The Mid‑Night Driver opens with a smirk in its throat and a bruise under its eye, a comic‑gothic blend that Alex Cherney steers toward something stranger than a simple suburban haunting. Devan Delugo anchors the film with a performance that refuses to wink at the premise, which gives the ritual’s absurdity a sharper edge. Claire’s first summoning is played with restraint, and that restraint becomes the film’s engine: the ride is brief, unnerving, and governed by rules that feel older than the neighborhood around them. Cherney uses the moment to set the film’s tone—half dare, half warning.
The film’s humor creeps in through the ritual’s stiffness, a suburban prank that mutates into a binding contract. Claire’s friends treat the whole thing as a joke, and the film uses their disbelief to tighten the pressure around her. When she returns to the ritual alone, the story shifts into a darker register. The second ride is harsher, more punishing, and the rules that once felt quaint now feel carved into the night. Delugo’s stillness in the driver’s seat becomes a force that shapes Claire’s choices, and the film’s eerie mood deepens without losing its comic pulse.
Cherney’s direction thrives on the outskirts—the empty roads, the unlit stretches of Long Island where the world thins. These spaces give the film its gothic weight. Claire’s obsession grows in the gaps between what she can prove and what she cannot escape, and the film treats that tension as its true subject. The supernatural elements never overwhelm the human ones; instead, they press against them, testing the limits of belief and consequence.
Al Reno and Izzy Marinucci round out the cast with performances that keep the film grounded in the petty frictions of friendship. Their skepticism becomes part of the film’s architecture, a pressure that pushes Claire deeper into the ritual’s grip. Cherney’s editing keeps the story taut, refusing to let scenes drift into pure exposition. Every detail carries weight, even when the film leans into its comic shadows.
By the end, The Mid‑Night Driver stands as a small, eerie chamber piece about thrill‑seeking, doubt, and the rituals we invent to feel something sharper than boredom. It stumbles in places, but its mood lingers, and Delugo’s presence gives the film a spine that never bends
Letter Grade: B+ .
Letter Grade: B.
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