Dale Midkiff is most at ease as the dependable father or lawman, with a little humour to keep the decency from becoming dull. Ask him to make that steadiness frightening, and the limitations show.
Fi1m perspective
In Pet Sematary (1989), Dale Midkiff's Louis Creed looks reassuringly ordinary as he moves his family to a house beside a dangerous road. He is a doctor, handsome and even-tempered, and initially that calm makes sense. The trouble is how little the performance changes when the story needs fear. We were frustrated by his composure, because we kept having to imagine the worry his face was not showing. Mary Lambert's film needs us to understand Louis, and Midkiff gives us too little help.
Stephen King's screenplay shares the blame, cutting Louis's reasons while hurrying through the events. Midkiff has to make sense of behaviour the writing has barely prepared, but he does not find a way to do it. Fred Gwynne, as the neighbour Jud Crandall, gives the film some of the unease it needs, which makes the blandness of its leading man harder to excuse even when the writing has let him down. His most widely recognised film role is therefore an awkward introduction to an actor more often valued for making ordinary heroes believable. The steadiness that fails here has more use in his television work.
After playing Elvis Presley in the miniseries Elvis and Me (1988), his career increasingly settled around men with more everyday authority. In Time Trax (1993–1994), he led the series as Captain Darien Lambert, bringing understated humour to a hero allowed human flaws. The raised eyebrow matters: it gives the straight-faced hero some room to be amused without turning him into a joke. Buck Wilmington in The Magnificent Seven (1998–2000) continued that run of regular television work.
The later family dramas made his paternal warmth more central. As Clark Davis, beginning with Love Comes Softly (2003), he appeared in six films between 2003 and 2007. That is a better fit for an actor whose strength is making decency seem ordinary. His four films with director Michael Landon Jr. also give us reason to look beyond the horror role. Start with Time Trax if quiet competence and a little mischief are what you want from a leading man.
Biography
Dale Midkiff is an American actor. Born on 1 July 1959 in Chance, Maryland, he studied at Salisbury University before moving to New York, where he worked as a waiter while pursuing acting and appeared in off-Broadway productions.
His first major television role was as the young Jock Ewing in the 1986 film Dallas: The Early Years. He gained wider recognition playing Elvis Presley in the 1988 miniseries Elvis and Me and as Louis Creed in the 1989 film Pet Sematary. Midkiff later starred as Captain Darien Lambert in the series Time Trax (1993–1994) and as Buck Wilmington in The Magnificent Seven (1998–2000). He is also known for portraying Clark Davis in the Love Comes Softly series of television films, for which he received Camie and Grace awards.
