Ah now, this is the stuff that genuine Halloween fun is made of. It's a horror comedy film anthology featuring ten connected segments or vignettes all set in the same neighbourhood on Halloween night and, since its release last year, it's been a huge hit on the horror film festival circuit.
Speaking from a purely Irish point of view, it was the closing film of the Irish Film Institute's 2015 Horrorthon and, though I wasn't there myself, apparently it was a rip-roaring success. I heard this from a friend, haha.
True, there were grumblings from some horror die-hards that it wasn't scary enough but you know what? So what! Big deal. It's tremendously gory fun in the true spirit of Halloween and, quite honestly, I think it's about bloody time that someone made a good, messy, spooky, hilariously funny horror film like this. It's an affectionate tribute to everything that goes 'bump!' in the night...
Actually, there were a lot of 'someones' involved in the making of this film. Each segment was made by a different director, pretty much all of whom have directed horror films before. See how many you can recognise:
Darren Lynn Bousmann.
Axelle Carolyn (great name, by the way, dude or dudette!)
Adam Gierasch.
Neil Marshall.
Lucky McKee.
Mike Mendez.
David Parker.
Ryan Schifrin.
John Skipp and Andrew Kasch.
Paul Solet.
Impressed, much...? There's an excellent cast involved too, and by far the icing on the cake is the inclusion of horror movie royalty Adrienne Barbeau as a DJ, the role she famously played in John Carpenter's THE FOG. Her involvement in the film is a super-duper coup for the film-makers, and she still looks as young and sounds as smoulderingly sexy as when she made THE FOG.
That movie scared the living s***e out of me when I was a teenager, and I'll always, always have fond memories of it.
Maybe I shouldn't have watched it for the first time after spending an exceptionally dark, drizzly Halloween afternoon illegally mooching around a graveyard with my best mates Danny and Paul (Paul found half an old skull and kicked it round the place like a football...!), or- who knows?- maybe that was the perfect way to watch it. Either way, I'll never forget the way I shamefully wet the bed that night I saw it for the first time. Clearly, I wasn't yet the sophisticated young woman I thought I was...!
Anyway, at the risk of sounding like Troy McClure from THE SIMPSONS, see if you recognise any cast members from such films as THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, FRIGHT NIGHT, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, CREEPSHOW, GREMLINS, DONNIE DARKO, IT FOLLOWS and THE TWILIGHT SAGA, among other splendid and well-known horror oeuvres:
Adrienne Barbeau.
Joe Dante.
John Landis.
Adam Green.
Pat Healy.
Booboo Stewart.
Keir Gilchrist.
Pollyanna McIntosh.
James Duval.
Barry Bostwick.
Grace Phipps.
See? I told you it was an impressive line-up! Anyway, let's take a quick peep at the ten vignettes and see what we think of 'em.
SWEET TOOTH is the story of a couple of typically sex-mad, irresponsible babysitters (a boy and a girl) who pay a terrible price for telling their young charge a terrifying story of another boy who would literally kill for candy. It's deliciously and disgustingly gory.
In THE NIGHT BILLY RAISED HELL, the Devil himself wreaks an over-the-top revenge on a little squirt who thought that egging his house might be fun... This one has a terrific twist.
TRICK sees a bunch of not-very-nice adults getting a murderous come-uppance from a bunch of vigilante rugrats. But what have they done to deserve such treatment, and how high will be the price they have to pay...? Be warned, this one is extremely violent. Not that that should bother you bloodthirsty gorehounds for an instant...!
THE WEAK AND THE WICKED is the tale of a guy who finally gets his own back on three truly despicable bullies. Isn't it just great when you can do that...? I still have to get revenge on all of my childhood bullies but the opportunities just haven't presented themselves yet. I can wait, though. I've been waiting for twenty years...
GRIM GRINNING GHOST is one of my favourites. In a deliciously spooky atmosphere of unseen menace and gloom, a young woman finds out that there's some truth after all in a Halloween story she thought was just that, a story. There's a brilliant jump scare in this one.
DING DONG sees a man admitting to his very dangerous wife that he can't give her the one thing she craves above all else. He'll rue the day he opened his big fat mouth...
THIS MEANS WAR is super-funny and sooooo relatable. A regular Joe Soap battles a bunch of heavy metallers for the best Halloween decorations on the block. No-one in the world does the feast of Halloween like the Americans.
The way they do up their houses, gardens and neighbourhoods with pumpkins, skeletons and other spooky delights (in real life as well as in films) is an absolute credit to them and this little vignette pays a lovely homage to that very special spirit of theirs.
Actually, this one also reminds me of that hilarious episode of TV sitcom MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE when Malcolm's Dad Hal tries to outdo his neighbour on Pearl Harbour Day. I think he sets a load of dive-bombing and hell-bent-on-pooping seagulls on his neighbour's wonderful display, thus coming out Top of the Pearl Harbour Day Display Pops himself. That's an absolute corker of an episode.
FRIDAY THE 31ST is a FRIDAY THE 13TH/ WIZARD OF OZ mash-up that sees a Jason Voorhees lookalike pursuing a young lady dressed as Dorothy through some spooky woods. This one is especially violent and features some really cute animation as well.
THE RANSOM OF RUSTY REX is so funny. It's the story of two dopey petty crooks who (pardon my cliché!) get more than they bargain for when they kidnap the son of a millionaire. You'll laugh yourselves silly at this one, I promise you.
BAD SEED is another one of my favourites. A hard-bitten female cop (she's got a scar on her
face and everything to show how tough she is!) has to catch a rather... unusual, shall we say?... criminal who's been terrorising the neighbourhood. The bit with the police sketch artist is hilarious. It's like something out of FATHER TED or THE SIMPSONS or something like that.
This one gives a lovely courteous tip of the hat to that much-maligned (because it doesn't have Michael Myers in it!) but otherwise superb horror film HALLOWEEN 3, which I've long considered to be the living embodiment of what a good horror film should be like, Michael Myers or no Michael Myers...!
There are loving tributes to horror maestros John Carpenter, Max NOSFERATU Schreck and Val CAT PEOPLE Lewton scattered throughout the film, as well as clips from classic horror movie CARNIVAL OF SOULS and George A. Romero's famous zombie flick, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
TALES OF HALLOWEEN was obviously made by people who hold horror in the highest esteem and affection. Their love of the genre shows clearly in every frame. The film is an absolute must-have for lovers of the biggest and bestest festival in the horror fan's calendar... none other than good old Sam Hain himself, otherwise known as Halloween...!
The film is out on Blu-Ray and DVD from Monday, Oct. 24th, 2016, courtesy of ARROW FILMS. It comes complete with a whole host of extra features like deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes stuff, video diaries and, on the Blu-Ray only, as many as six exclusive horror film shorts! Man, you've just gotta get this film.
I'll include the Amazon links for all the lovely lazy people out there who don't feel like looking them out for themselves. Other than that, what's left to say but:
TEN MORE DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN, SILVER SHAMROCK...!
AMAZON LINKS:
Order the DVD: http://amzn.to/2bfpQ2K
Order the Blu-Ray: http://amzn.to/2bEZDYt
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
PS,
I've just checked out the exclusive extra shorts in the special
features and I've gotta tell you, they are super-surreal
and bizarre. THIRSTY
is
good gory fun and HOT
ROD WORM is
possibly the most amazing thing you'll ever see in your life.
The
guy who came up with the concept actually deserves some kind of Nobel
Prize For Weirdness for dreaming up something so utterly and
hilariously deranged. You have been warned, miss these at your
peril...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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