Midnight Offerings

A very middling TV movie from a genre which is usually fantastic. MIDNIGHT OFFERINGS just feels rather weak and tame in terms of its plotting and ideas, and Wes Craven's SUMMER OF FEAR, a similarly-themed TV movie from the 1970s which predates it, was a lot, lot, better.

The storyline involves a couple of teenage witch rivals fighting over a jock in your typical American high school. Some of the fun comes from the fact that both girls come from long-running American soaps: evil witch Melissa Sue Anderson is off the back of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, while good witch Mary Beth McDonough comes from THE WALTONS. Watching these two actresses squaring up is kind of fun, but there isn't much fun overall.

Too much of the running time is dragged out with discussions involving disbelieving characters and the supernatural action, when it hits, is over and done with too quickly. It's not that MIDNIGHT OFFERINGS is a particularly bad film per se - the climax is effective and there are some genuinely spooky moments handled well on the low budget - it's just that American TV movies from this era are often much, much better (like DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW for instance).