Donald Eilenberger

A watch it again sort of movie. Glad I own the DVD of it. If you like your comedy dark this is the movie for you. "Ohhh noooo" is so memorable as Paul yet is again foiled in his quest to just go home. I watched this when it first showed up on early cable TV and made a videotape of it. We had my wife's elderly aunt visiting one weekend, and I knew she always enjoyed the somewhat oddball movies we found, so I put it on. She laughed hard enough to be scary that she'd injure herself. I had summed up the plot thusly: "A guy goes on a date in Soho, his date commits suicide and then the evening takes a turn for the worse." I kind of wonder about the people panning the movie. What age group are you? I'm an early boomer, and was quite familiar with Soho around that time - before it became the safe gentrified expensive place that it is now. It was scary at night, and I could imagine just what happened in After Hours happening in 1985 or so. Club Berlin was undoubtedly based on a number of real clubs in Soho at the time. Griffen Dunne was an actor I always wondered what happened to him after After Hours.. didn't see much of him until he popped up in some cable series recently. Glad to see he hasn't just disappeared. One of my favorite parts was the Teri Garr subplot. Someone who seemed normal enough at first if a bit ditzy but who quickly became very very odd and off-center. I've known people like that and Teri nailed that performance. So.. a guy goes on a date.. Watch it.

Strangely the ending comes as no surprise. It's been described as "watchable" - and it is that thanks to Denzel's performance. Almost no one else is of any interest in the movie, they just seem to be there for Denzel to bounce his performance off. Watch it on a slow night when nothing else worth watching is on.

Wonderful because the horror of the film is - you never know what's happening next and is it real? Imagined? Or delusions? Great acting by everyone - the really eerie car drive home is so dark you need to watch it on a good digital TV with Dolby Video - and all the room lights turned off. Even then - there are times you just don't know what you'll see next.

Wonderful atmosphere in the time just preceding WW-II in England. And a rather compelling story of a widow driven by personal demons that lead to an epic archeological find.

Very strange, dark, complex and entertaining. I'm amazed it got made.