trap. The mother of the family claims she has descended from a long line of powerful 'cunning men/women' and runs a little shop where she sells witch supplies.

Our main protagonist, Nancy, is a 17 yo beauty who runs away from home after her drunken stepfather tried to rape her. She falls in with a pair of college kids on spring break heading to Florida who pick her up hitchhiking. You know where this is going to go; somehow she will fall in with the crazed family. While this would make for a pretty decent exploitation/horror flick, given the plethora of scantily clad females and violence, as a novel it falls rather flat. There just isn't anything really novel here; witches, black mass, rednecks, etc., all drawn together in cinematic scenes. 2 stars.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Midnight. Midnight was a big surprise to me. I was looking at my friend's shelf, looking for a new book to borrow, which is something I do very often, and I stopped at this one and asked her if I could take it, obviously. (even if it your best friend, always ask for permission, for a book lover loves their books more than they love you.) As soon I started reading I fell in love. The writing is very fluent, not boring and it leaves you always with a cliffhanger at every page. I guess I don't need to say that I asked my friend for the book, and we ended up switching books, because I HAD to have this book on my shelf.

[David Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Midnight begins with a lot of pervy leering at its teenage protagonist in a writing style that feels like it comes straight from the pen of a fourteen year old boy who doesn’t know what to do with his hormones. Boys consider what girls are wearing. Girls consider their own bodies. Step-dads consider their daughters’ bodies. It’s all pretty icky. Which is disappointing because the story does eventually find some traction and build toward something, but you have to wade through the sleaze to get there.

The book spends a while bouncing back and forth between a family of religious zealots and some attractive young people on a road trip with the not so subtle suggestion that these divergent characters will cross paths sooner or later. It works its way up to this meeting with some sluggish pacing and tonal changes that have all the deftness of a Claudio Fragasso movie. And it harbors somewhere in its midst a tired message about religious fundamentalism and man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man. Even if the message were new or were spun in a fresh way, it’s pretty much given away by an epigraph that tells you everything you need to know well in advance.

Still, Russo does create some moments of surprise and tension. At times, characters are killed off unexpectedly or the psychotic family members show up in places you don’t expect. At other times, burgeoning heroes don’t step in to save the day but, instead, look out for their own interests. But, at its core, this is little more than a Texas Chainsaw Massacre wanna-be with more of a focus on religiosity.

[Emma Alice Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Worst Book I Have Ever Read

Toward the end of Midnight, when things are heating up, when the book should be getting exciting, here's what happens: a two-page description of a new character shopping for Easter egg dye, with a lengthy description of the history of the country store she is shopping at. It's like a reverse editor worked on this book and instead of taking out all the boring parts, left them in and took out the exciting parts instead.

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A family with a satanist obsessive mother and four kids will embark on a journey of depraved, evil and sick desires to please Satan. The children will have their first kill, a local boy who will be caught in one of their traps and repeatedly smashed in the head with a shovel. A runaway girl will be caught and locked in a cage until a ritual begins. The witches are normal law abiding citizens but under the surface is the ultimate evil. One of the kidnapped girls step father is also one complete sick prick.

[MJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really love anything that has to do with the occult. This books read like an 80's horror movie and that's what I liked about it.

The few things I didn't like were, the stepfather was a horrible, ridiculous excuse for a man. There really wasn't much backstory. I mean they told how the kids became the way they were but they never told how the mother ended up the way she was (in the end) and the freaking ending. I mean really? You couldn't throw in a few pages to give us a true ending.

[Jeff O'Brien · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shame on Burning Bulb Publishing. And I mean serious shame. This ebook was unreadable, I used the "look inside" option on the paperback and found it to be of the same quality. I have to think they had someone read it out loud from a copy of the original paperback and used talk to text. Or maybe the original paperback was that bad too. Either way, any publisher who publishes a book with errors and typos on every page has no business making books.

The word "cataclysm" was used in place of "catechism" which did give me a pretty good laugh. There was one line in the second chapter where a girl is giving confession to a priest. The priest asks: "Did you fail to tell some senior were guilty of?"

What??

I can only imagine that line was supposed to read: "Did you fail to tell some sin you were guilty of?" hence my talk to text theory.

One star because I can't give zero. Publishers who put out material like this with zero work or knowledge put into it flat out offend me.

As far as my review of the story, I can only say it was terrible. An actual editor might have helped, sure. But not much.

[E. Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Midnight by John Russo is about a runaway girl who escapes her creepy police officer stepdad and hitches a ride with two guys on their way to Florida for spring break. The other point of view is about a satanic cult who are looking for women for an Easter ritual, and they believe they are descendants of witches.

I love horror books from the 80s because you don't get this type of horror anymore. You can feel the nostalgia, and the horror is much more potent and uncut. I love Russo's writing, and this story kept me on the edge. The ending is for people who like to see scoops of ice cream fall from kids' cones.


I give Midnight by John Russo 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 out of five jack-o'-lanterns.


Keep it spooky! 🎃👍

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m a fan of the 1982 movie adaptation of Midnight, directed by the author, John Russo. It’s a low-budget but charming occult slasher filmed in the Pittsburgh area. I was curious how Russo’s original novel compared to the film. And look at that gorgeous paperback artwork. How could anyone resist that? The book itself is pretty straightforward, the writing style isn’t spectacular but nevertheless perfectly readable in a pulpy sort of way. The story comes across a little flat on paper, but it’s also a bit darker than the film, which surprised me. It’s a quick, painless read, not a bad way to pass an evening. But I still think I prefer the film.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mean-spirited, fast-paced and no filler.

I enjoyed it overall, but probably could have had a touch more substance to it.

[Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good ending. Russo's writing is serviceable but not exactly literary. Does genuinely capture a sense of "horror" in some parts. Movie is better.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it overall, had enough going on throughout the book, but not overflowing with "action" in every chapter.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

The children of satan worshipers grow up and kidnap victims to use in a ceremonial sacrifice. It was relatively tame in terms of horror or exploitation, but it has a slimy film of sleaze and nihilism that appeals to me. The book rambled about following various characters, often waiting several chapters before they entered the main narrative. These sections were engaging enough character studies, but I can see how it may strike some readers as padding, especially for a book with this low of a body count.

Written by the co-creator of the Night of the Living Dead, Russo directed the film version a couple years later.

More reviews at Trash Menace.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not well written and has big pacing problems. Despite that I really enjoyed reading it. It reminded me of early Laymon; when the author doesn't know what the "rules" are anything can happen. The utter nihilism of the ending was shocking. I'm not really recommending this, but if you have some patience and are adventurous give it a try.

[Anthony Giancola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Midnight is written by John Russo, who you might recognize as the creative partner of George A. Romero. The film, Midnight, is based on this book and is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It’s not just the cheapness of the production, or the blandness of the acting that makes it so wretched, but the incoherence of it. I picked up this book basically as a curiosity, and to hopefully clarify the film, and in many ways thats what reading this book accomplished.
In other ways, it shows how dull this story is fundamentally. While there is further elaboration on the characters, and Russo is not a bad writer by any means, the elaboration doesn’t equal depth. To say it simply, this is a short story put through Wonka’s taffy stretcher and could have been better accomplished with less time. Or, if Russo had more style I would have a greater sustained interest.
The film’s ending is a lot more over the top, and I have to assume this book and the script were written simultaneously because the book ends right before the last 20 minutes of the film.
So, eh, it’s a curiosity piece at best, but I was curious.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. A teenager runs away from her abusive father and finds herself swept up in some unusual predicaments-she meets a couple of frat boy shoplifters and witnesses some reckless police corruption-but the sh*t abruptly hits the fan when she is kidnapped and caged by some devil worshippers. Religious jargon often devours various pages in this brief read, but Russo’s writing style is horrific and fetching.

The overall tone is a bit pulpy, but their are some graphic moments filled with sinister torture. Worth checking out.

[Ned Wells · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I wouldn't call this essential, it was definitely a strange one. Kind of a half baked mashup of the Sawyer family and a satanic cult, could definitely tell it was written during the "satanic panic" era. Russo was known for his screenplay for Night of the Living Dead, as well as other novels and film productions. This book was also adapted into a film by the same title which I have yet to see. There was a fatalistic dark sense of humor running through this novel that I enjoyed. I would read more of his work.

[Shirley Nuñez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Folklore Horror or Psychological Thriller? You decide. This reads like a vintage 80’s horror film set in the 70’s. No world building, no intricate character analysis, and to be perfectly honest…who the hell needs that from a short horror novel. This is that midnight snack, that slice of pie you sneak into the kitchen for on a night you know you won’t sleep and your mind is hungry for terror. It’s short, bite sized, straight to the f*cking point! Go into this blind! Just do it!

[DJMikeG · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first book I read by Russo, Black Cat, which I read almost exactly one year ago by sheer coincidence. So, I was looking forward to reading this one. No such luck. I really disliked this tawdry, dumb little book. You know you are in trouble when you are nearing the end of a book and there are no twists coming, there is no spark or energy whatsoever. Things just march along glumly to an abrupt and unsatisfying ending, and that is what happened here.

[Angie Bulkeley · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Midnight, Russo weaves a wicked tale that will leave your head spinning. Too much room for spoilers, so let’s just say Midnight is an engrossing read that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nasty, spiteful and good fun. I expect no less from 80’s horror.

[Scott Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like films like “ Texas Chainsaw Massacre “ or “Wrong Turn “ then this is the book for you.

[Airihi Day · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow! That's a fkd up ending

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raised to 3.75 stars.
I may have to read Night Of The Living Dead, also by John A. Russo.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and scary. B-like.