Director and writer Michael Ballif’s anthology series “10/31” has been a mixed bag of mostly treats that’s done well in celebrating the Halloween season. It’s been way too overlooked in a barrage of indie horror films out on the market, and that’s a shame. “10/31” as a whole is a movie series that deserves a bigger audience, in spite of “Part III” never quite sticking the landing. I’d say it has a lot of good ideas, but never manages to be as good as the first two films, when all is said and done.
Tag Archives: Slasher
Trick or Treat 2! (2022)
You have to give it to Wesley Mellott. He brings his A game to what has been a pretty fun set up for a potential series of films or even a feature. While I’m always a Sam devotee, I could see The Magician becoming one of the many Halloween horror icons. He’s just such a great character. Donning a top hat and tuxedo, he also dons a great skull visage that may or may not be a well detailed mask. Either way, The Magician takes Halloween deathly serious and doesn’t mind offing anyone that doesn’t respect the rituals of the holiday.
Trick or Treat! (2021)
One of the best elements of Halloween is that you can really pull a lot out of horror material from it, and “Trick or Treat!” is no exception. One of the things I love about “Trick or Treat!” is how inexplicable everything that goes down here is. There are a ton of events that amount to merely hapless people falling victim to the Halloween rituals that many people and beings hold sacred. Continue reading
At 25 “Halloween: H20” is Still a Horror Milestone
I can still remember sitting in the theater among the crowds watching as the audience sat expecting Michael to get away. Then Laurie took the swipe with her axe lopping his head off clean. I can still remember hearing the audience offer an audible gasp in sheer shock. This was it. It was done. Michael was dead. Laurie had beaten her demons. But then there came “Resurrection,” and then “Halloween (2018).” Jamie Lee Curtis wanted nothing to do with Halloween for a long time, and then she took on the role of Laurie one last time, but then killed her off in “Resurrection.” One last time. But then she re-emerges years later for “Halloween” in 2018 to reprise Laurie Strode yet again.
I wish Jamie Lee Curtis would make up her mind already. I digress.
Halloween Ends (2022)
For a long time, “Halloween” has been a lot about the inexplicable evil that arose in Haddonfield. But what Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green attempt to do is explain that Michael Myers is only symptomatic of what resides at Haddonfield. Like everywhere in humanity, there always has to be a scapegoat for to pit hatred and fear on to something, and Michael Myers was for a long time the epicenter of it in Haddonfield. “Halloween Ends” explores more the idea of evil as an amorphous entity rather than a maniac in a mask. While Michael Myers was every bit as evil and a force of darkness as we saw in “Halloween,” the final film in the new trilogy takes a step back to look deeper in to the darkness.
Don’t Panic (1987)
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall where Rubèn Galindo Jr., director of “Don’t Panic,” actually watched as someone from the wardrobe department went out, bought dinosaur pajamas in a man’s size, and decided to make it the primary outfit for his film’s protagonist. Dinosaur pajamas with red and blue dinosaurs that you’d find on a seven year old unironically became the motif for the central hero of a horror movie. And that’s not all that “Don’t Panic” has in store for its audience. Rubèn Galindo Jr.’s “Don’t Panic” is a mélange of plot devices that rip wholesale from the likes of Wes Craven, and Sam Raimi.
Welcome to My Nightmare: “Freddy vs. Jason” 20 Years Later
One of the most interesting experiences of my life in a movie theater happened during “Freddy vs. Jason.” It was interesting in that it showed how strong my colon could be.
Stick with me.
I, like every other horror geek in America, during the beginning of the internet, were anxiously following every update of “Freddy vs. Jason” and its glacial development. The movie had been in development for over a few decades, and the anticipation only became even more feverish with the cameo of Freddy Krueger in the end of “Jason Goes to Hell.” For what I’m assuming was meant to be a little elbow nudge to the fans, transformed in to an even more heated demand for Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees to meet on the big screen.