Storyline
Based on the real-life Richard Speck murders, amoral, nearly psychotic killer Warren Stacey (Gene Davis) is a serial killer who has murdered a number of women; he stabs them while they are naked to minimize leaving any physical evidence. Police detective Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson) is convinced of Stacey’s guilt and, over the objections of his partner, plants evidence to get him behind bars. When Stacey is released on a technicality, he threatens to go after Kessler and his family, leaving Kessler to defend himself against a killer with little help from the police.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Kelly Preston, Geoffrey Lewis, Shawn Schepps, Anne Lockhart, Barbara Pilavin, Wilford Brimley, Carmen Filpi, Andrew Stevens, Patti Tippo, Beau Billingslea, Charles Bronson, Ola Ray, Lisa Eilbacher, Gene Davis, Robert F. Lyons, Paul McCallum, Sydna Scott, Sam Chew Jr., Breck Costin, Cosie Costa, Bert Williams, Iva Lane, Jeana Keough, June Gilbert, Arthur Hansel, Katrina Parish, Deran Sarafian, Jeane Manson
Trailer
Reviews
70
William Roberts’ screenplay, while it sags in the middle, is damnably clever at dropping in its vicious vigilante theme without being didactic, and J. Lee Thompson’s direction, borrowing from Hitchcock’s editing in Psycho, creates the full horror of blades thrusting into naked bellies without the viewer ever actually seeing it happen.
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The movie 10 to Midnight gives you two genres for the price of one. You get the reactionary vigilantism of Death Wish combined with the slice 'n' dice misogyny of low-grade horror films, the kind in which virginal female bodies are systematically bared to allow unobstructed ingress to knives and other instruments of brutality. All that and Charles Bronson, too: a weirdo jackpot. [15 Mar 1983]
20
Apart from Bronson, this is a complete waste.
20
The New York Times
The suspense generated in this most cheaply sensational recounting set in Los Angeles is episodic, rising at the time of the kill and receding into boredom at other times. The actors, directed by J. Lee Thompson, seem a reasonably competent crew, although in this raunchy, bloodstained, moralizing account there is not much opportunity to demonstrate. [13 Mar 1983, p.62]
0
This movie indicates that Charles Bronson just doesn't care any more, and is just going through the motions for the money. I admired his strong, simple talent once. What is he doing in a garbage disposal like this?
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