{"id":16991,"date":"2015-10-12T21:29:55","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T01:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=16991"},"modified":"2015-10-12T21:29:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T01:29:55","slug":"all-hallows-eve-2-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/12\/all-hallows-eve-2-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"All Hallows\u2019 Eve 2 (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ahe-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t go in to movies wanting to dislike them, which pleases me when a movie manages to surprise me the way \u201cAll Hallows\u2019 Eve 2\u201d did. It\u2019s still a mixed bag of horror, but when you get down to it, it\u2019s still a solid anthology film that corrects a lot of the original film\u2019s errors. Plus the mascot is just so much more appealing this time around. I won\u2019t say \u201cAll Hallows\u2019 Eve 2\u201d is a masterpiece, but it\u2019s strong enough to recommend to horror fans looking for a good time. Director Jessie Baget recruits a group of really interesting indie filmmakers to lend their shorts for this sequel, and while some of them are mere tricks, others are absolutely wonderful treats.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Among my favorites, there\u2019s \u201cDescent,\u201d a masterful short thriller about a young girl who walks in to her friends house to discover she\u2019s been brutally murdered. After witnessing the killer and narrowly evading him, six weeks later she finds herself in her office after hours. Still coping with the trauma, she rushes to get out of the building and shockingly finds herself stuck in the elevator with the murderer, who is oblivious to the role she played that night. Well crafted, and beautifully acted on all fronts, this is the highlight of the entire film. \u201cM is for Masochist\u201d is a short I fondly remember being in the running for \u201cABC\u2019s of Death\u201d and it\u2019s a fine fit for this anthology.<\/p>\n

Short but sweet, it features a damaged young boy who heads to the carnival with his friends and finds a special attraction that allows players to torture a person pinned to a spinning wheel. When he discovers who the person is that\u2019s being tortured, he takes his chance to get payback. It\u2019s demented, it\u2019s poetic, and I dug it. \u201cAlexia\u201d is an eerie short from Argentina in where a young man lingers on his ex-girlfriend\u2019s facebook page on the anniversary of her suicide. Blaming himself for her death, he discovers she\u2019s not intent on letting him go anytime soon. Filled with creepy visuals and a weird finale, this is a strong short.<\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s \u201cA Boy\u2019s Life\u201d which, while feeling like a more restrained version of \u201cThe Babadook\u201d is worth watching mainly for the performances. Christie Lynn Smith carries the short as a mother struggling to keep up with her lonely overly imaginative son who is convinced there\u2019s a monster in his room. Smith\u2019s performance is impressive, even if the final scene feels like a total cop out. All in all, \u201cAll Hallows\u2019 Eve 2\u201d is so much more watchable and entertaining than the first film. There are some lemons in the film, and I still think the wrap around and gimmicky sub-plot is silly (how many people still own VCR\u2019s, really?), but it\u2019s worth it to see some genuinely good horror shorts. In an age where the horror anthology is back in full force, I\u2019d say \u201cAll Hallows\u2019 Eve 2\u201d is worth checking out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t go in to movies wanting to dislike them, which pleases me when a movie manages to surprise me the way \u201cAll Hallows\u2019 Eve 2\u201d did. It\u2019s still a mixed bag of horror, but when you get down to it, it\u2019s still a solid anthology film that corrects a lot of the original film\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[50,103,259,302,441,477,678,922,1087],"class_list":["post-16991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-indie","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-a","tag-anthology","tag-dark-comedy","tag-drama","tag-halloween","tag-horror","tag-monsters","tag-sequel","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16993,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16991\/revisions\/16993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}