There are an awful lot of obscure Halloween horror movies out there, and I couldn't help but notice that a lot of them were made just over the last few years when I was assembling this year's list of potential films to watch. It's as if the filmmaking world collectively realized my observation that Christmas horror films far outweighed what should be the easy number one holiday for such things and decided to do something about it en masse.
On the streaming channel Tubi, just for one example, I simply did a search for the word "Halloween" and, not counting family fare, got at least 50 movies to choose from. To be fair, I think some of them eluded me last year on simple account of not actually having the word itself, Halloween, in their titles. (The Tubi list also included any films that featured "Halloween" in their summary descriptions, not just in their titles.)
But I did have various lists culled from online sites that included such titles, which is to say horror movies set on or around Halloween, but didn't necessarily feature the word in their titles, so it's not like I missed that many from the past- as a closer look proved, an inordinate amount of them were from the last few years. Of course, that still begs the question: are any of them any good?
Last year, which is when I began my annual Octoberfest, the answer appeared to be a pretty resounding no, for the most part. For every solid one I watched, there were multiple ones that were pretty terrible, straight-to-video type fare. Sure, some of those films have their charms, but typically, the lower the budget, the more incompetent they are.
As someone who's worked on both sides of the camera, I know how hard making a film can be, so I hate to bash aspiring filmmakers. No matter how terrible their end product may be, I try to find something positive to say. But, at the same time, I'm not going to just actively torture myself with awful films, either. As such, before making my choices, I tried to get a general sense of which movies might be worthy and those that were probably not, so as to not waste my time- or yours.
I say all this just as a preface to the fact that I admittedly was inclined to do so after watching these two films. Not that I haven't seen worse- believe me, as a near lifelong horror fan, I have- but because I didn't want to go through the same thing as last year. Especially since I knew in advance I wasn't going to be reviewing as many films this year as I did last year. As such, from here on out, if I come across really terrible movies, I'm just going to wait and review them all at once, a la my Movie Round-ups. That way, we both save time. 😉
First up, we have The Legend of Halloween Jack. I don't see that many British horror films these days, so it's always nice to stumble across one here and there, especially this far away from the Golden era of Brit Horror, aka the Hammer and Amicus era of the 60's and 70's. At the very least, they do seem to be slightly more competent at their worst than some of the American ones at their worst, so there's that.
To a certain extent, Halloween Jack is no exception. The cinematography, by Jonathan McLaughlin, is crisp and clear, if obviously digital, and is aided and abetted by some pretty solid location shooting in various parts of Wales. All of the actors are likewise from Wales or nearby England. I don't know about you, but somehow, even bad actors from the UK come off as better than they are by virtue of their accents alone- to me, at least, lol.
The film is also one of those horror films filled with copious references to the genre, albeit even here, they are slightly classier or sometimes more subtle than their American counterparts. For instance, one character has the last name of Crowley, an obvious reference to occultist Aleister Crowley, which may be lost on some younger viewers. The film is set in Dunwich, which is a town name that should be familiar to horror fans, particularly H.P. Lovecraft ones. Several characters have the surname of "Tramer," a reference to Ben Tramer, the guy that Jamie Lee Curtis' character had a crush on in the original Halloween. The most blatant reference is probably a nod to Haddonfield, which is, of course, where Halloween takes place.
As such, it's clear that Halloween Jack is aiming for John Carpenter territory, but with a more British flair. Sad to say, it doesn't even come close, but that has more to do with the shoddy special effects and inept staging of the kills than anything else. There's something to be said for going for a more subdued approach, a la John Carpenter's masterpiece, but here, the badness of the execution nips all of that potential in the bud.
The plot is actually a variation on another old Halloween favorite, The Dark Night of the Scarecrow. When some locals are murdered, the powers that be are convinced that a man who is known to have been involved in occult practices, Jack Cain (William Wolfe Hogan, Fedz), is to blame. When he is let go on a technicality, the Mayor (Doug Cooper, The Jonestown Haunting), along with the relatives of those killed and the cop who botched the arrest, Frank Hollister (Colin Holt, The Killers), band together to kidnap and kill Cain as a sort of small vigilante mob.
One problem: Cain didn't do it, and warns the group that he will have his revenge. One year later, the youngest of the group, Johnny Tramer (Aaron Jeffcoate, AMC's The Terror) is still feeling guilty for his actions and kills himself at the site of the murder, hoping to alert the authorities to what happened. Of course, one of the cops is in on it, so that's a pretty flawed plan.
Instead, the unintended result is that Tramer's blood seeps into the ground where Cain lay and it revives him to get his revenge at long last on everyone involved in his death, their relatives and anyone else who gets in his way. Can anyone stop him? It's up to the aforementioned cop, Hollister, to finish the job and protect his family in the process- if he can.
The set up is perfectly fine, but as I inferred, it's the execution that gets the best of this one, and unfortunately, that probably lies at the feet of the director, Andrew Jones, who also wrote the script, and edited and produced the film. Jones is probably best-known for a series of films that, like America's The Asylum, run right up to the line of rip-off territory, if not leap right over it.
His credits include the likes of Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection - an unofficial remake of you know what- The Amityville Asylum, one of many unofficial Amityville pseudo-sequels; Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming, an unofficial remake of SNBN; and lots of other "sounds legit but aren't" movies like The Last House on Cemetery Lane, Poltergeist Activity, The Exorcism Of Anna Ecklund, Jurassic Predator, The Manson Family Massacre, Bundy and the Green River Killer and the Robert the Doll series. Basically, the kind of movies you might rent or stream by mistake if you weren't paying close enough attention- which, of course, is exactly what the production companies are hoping people will do.
What sinks a lot of these sorts of movies is exactly what sinks this one: the positively awful special effects. You know you're in trouble right off the bat when, in the scene in which the angry mob executes Jack, they use outright terrible CGI gunshot wounds instead of squibs, like most filmmakers would, that almost immediately disappear, as if Jack had sucked up the blood into his body internally. (To say nothing of the fact that they inexplicably dress Jack like a scarecrow, which probably has more to do with the director wanting to hammer home the whole Dark Night of the Scarecrow reference.)
Remember how I said I had been on both sides of the camera? Well, in one short I did, I played a man who was shot at point blank range in his backyard. This was a low-budget student film type endeavor, and even we used squibs, and this wasn't that long ago, so I know for a fact that such things aren't that expensive because none of us had much in the way of money. They were cheap, and they looked great- it's not that much of an investment for realism, and I'll just bet the filmmakers here spent a hell of a lot more on something that looks just terrible on screen. So, there's no excuse for this type of ineptitude, trust me. If we could do practical effects on a no-budget film, so can these guys.
Trust me, things do not get better from there. On the rare occasions that you do see something, it's likewise bad CGI, but, more often than not, the director simply has stuff happen offscreen, and if you're lucky- or not, as the case usually is- you might get a glimpse of something after the fact. It's bad, believe you me, and it basically single-handedly tanks the movie, which is too bad, because there is a decent little movie to have been made here.
The quality of the acting varies, but when it's good, it's pretty decent, and only a few of the performances are truly dreadful. Most of them aren't bad, though, and the film has a decent sense of humor. I also liked some of the ideas in the script, particularly the fact that the Mayor himself is pretty evil, and actually kills someone in cold blood, in an effort to keep his secret. But yeah, the execution of the murder sequences is pretty deadly bad, I'm afraid.
Interestingly, the film was just successful enough to warrant a sequel, The Curse of Halloween Jack. Jones once again does the writing, directing, editing and producing honors, with McLaughlin back on board as cinematographer. Interestingly, though, the film has an altogether different vibe than the last one. This time around, it has more of a shot-on-film look and even more location shooting in Wales that gives it a slightly more Gothic feel.
However, overall, this is much more of a slasher movie than the last one, though both certainly qualify. This one plays more like one of the many Halloween rip-offs that followed in the wake of that film's enormous success. In a weird way, it's an improvement, although much more on the nose than the first film in every way. Here, the references are blatant: the killer cocks his head, just like Michael Myers after every kill, one character quotes Halloween directly, one character's surname is Thorn, and there's a character named Tommy, with others named Boyle, which may be a misheard reference to "Doyle" from the original Halloween- there's also a mention of Antonio Bay, where Carpenter's The Fog is set, and another character is named Coscarelli, presumably after the director of Phantasm.
And yet, the film is just plain more fun than the first one. The kills are much more suspenseful and executed much better, and though that pesky low-budget still gets in the way, there are at least more attempts at practical effects this time around, which is a definite improvement. There's even a halfway decent police-vs-occultist shoot-out at the beginning, which is entertaining enough, even if those wonky CGI gunshots get in the way here and there.
The film also features an amusing "Crazy Ralph"-type character named Duke Tanner, played by an amusingly game Peter Cosgrove (also of the similar Scarecrow's Revenge), that is clearly modeled after a mixture of Snake Plissken (from Escape from New York) and MacCready from The Thing, both from director John Carpenter. It's almost as if, with all these references, director Jones is aiming for a film set in the Carpenter-verse, as it were. That stuff I really enjoyed.
Pity then, that the leading lady, Charlotte Mounter, is just plain terrible. As Annie- yet another Halloween reference- she's meant to be a take-charge heroine, somewhat in the Tarantino mode. And yet, she sports a blank stare throughout the film, even when confronted with Halloween Jack himself at a party. No scream, no look of fright, nothing. It's bad, so bad it nearly single-handedly sinks this film, too. If it weren't for the counterbalance of Duke Tanner, it would have. She's a pretty girl, but boy, she needs some acting lessons, stat.
Actually, I am glad I brought up the party scene, as it shouldn't go without mentioning that these films blow not one, but two opportunities to feature a scenario I've long wanted to see in a horror movie, but never quite have- the killer attacking a roomful of people. They came close in Freddy Vs. Jason, where Jason attacked an outdoor festival, but his kill count was surprisingly low, given all the potential victims running around, so that was a disappointment. Ditto a scene in Scream 3, where the killer attacked a roomful of people and managed to kill no one.
In both of these films, the killer shows up at a party- a Halloween dance in the first, and a house party in the second, but the whole thing is so badly staged, it robs both scenes of any potential fun they might have been. Hell, the director even botches a bit where the killer rips out someone's heart. Oh, boy, is it bad all around. In Curse, I halfway expected that bit from Airplane to happen where everyone's running around like crazy people and start fighting each other! It literally looks like the same people are running in and out of the room instead of out the door. It's kind of hilarious, and clearly unintentionally so.
Oh well, they tried. Eventually, someone will get it right. Maybe. Until then, we can only lament what could have been. The same could be said for both of these films. All of the elements are in place, and the films have a lot going for them, but they ultimately just can't quite pull it off.
But, I suppose, if you're looking for something of the so-bad-it's-good variety, these two films certainly qualify. They could have been contenders and the director isn't without some talent, but yeah, these two films are definitely not must-see movies for your Halloween viewing pleasure, but rather, bordering on bottom of the barrel would-be entertainment. As such, I say proceed with caution- you have been warned. 😜
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