Back in town... with a vengeance!
Bronson is back on the streets.

Bronson ...is in town.

Forget what's legal ........... do what's right!

A cop... A killer... A deadline.


Charles Bronson at 63 or so, continues his vigilante persona in this run-of-the-mill crime drama about a Richard Speck-style killer who knifes young nurses to death. There is no doubt that the film exploits both the heinous, 1966 Speck murder of eight nurses in Chicago and an audience's willingness to go along with the Bronson character, Leo Kessler, when he uses illegal means to entrap criminals. The captured killer, Warren Stacey (Gene Davis) manages to go free because of red tape and the need to wait for the outcome of his insanity plea. When he returns to his murderous predilection, Kessler takes action to permanently stop him.


Modelled after the infamous Richard Speck and Ted Bundy murders, 10 to Midnight uses a screenplay originally named Bloody Sunday. According to producer Pancho Kohner, Cannon Films chairman Menahem Golan and Kohner named the film 10 to Midnight despite having no connection to the plot. Golan and Kohner had intended to film an adaptation of the R. Lance Hill novel The Evil That Men Do, which fell through before an upcoming visit to the Cannes Film Festival. Golan and Kohner agreed to market a different film with Charles Bronson as its star, using 10 to Midnight as its working title.
The music for 10 to Midnight was composed by Cannon Films mainstay Robert O. Ragland and the film was recorded by cinematographer Alan Greenberg. The film also features actor Robert F. Lyons and actress Kelly Preston (listed as Kelly Palzis) in smaller roles.
Violent and with unseemly subject matter, 10 to Midnight drew scathing reviews from film critics, including a 'zero stars' rating from Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times who wrote, "I admired [Bronson's] strong, simple talent once. What is he doing in a garbage disposal like this?"[1] The film did receive positive feedback from others, such as Ebert's colleague Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and was a financial success. The film has maintained a sizeable cult following through home video releases and heavily-edited broadcasts on television which displayed alternate scenes of Stacy and his victims in their underwear instead of being totally naked.


Release Date: March 11, 1983


Distrib: Cannon Releasing

Boxoffice: $7,175,592 2013: $18,087,100