Midnight, New Year’s Eve: when all the hopes of new beginnings come to life – except for Lindsey and Jeff Pittman, whose strained marriage faces the ultimate test after they cover up a terrible crime and find themselves entangled in a Hitchcockian web of deceit and madness.

Every year we say the same things to ourselves, make the same resolutions, and hope for something better. Estranged couple Lindsey (Alex Essoe) and Jeff (Dylan McTee) actually try to begin a new life when they are handed a crummy set of circumstances in the Ramsay Brothers’ new thriller Midnighters. The problem is that they just don’t really care what or who the step over, hit, maim or kill to get what they want.

New Years Eve. The clock strikes midnight and soon the couple on the perpetual verge of a fight, a spat, or blowout is heading home on a dark, country road. A split-second glance away and suddenly they hit a lone pedestrian who was wandering the darkened highway. With no reception and both of them having had a little more than their share of booze, neither wants to get the police involved. The two decide to load the man into the car and haul him into the car and cart him to the hospital, however, the man dies en-route and the couple retreats to their three-story fixer-upper mansion to figure out what to do next. If their resolution was to make questionable decisions that get them inextricably deeper into trouble then they are off to a roaring start.

Things only get crazier when Lindsey’s sister Hannah (Perla Haney-Jardine) comes back home after a date, only to find the body of the man in the garage. Then things get really insane when FBI agent Smith (Ward Horton) arrives to investigate a possible hit and run.

Director Julius Ramsay, who up to this point worked on The Walking Dead (when it was good), keeps the action in Alston Ramsay‘s script zipping along at a breakneck speed so as to keep viewers fully engaged in the tightly wound storyline. While there are a few moments of “WTF are they doing?” the movie remains inventive and entertaining.

Performances are pretty solid for the most part. Essoe’s Lindsey is a calculating mistress, while McTee‘s Jeff plays things with an ignorance that helps you to buy the stupid moves he makes and the self-centered M.O. The real notice goes to Horton‘s Smith who’s boyish good looks and steely glare prove to be truly effective.

This feels like the Ramsay’s are really going for a sort of Hitchcockian Cohen Brothers movie, yet there is a certain something missing. The film is good, don’t get me wrong, yet some of the moments in the movie really strain credulity, leaving the audience to argue what they would do in the same situation. If you simply suspend disbelief in a few key scenes and go along with it, the movie really works. If not, well, then it’s your loss.