Tales
of Halloween
Dir: Neil Marshall, Darren Lynn Bousman,
Axelle Carolyn, Lucky McKee, Andrew Kasch, Paul Solet, John Skipp, Adam
Gierasch, Jace Anderson, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Dave Parker
2015
**
Tales of Halloween is an anthology of ten interlocking short
stories that revolve around the night of Halloween. The directors range from
well known to inexperienced and the cast are a mix of horror icons (all
directors) and some of the worst actors working today. I expected fun, no
masterpieces, just short, sharp and scary shorts that offered something new and
punchy. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. Some of the films are good but most of
them are poor copies of well established classic horror films – this is the
Halloween equivalent of the dreadful Christmas films Hallmark churn out every
year. I’m actually starting to prefer Christmas nuts over Halloween
enthusiasts. The horror greats that are involved should hand their heads in
shame. The ten stories take place in the same unnamed suburban American town
and is pointlessly narrated by a radio DJ (Adrienne Barbeau) – an idea
borrowed from A Christmas Horror Story but obviously a tribute to John
Carpenter’s The Fog. The first film, Sweet Tooth, is Written and
directed by Dave Parker. Mikey (Daniel DiMaggio) has just finished trick-or-treating around
his neighborhood and come home with a bag full of candy. His parents (Greg Grunberg and Clare Kramer –
the same characters both played in 2013’s Big Ass Spider) have left him in the care of his
babysitter Lizzy (Madison Iseman), who has invited her boyfriend Kyle over to watch
the film Night of the Living Dead. As Mikey begins to enjoy the candy he's
collected, Lizzy and Kyle share the urban legend of
"Sweet Tooth"; long ago, a boy of Mikey's age named Timothy was
denied his trick-or-treat candy by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Blake, but a
curious Timothy discovered that the parents kept and ate all his candy
themselves. Enraged, Timothy killed both of his parents and ate all the candy,
including the ones already in their stomach, and thus became Sweet Tooth, a
demon who appears each Halloween looking everywhere for candy. Mikey is rattled
by this story and decides to go to sleep early, much to Lizzy and Kyle's
amusement. They decide to make out and eat the candy, before being attacked by
Sweet Tooth himself, which Mikey overhears. The ghostly being heads toward
Mikey's bedroom but Mikey has left a bar of chocolate for Sweet Tooth on the
floor to take. That, combined with the fact that Mikey hasn't eaten any candy,
spares him from death. Later, Mikey's parents come home to find Lizzy and
Kyle's grotesque corpses, with Mikey standing nearby exclaiming that they ate
all his Halloween candy. It is part Candyman and part Halloween, it’s one of
the better shorts but it will probably be best remembered for featuring fan
favourites Madison Iseman and Greg Grunberg. The Night Billy Raised Hell
was written by Clint Sears and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II,
III & IV). Billy Thompson (Marcus Eckert) absurdly tries to start
trick-or-treating really early in the afternoon, prompting his big sister
Britney (Natalis Castillo) and her boyfriend Todd (Ben Stillwell) to trick him
into playing a prank, that, according to both teenagers, had been going on for
years. They prepared an egg for Billy to throw at Mr. Abbadon's (Barry Bostwick) house,
who's notoriously stingy and never gives out candy for the children across the
years, but Billy was caught red-handed by the man of the hour, while his sister
and her boyfriend fled. Billy was ushered into Mr. Abbadon's house, where he
says he's going to teach Billy a lesson, and takes Mordecai, a little boy of
Billy's age who has the same Halloween costume (red devil) as him. Mr. Abbadon
then lets Mordecai, in a costume and mask similar to Billy, to wreck around the
neighborhood, from doing harmless pranks like spray-painting the walls into the
more bloody terrors, like stabbing a rude neighbor who gave him toothbrush
instead of candy, and then later on tricking the same neighbor into stepping to
a bear trap, severing his foot. The duo even hijacked Adrianne Curry's car along
the way. After all the ruckus, Mr. Abbadon returns to his house to a tied Billy
and releases him, and reveals that he is the Devil himself
and under the mask Mordecai is also the Little Devil. He lets Billy go, only
for Billy to be arrested outside by a swarm of waiting police from the previous
terror caused by Mordecai in his Halloween costume. It’s a neat idea but is
poorly executed. I was excited to see Barry Bostwick and expected an over the
top performance from him but it just didn’t work for me. It was daft, just not
quite daft enough and I expected a lot more from Bousman. The
third film, Trick, has a lot more going for it. Written by Greg Commons and
directed by Adam Gierasch, the story starts on a seemingly
peaceful Halloween night, with friends Nelson (Trent Haaga), Maria (Tiffany Shepis), James
(John F. Beach) and Caitlyn (Casey Ruggieri) who are lounging around Nelson's
house, smoking pot. As Nelson goes to greet a girl trick-or-treating, the group
is alarmed when the girl stabs Nelson multiple times in the abdomen, gravely
injuring him. Panicked, Maria goes to her car to drive Nelson to the hospital,
only to be attacked by four kids in costumes. Maria flees, but the injury
causes her to drop dead on the house's pool. By this time, Nelson has succumbed
to his injury and dies as well. James tries to find help, only to have his face
burned by yet another trick-or-treater, and she completes her attack by
stuffing his mouth with rat poison, killing him. Caitlyn, the only adult left,
flees to the backyard, where she hides in a shack. It is then revealed that
Caitlyn, Nelson, Maria and James are all psychopaths and
have been kidnapping kids and gouging their eyes out for their amusement. The
group of kids finds the shack, which turns out to be the place they tortured
the previous kids, and cornered Caitlyn. A girl, whose one eye has been gouged
by the adults, executes Caitlyn with an axe on her head. It’s a great twist
ending and the initial attack comes from nowhere. It’s a great idea, but it is
totally wasted by the fact that none of the actors can actually act. It is
rushed and cheap when it could have been something pretty unique – dare I say
it, it could have led to its own feature length film but as it is here its such
a wasted opportunity. The middle stories are all a little odd. The Weak and the
Wicked doesn’t fit with any of the other films at all. Written by Molly
Millions and directed by Paul Solet, it sees three bullies, Alice (Grace Phipps), Isaac (Booboo Stewart) and Bart (Noah Segan) as they
proceed to torture a kid after trick-or-treating (Jack Dylan
Grazer), but are interrupted by a teenager of their age in a devil costume (Keir Gilchrist). The
teenager hands Alice a drawing of the Devil and utters that the Devil will come
to aid the weak if they're wearing his costume. Alice dismisses the picture and
begins to chase the teenager away with the other bullies to the other side of
the city, where the teenager stops by a burnt-down caravan. In a flashback when
Alice, Bart and Isaac were kids, they had set the caravan on fire, which
belonged to the teenager, with his parents inside it at the time. As the
bullies beat the teenager up and prepares to light him on fire, Bart and Isaac
are attacked by an unseen force. When Alice turns around, the devil himself has
showed up, looking exactly like the teenager’s costume. As Alice is killed by
the devil, blood violently splashes to the teenager's face, who smiles in
satisfaction. The blood hits the young actor hard, it must have really hurt.
It’s a little too serious and doesn’t quite fit with the other stories. The
caravan looks dirty in the present scene, even though it is shown burning up in
the flash-back scene. It tries and fails at being clever and the devil looks
rubbish. Axelle Carolyn’s Gim Grinning Ghost is about as amateur as it
gets. As Lynn (Alex Essoe) prepares to leave her mother's (Lin Shaye) Halloween
party after hearing her mother recount a ghost story, she encounters strange
occurrences on her way home. First her car uncharacteristically breaks down in
the middle of the road, forcing her to finish her trip by foot. While walking,
she senses that a shadowy figure, the one from her mother's story, is following
her. Terrified, she runs into the safety of her house, and believes the figure
has not followed her to her house. As Lynn settles to a couch to watch a film,
her dog suddenly gets nervous and leaves the room. Lynn smiles and leans back
to the couch, only to find out that the ghost is
sitting beside her. It is boring, predictable and the opposite of scary. The
fact that it features a cameo from Stuart Gordon – one
of my all time favourite horror directors - is heartbreaking. Lucky
McKee’s Ding Dong confused me. Rewinding to the previous year, we see
Jack (Marc Senter) and his wife Bobbie (Pollyanna
McIntosh) watch as children trick or treat on Halloween night. Bobbie is
distraught by the fact she has no children of her own, to which Jack tries to
cheer her up by dressing their dog as Gretel. This leads things to get heated
and ends up with Bobbie suddenly turning into a red demon and clawing Jack's
face with her long, devilish nails. In the present time, Jack and Bobbie have
prepared to greet trick-or-treaters, dressed as Hansel and a witch
respectively, to Jack’s worry. Even though everything goes normally, with
Bobbie excitedly performing a skit to the delight of the children, something
feels uneasy between the couple every time there's children on their front
porch. Finally, when a boy also dressed as Hansel is visiting the couple's
house alone, Bobbie prepares to lead him inside, but Jack, aware of his wife's
intent, alert the boy's mother, who's looking for him. A disheartened Bobbie goes
back inside, and Jack persuades her to stop what they're doing, telling her
that it wouldn’t be right to have children of their own with the abusive way
she treats him. It is then revealed that Bobbie is a witch and
enjoys eating children, and when Jack reveals he's secretly had a
vasectomy to prevent a pregnancy, she becomes distraught and furious. She drags
Jack into the house's oven, which resembles hell, and ends up
melting herself. It’s badly written and badly performed, although I do
quite like Pollyanna McIntosh. Andrew Kasch and John Skipp’s This
Means War is basically a Halloween version of Deck the Halls. Boris (Dana Gould) has proudly
finished his Halloween-decorated house. But when children are about to greet
his house, they are lured away because of his neighbor, Dante (James Duval) has set-up
a rock and gore-oriented Halloween decorations on his house, complete with loud
rock music blasting from the speakers. Boris walks up to Dante's yard to ask
him to turn the volume lower, but Dante and his colleagues just laugh at him
and mock his decorations. Enraged, Boris wrecks the sound system and halts the
music, but Dante exacts revenge by planning to throw a huge bucket of blood to
Boris' slick Halloween decorations. As Boris runs up to stop Dante, the latter
splashes the blood on the former instead, and declares a war. Spectators begin
to crowd as the two fight, placing bets and egging them on until the police
come. Boris charges Dante towards a sharp piece of standing wood, killing both
of them instantly. Deck the Halls is a pretty bad film, it was copied by
Hallmark a few years later who took the premise, hired cheaper actors and
renamed it Battle of the Bulbs. It is an awful film, one of the worst ever made
in fact. This means war is considerably worse. Friday the 31st was a bit
of light relief, written by Mike Mendez and Dave Parker and directed by
Mendez, the film is a return to silly – something the anthology was in dire
need of at this point. A deformed serial killer (Nick Principe) who resembles Jason Voorhees hunts a
girl dressed as Dorothy for Halloween (Amanda Moyer).
The girl runs to a barn where she discovers several of the killer's victims,
among them her friend, Casey. The killer hunts her down to the barn, and when
she manages to escape and flee, he kills her by throwing a spear through her
chest. As the killer celebrates the slaying, a UFO beams down a small alien
that tries to trick-or-treat. The killer proceeds to stomp over the tiny alien,
seemingly crushing him, but the alien instead turns into goo and possesses the
victim's body, chasing the panicked killer into his barn. The possessed girl
and the killer then proceed to attack each other with sharp objects, which
eventually concludes with both of them decapitating each
other. The alien then leaves the girl's decapitated head to teleport back to
his spaceship, taking the killer's head with him. It is stupid, gory and fun and a
million times better than the rest. Ryan Schifrin’s The Ransom of
Rusty Rex is probably the most intelligent of the stories. When
they spot millionaire Jebediah Rex (horror legend John Landis) letting his
son Rusty (Ben Woolf) out for trick-or-treating, former bank robbers Hank (Sam Witwer) and Dutch (Jose Pablo
Cantillo) set out their plan to kidnap the millionaire's son. After succeeding
doing so, the kidnappers tie up a still-masked Rusty into a chair and call his
father for a ransom. However, the father seems overjoyed that his son has been
kidnapped and promptly hangs up the phone. Hank calls him one more time to
discuss about ransom, but the father coldly tells them they can have his son.
Exasperated, the kidnappers find out that the son is actually a deformed
monster that clings to the people near him. They tried to sink him down the
river, but he came back to their lair. Hank calls Jebediah once more, only to
be told that Rusty has been holding Jebediah and his wife hostage for five
years as he would not leave them, and thanked the kidnappers for taking him
away from them. Hank and Dutch once again tied Rusty and sets him on fire, but
as Hank comes back from buying food, Rusty, who has gotten hungry, has eaten
Dutch up to his head. Hank screams, the film ends. It is half an idea, the
first half being good and the second half poorly written. The final story, Bad
Seed, is written and directed by Neil Marshall, the film’s headlining horror
director. After a man has his head bitten off by a massive pumpkin he
has just carved, Detective McNally (Kristina Klebe)
investigates the crime scene. At first she refuses to believe the description
of the victim's wife, but after the forensics team member, Bob, confirms the
killer was indeed a carved pumpkin, she works to put a stop to it. The pumpkin
proceeds to eat a trick-or-treating child and terrorizes the neighborhood,
which has already suffered from the events portrayed earlier in the film.
McNally manages to track the killer pumpkin down to a backyard, where it
attacks her; though she initially runs out of bullets, Bob appears with a
shotgun, and she is able to destroy it. Among the broken pieces of pumpkin, she
finds a sticker from a company called Clover Corp, headed by a Professor Milo
Gottleib (played by legend Joe Dante), advertising the pumpkin as a 100%
organic super-pumpkin. McNally and Bob visit the Clover Corp. headquarters and
discover thousands of genetically-modified pumpkins, all potentially dangerous,
waiting to be sold. The initial pumpkin attack was fun but by this point the
film was really starting to drag. This was no the pay-off I had been hoping for.
If the pumpkins would have gone around town killing every character we’d seen
throughout the movie then it would have been great but as it was it was fairly
rubbish, especially from talent such as Marshall. They achieved a lot on a
small budget but nothing here is of a high quality. What the film makers would
describe as ‘tribute’ I would describe as theft. It is a horrible am-dram
style mess of horror clichés and half ideas. It would have been far better if
the stories had been linked in some way but that would have required creativity
and time and it didn’t seem that the people responsible had either. Watch a
real horror film this Halloween instead of this nonsense.