“The Night Before Halloween” should actually be called “I Know What You Did The Night Before Last Halloween Around 11:50pm,” as it borrows heavily from those slasher themes and, once again, steals a lot from “The Ring.” Someone at the Syfy Channel must have loved “The Ring,” as they seem persistent on copying its themes involving teens running from a dark curse that is targeting them or some such nonsense. Seriously, a movie like this should not be so complicated and confusing to follow. The storyline and mythos behind it is actually so confusing no one in the movie can ever explain what the hell is going on. To anyone. Set on the night before Halloween, a group of girls have a vicious prank played on them from local boys in their school. During the prank one of the friends, Beth, is accidentally electrocuted and nearly killed.
Category Archives: Halloween Horror Month
All Hallows’ Eve (2016)
“All Hallow’s Eve” is the fiftieth movie involving Halloween in the last five years named “All Hallow’s Eve” but this time it’s more of a low budget Disney-lite family film. Its Harry Potter meets “Halloweentown” in one of the more painfully derivative and hokey attempts to build a franchise around a teen witch in a long time. It’s not to say “All Hallow’s Eve” is terrible, but it’s a movie that has way too many ideas and not enough of a budget or script to help realize them. So characters spend a lot of time sitting around and explaining things, rather than allowing us to bask in the awe of magic and fantasy. In “All Hallow’s Eve,” Lexi Giovagnoli plays Eve Hallow. No seriously.
A First Edition Festival in Brooklyn [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2016]
Another film festival had its first edition this year and it had a great line up. This fest had it all: films, scary stories, trivia, et al. The fest had some great films, features and shorts. Some of my favorites among many were The Master Cleanse and Child Eater for features and for shorts there was Shorty, Pigskin, and The Man Who Caught a Mermaid.
They also had films we reviewed as part of other festivals like Let Her Out, Therapy, La Rage du Demon, The Puppet Man, The Stylist, Disco Inferno, and Mute.
Cinema Crazed’s coverage was limited but here are the few films I reviewed here for the Festival if you missed the updates:
The Biker Warrior Babe vs. The Zombie Babies from Hell (2014)
In the small town of Cranberry Lake, a wannabe witch and her succubus assistant attempt to summon a demon, when this goes badly, an army of zombie evil babies is unleashed on the town for which the only hope if a group of teenagers who have seen the evil and want to survive. Writer/director Jeremiah Morehouse has some good ideas in the script that he tries his best to put on screen but the script may have been a bit too ambitious for its super micro budget. This budget is estimated at $10,000 and this unfortunately shows a lot in the film. The story is ambitious and wants to achieve a lot which is lost a bit due to the effects and other issues in the film that are mostly blamed on the budget and a bit on a lack of experience. However, the film’s ambition and love for its genre shows and this helps it greatly.
The Windmill Massacre (2016)
Known as The Windmill Massacre or the The Windmill depending on the country and release, this supernatural slasher set in Holland follows Jennifer who is running from her past and goes on a tour of the countries beautiful windmills. Once in the countryside, the bus breaks down and the passengers start getting picked off one by one. Director Nick Jongerius creates an effective slasher with a twist written by Chris W. Mitchell and Suzy Quid, based on a story by Jongerius. The characters here are varied which gives the film an edge over the usual slashers where high school or college students are the only one being picked off.
6 Shorts Perfect for Halloween
So you’re getting ready for a Halloween party and don’t have time for a feature but would like to watch something to set the atmosphere for yourself or you just want to watch some bite-size entertainment. So, in that spirit, here are a few great shorts for the season.
Hostage to the Devil (2016)
Father Malachi Martin is fighting for the soul of those who have been possessed. In his battle, he encounters fake and real cases. One of the latter is the one of a young girl he truly believes is possessed. Hostage to the Devil tells the life story of Father Malachi Martin through interviews and videos of his work. Written by Rachel Lysaght and Marty Stalker with Stalker also directing, the film has a very even style with the interviews all shot about the same and the way they are shown with straight on interview style and overlays on photos and images gives the film a very straight forward feel.