My quick rating - 3.9/10. Sometimes you stumble across a horror anthology hoping for a hidden gem, only to realize you’ve instead paid admission to the world’s grimiest carnival sideshow. Midnight Peepshow is exactly that—an intriguing concept trapped inside a thrift-store execution. Shot in 2022, then apparently left wandering in distribution purgatory for a couple of years, it finally oozed its way onto streaming services, presumably after someone blew the dust off the hard drive and said, “Eh, good enough.”
The premise is absolutely solid: an unnamed madame runs a peep show unlike any other, where customers don’t just watch—they’re forced to confront their deepest desires, fears, and sins. Tonight’s lucky contestant is a businessman with ties to an extreme fantasy website, which already sounds like a bad life choice. Instead of taking him straight to horror-town, the film decides to warm us up with three morality-play shorts, each accessed through the peep booth like some cursed X-rated jukebox.
The anthology format is easily the movie’s strongest feature. The idea of using the peep show as connective tissue is clever, even stylish at times. Unfortunately, while the structure is sound, the content inside is wildly uneven—like ordering a sampler platter and discovering two of the items are just damp napkins.
We open with “Personal Space,” in which a woman hires her boyfriend to fake a home invasion because nothing says intimacy like consensual terror. It’s a premise that could have explored kink, boundaries, trust—something. Instead, it mostly explores my patience. The second short escalates things with a literal round of “Fuck Marry Kill,” but despite the outrageous setup, it’s oddly flat, like the filmmakers were afraid to fully commit to how insane it could’ve been.
And then, mercifully, comes “The Black Rabbit.” This is where the movie finally finds its teeth. Tied more directly into the wraparound narrative, it delivers actual atmosphere, some effective psychological tension, and visuals that—while still low-budget—at least aim higher than “college film project.” It’s moody, mysterious, and just grounded enough to unsettle. If the entire anthology had matched this tone, we’d be talking about a hidden gem instead of a mostly dull curiosity.
Performance-wise, everyone is… fine. Not offensively bad, not particularly memorable. The cinematography ranges from murky to “hey, that shot was kind of cool.” The themes are familiar—desire devours, sins return for blood payment, care what you click on the internet—but presented with the energy of someone reading them off a fortune cookie.
So would I recommend Midnight Peepshow? Only to horror diehards with an unusually high tolerance for slow starts and questionable production design. If you don’t have the stamina to slog through two duds to get to one halfway decent payoff, skip this booth entirely. Otherwise, grab your phone and a strong beverage—you’ll need both.
https://jackmeat.com/midnight-peepshow-2022/
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