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Celtic Chants, Glowing Scarecrows, Haddonfield…

June 15, 2023 Hud Leave a comment

THE CURSE OF HALLOWEEN JACK

2019/15/78m

“He returns… and this time, no one is safe.”

Director/Writer: Andrew Jones / Cast: Derek Nelson, Patrick O’Donnell, Peter Cosgrove, Tiffany Ceri, Jason Medani, David Link, Alastair Armstrong, Phillip Roy, Jessica Michelle Smith.

Body Count: 18+

I only discovered while writing this up that this is actually a sequel to the previous year’s Legend of Halloween Jack, which I guess addresses some of the question marks floating above some of the lore and dialogue you see in this one.

So it goes, two years after a murder spree in the small British town on Dunwich (neighbouring settlement: Haddonfield), a group of face-painted cult members succeed in resurrecting the murderous scarecrow from where his body was buried by randomly American local detective Earl Rockwell. They’re then all shot dead by some cops.

The town has banned Halloween on the back of the tragedy, so some kids, including the mayor’s daughter Danielle, throw their own rager, which is crashed by the smiling scarecrow, who then hunts Danielle to the police station, kills some people there, before being lured to a house by an eye-patched seer-of-doom. Something about Celtic mythology bloodlines, must be killed by member of his own bloodline with a sacred dagger blah blah blah.

The constraints of the budget clearly affect the end product, from some terrible reaction-to-horror acting, apparent death by having an iPhone pushed about two inches into the mouth, and a killer who looks like a plush Halloween toy, but it’s not so bad. The Fog-pretender score is pretty good and it has an endearing cheapness about it which should be encouraged rather than pulverised.

And Jason Medani is very easy on the eye.

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2! 4! 6! 8! Who do we decapitate?

April 27, 2023 Hud 2 comments

BRING IT ON: CHEER OR DIE

2022/91m

Director: Karen Lam / Writers: Alyson Fouse, Rebekah McEndry, Dana Schwartz / Cast: Kerri Medders, Alexandra Beaton, Missi Pyle, Alten Wilmot, Sierra Holder, Rudy Borgonia, Marlowe Zimmerman, Makena Zimmerman, Sam Robert Muik, Madison MacIsaac, Tiera Skovbye, Erika Prevost, Samuel Braun.

Body Count: 11

Laughter Lines: “What are you – telepathetic?”

Quasi-spoilers. That the 20-years-earlier past trauma in Cheer or Die occurs in 2002, after the first of seven Bring It On movies that have been released – all straight to DVD with the exception of the pretty damn awesome original – makes me feel old with a capital “say it again, love?”. Rihanna’s in one of them, Hayden Panettiere, someone from Buffy… They each pit a down-on-their-luck cheer squad against some evil rival team and the big finale usually plays out at a competition.

In the seventh instalment, however, the Diablo high school squad have been banned from doing anything worth watching by their tyrannical principal (Pyle) since a death at just such a competition in 2002. Irked by their lack of success, the team decide to practice off site at the abandoned Elk Moore High.

When one of the co-captains eats a pom-pom, the other, Abby, has to lead the team. But someone dressed in the mascot’s uniform is choking, skewering and axing members of the squad. Who could it be? I pegged it from the moment the character appeared, so don’t expect a surprise. Or threat. Even with two killers working together, they must be the least imposing wackos in horror history.

With PG-13 violence, an encompassing cheapness (one girl is partially drowned in a toilet, but her hair is bone dry in the next shot), and lacking even the trademark cheer-themed toxic put-downs of its brethren, there’s sadly nothing to do a back handspring with round-off over here.

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The End of an Era. Again.

October 14, 2022 Hud 2 comments

HALLOWEEN ENDS

2022/18/111m

Director/Writer: David Gordon Green / Writers: Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride / Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, Rohan Campbell, Will Patton, James Jude Courtney, Kyle Richards, Michael Barbieri, Karaun Harris, Michael O’Leary, Michele Dawson, Joanne Baron, Rick Moose.

Body Count: 18

The Final Chapter, The Final Nightmare, The Final Friday – we’ve been here before, even more than once in the same series. It doesn’t feel that long ago (but probably is) that Halloween H20 was supposed to be the closing word on Michael Myers. But it made bank, so he regained his severed head, but the series soon died again.

The second reboot, taking the series off into its fourth possible timeline, in 2018 was also supposed to be the last one. It was fine, flawed here and there, but carried an aroma of crispy fried finality. It made bank, so suddenly two further sequels were announced. 2021’s delayed Halloween Kills delved deep into fan service and then some weird allegory around vigilante mobs. Laurie didn’t share a single scene with Michael – it just… strange, but housed a couple of decent scenes to just about earn a pass.

Ends though… My, my, my where to begin? Big spoilers ahoy. Well, it begins a year later – Myers is AWOL, Haddonfield has become a bit of a depressed state where everything gets blamed on The Boogeyman or his legacy. Into a simple babysitting gig walks Corey, a slightly dorky student, who replaces the unwell first choice to look after rich kid Jeremy, whose pranks ultimately lead to the kid falling to his death.

Three years later, Corey is a social pariah, hated by the locals and wasting his potential. He runs into Laurie when she wades into a confrontation with some entitled douchey teens and introduces him to Allyson, with whom Corey instantly sparks, their mutual sadness connecting them at an unseen level. Laurie soon sees a darkness in Corey that reminds her of you-know-who, threatening her new found Zen outlook on everything.

When Corey meets you-know-who, subsisting in a sewer pipe, instead of becoming another victim, they too have a meeting of the minds and embark on some bizarro twin-killer spree, taking out those who have wronged Corey in some way. Stranger still, the murders seem to go totally unnoticed, and when Corey decides his own scarecrow mask isn’t up to it, he steals Mikey’s and dons himself an official tribute act.

This is where Halloween Ends becomes ‘okay’ – in the same way Resurrection worked as a goofy, fun slasher movie if you divorced it from its forebears, Corey-as-Michael puts in a few decent kills, first offing Ally’s manager and the young nurse he’s sleeping with, then the douchey teens, his overbearing mom, and a shit-talking shock jock who sassed him a day or so earlier.

Knowing Laurie is trying to prevent Allyson from leaving Haddonfield with him, Corey’s final call is at their shared house and Michael, clearly just wanting his mask back, isn’t far behind. He and Laurie fight, and she finally gets him where she wants him, resulting in a town-wide procession to rid themselves of the Myers curse once and for all. And the ending is final. It has to be… If we get Halloween Re-Resurrection in four years, fuck knows how they’ll find a workaround to explain this one.

Jarring tonal shifts have plagued this new trilogy, from ballistic body counts, overly sadistic murders, that ‘Evil Dies Tonight!’ nonsense, and now the new Yoga-Laurie, although her early scenes just hanging out with Allyson and Lindsay are probably where the film feels most relaxed and natural. It’s almost like a ‘Haddonfield’ TV series was condensed into two hours, and between the not-awful scenes of Kills and Ends, there could have been a decent last outing, but the whole 2018-22 reboot cycle has been the epitome of needlessness.

Look out for Julian and the reappearance of a character we thought was no longer even alive…

I never thought I’d say this of a JLC-starring Halloween movie, but this is the worst in the entire series. Remakes included.

Blurbs-of-interest: Michael O’Leary was in Fatal Games; Joanne Baron was in iMurders.

Reviews

47 Christmases later…

June 17, 2021 Hud Leave a comment

IT’S ME, BILLY

2021/43m

“You always knew he’d call back.”

Directors/Writers: Dave McRae & Bruce Dale / Cast: Victoria Mero, Shelby Handley, Malaika Hennie, Caro Coltman, Bryan Charles Peter.

Body Count: 2

I know it’s June, but here we are.

Fan films have come a long way since the days of a few friends, dad’s camcorder and a cheap dime store mask. As studios dither and overthink their franchises, resulting in legal disputes and long delays (*cough* Friday the 13th *cough*), fans with talent took matters into their own hands and the past few years have seen some low-rent output that’s arguably often better than what millions of dollars from a Hollywood studio could buy.

Into this hall of fame can be welcomed It’s Me, Billy, which gives us a 47-years-later sequel to seminal proto-slasher Black Christmas. College girls Sam, Emma, and Justine tried to access the house on Belmont Street where Sam’s late grandmother, Jess, was the sole survivor of the 1974 murders.

They journey on to Jess’s remote house in the wake of the woman’s death and before long receive a strange phone call from what sounds like several insane voices arguing with one another. Expectedly, Sam is soon on her own trying to fend off an insane killer until we’re escorted to an interesting final revelation that nods towards the distinct possibility of another follow-up in the future?

It’s Me, Billy certainly looks and sounds the part, with its snow-dusted exteriors of jagged trees and empty roads; the score is a strong echo of the ’74 film and every little creak of a floorboard is like a cacophony of clanging metal pans in the dark. It’s also well acted by its primary cast of three.

The coda is interesting but negates the film somewhat, as it all leads up to a moment where the film simply stops when it’s just about to spark to life. This sense of incompleteness is a disappointment but if there’s a future plan here (a la Never Hike Alone) then great. And it’s still better than the 2019 ‘remake’.

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Time to sit down and give a darn about this yarn about a barn

March 8, 2021 Hud Leave a comment

THE BARN

2016/88m

“On Halloween night the legend of The Barn awakens.”

Director/Writer: Justin M. Seaman / Cast: Mitchell Musolino, Will Stout, Lexi Dripps, Cortland Woodard, Nikki Darling, Nickolaus Joshua, David Hampton, Linnea Quigley, Ari Lehman.

Body Count: 26+

Laughter Lines: “I watched them eat a fucking face-burger made out of Russ’s head!”

A labor of love by creator Justin Seaman, whose vision was so strong that even when the film ran out of cash, most of the cast and crew stayed on to see it to completion.

The ‘lost 80s’ subset has given us the likes of The Sleeper, Lost After Dark, Lake Nowhere, and of course The House of the Devil in the last few years as well as probably a barrel load more of films I’ve just not seen. Some of the capture the era perfectly, some pile on the Rubik’s Cubes, day-glo, slang, and Cyndi Lauper hits to eyebrow-raising proportions. Eyebrows being apt, they always give it away. Nobody was that preened in ’81.

The Barn is (wisely?) set in 1989, allowing for hairstyles and technology to look a little bit more likely than some of the other examples. For Halloween-obsessed nerd Sam, following the traditional rules of Trick or Treating is a vital life skill, even if it means he’s mocked for being too old to care by his dad and others when the season rolls around.

For pranking uptight local Ms Barnhart (Linnea in cameo), Sam is tasked with gathering candy for the church. Or something. I wasn’t clear on the nature of this punishment, but he and his friends decide to attend a concert by Demonic Inferno and pick up candy in a town along the way. They end up in Wheary Falls, where, in the 1959-set prologue, a pre-teen copped a pick-axe in her head after knocking on the door of an old barn. Sam knows the legend, which shapes his trad. views on the subject, but when the six teens pound on the door of the same barn, they awaken a trio of Halloweenie demons who soon canter into town to gather ‘treats’ for their master.

After wasting a couple of Sam’s friends, the trio – pumpkin-headed Hallowed Jack, the Candy Corn Scarecrow, and The Boogeyman, who is a Satanic miner – off a few townsfolk before crashing a party and slash their way through everyone. Everyone.

Sam and his pal Josh learn from a ’59 witness what they have to do and by when, and head back to the barn to destroy the three demons and prevent the devil from ascending for his All Hallow’s Eve feast.

The Barn isn’t strictly a slasher film, despite cruising close to those waters, its ’89 setting ties it in with the cross-genre films that came along at the end of the decade, tossing in ideas and motifs from various other horror sub-genres for a melting pot effect. The grainy picture and cigarette burns don’t necessarily convince me that films from [the real] 1989 were presented this way, harking back to the two films it brought to mind most clearly: HauntedWeen and Jack-O (the latter filmed in ’93 but aesthetically similar and with Linnea).

The colorful playfulness and attention to detail is the main selling point here, buoying out some flat characterisations and a crucial lack of final girl-dom come the end, which flirts with a Bill & Ted-ish bro scenario. This is the kind of film you have vague memories of seeing at your friend’s house as a kid and want to randomly find on a cable channel around Halloween years later, crack a few beers and smile ear to ear for 90 minutes.

Blurbs-of-interest: Ari Lehman played Young Jason in Friday the 13th; Linnea Quigley can be seen in roles of various sizes in Fatal Games, Graduation Day, Jack-O, Kolobos, Murder Weapon, Silent Night Deadly Night and Spring Break Massacre.

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