Tribeca Midnight section unveiled: V/H/S 2, Frankenstein’s Army and more!

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival has revealed its Midnight section, where all the naughty kids go to play. This year’s line-up looks like a solid one, with a handful of title’s we’ve been highly anticipating.

Kicking off the rebranded Midnight section is Marina de Van’s stylish DARK TOUCH, the disturbing story of a traumatized young girl whose subconscious begins to lash out at those who have wronged her. The young girl at the center of Dark Touch is not Midnight’s only superwoman either. Between the man-made super-warrior slowly discovering her sentience in THE MACHINE, and Zoe Bell’s modern-day gladiator fighting her way through an army of opponents in the action-packed RAZE, strong women dominate Midnight. Strange and superhuman powers are also lurking in the mysterious figure haunting a young married couple at their mountain retreat in the found-footage supernatural thriller MR. JONES. But found footage really reaches its apotheosis as a genre in the horror extravaganza V/H/S/2, an omnibus of the most cutting-edge genre filmmakers working today that includes zombies, cultists, ghosts and alien invasions. Between action, horror, sci-fi and found-footage, Midnight offers seven films for all genre tastes.

– DARK TOUCH, directed and written by Marina de Van. (France) – World Premiere, Narrative. Niamh is the lone survivor of a bloody massacre after the furniture and objects in her family’s isolated house take on a monstrous life of their own. The police ignore her wild stories and the family friends and social worker who take her in try to introduce a new life. But in this psychological thriller, Niamh is unable to leave her violent past behind her, endangering everyone who crosses her path.

– FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY (pictured above), directed by Richard Raaphorst, written by Chris W. Mitchell and Miguel Tejada-Flores. (Netherlands) – International Premiere, Narrative. In the waning days of World War II, a team of Russian soldiers finds itself on a mysterious mission to the lab of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein. They unearth a terrifying Nazi plan to resurrect fallen soldiers as an army of unstoppable freaks and are soon trapped in a veritable haunted house of cobbled-together monstrosities. Frankenstein’s Army is the wild steampunk Nazi found-footage zombie mad scientist film you’ve always wanted.

– FRESH MEAT, directed by Danny Mulheron, written by Briar Grace-Smith. (New Zealand) – New York Premiere, Narrative. After a poorly executed escape from the police, a gang of dysfunctional criminals flees to the suburbs and gets more than it bargained for when it crash lands in the garage of an upper-class Maori family whose refined palates have developed a taste for human flesh. This action-packed horror comedy tells a blood-spattered tale of basement butchery and shifting allegiances as these unlikely adversaries enter a deadly showdown. A Tribeca Film release.

– THE MACHINE, directed and written by Caradog James. (U.K.) –World Premiere, Narrative. Caradog James adds another layer to the Frankenstein story in the latest gripping sci-fi adventure to come out of the U.K.. Already deep into a second Cold War, Britain’s Ministry of Defence seeks a game-changing weapon. Programmer Vincent McCarthy unwittingly provides an answer in The Machine, a super-strong human cyborg played by the impressive Caity Lotz (The Pact). When a programming bug causes the prototype to decimate his lab, McCarthy takes his obsessive efforts underground, far away from inquisitive eyes.

– MR. JONES, directed and written by Karl Mueller. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Scott (Jon Foster) is a filmmaker in need of inspiration. He and his girlfriend Penny move into a desolate house hoping to make a breakthrough. Then they discover their neighbor, the elusive Mr. Jones. Famous for his haunting sculptures, Mr. Jones has remained a mystery to the world. Scott and Penny, convinced that they have found the perfect film subject, sneak into his workshop and realize that their curiosity may have chilling consequences. Who is Mr. Jones?

– RAZE, directed by Josh Waller, written by Robert Beaucage. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Stuntwoman Zoe Bell (Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill 1&2) headlines this sly subversion of the women-in-prison genre. After Sabrina (Bell) is abducted, she finds herself in an underground lair, forced to do battle with other innocent women for the amusement of unseen spectators. Each of these reluctant warriors has something to lose, but only one will remain when the game is done. Violent and relentless, Raze takes its video game aesthetic to the deepest and darkest places, rarely surfacing for air. Includes Rachel Nichols and Tracie Thoms.

– V/H/S/ 2 (pictured below), directed by Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Eduardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Evans, Jason Eisener, written by Barrett, Jamie Nash, Tjahjanto, Evans, Eisener, and John Davies (USA, Indonesia) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Investigators break into a house, find a vast collection of VHS tapes and play them one by one. The videos include visions of the paranormal, flesh-eating zombies, a shockingly genuine scene of hell on earth and a slumber party gone horribly awry. This highly anticipated sequel to last year’s horror breakout V/H/S features contributions from contemporary genre filmmaking’s leading talents, including the creators of Hobo with a Shotgun, The Raid, You’re Next and The Blair Witch Project. In English, Indonesian with subtitles. A Magnet Release.