Directors: Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, others
Writers: Axelle Carolyn, Dave Parker
Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Hunter Smit, Cameron Easton
Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
Link: https://amzn.to/2FYJf7C
Synopsis
It’s a horror anthology with ten short stories included.
- “Sweet Tooth” – A little boy’s parents eat his Halloween candy, so he cuts them open to get to the candy they ate. He now returns every year for his due…
- “The Night Billy Raised Hell” – A little boy is talked into egging a house, and ends up meeting his next door neighbor who is literally the devil.
- “Trick” – A group of adults are having a get together, and it’s all going well until a little trick-or-treat girl stabs one of them. Actually, it looks like every child in town has become a murderer.
- “The Weak and the Wicked” – A nerdy kid is bullied on Halloween, but the bullies find someone larger to pick on. They pursue on their bicycles, at least until the stroke of midnight.
- “Grim Grinning Ghost” – We hear about Mary Bailey, a woman who was tortured and killed for having a disfigured face. They are warned not to turn around if she follows you home. One of the women then has to walk home. Will the ghost of Mary Bailey steal her eyes?
- “Ding Dong” – A childless couple have difficulties in Halloween.
- “This Means War” – Neighbors compete over who has the best Halloween display in their front yards. The battle of horrors escalates…
- “Friday the 31st” – A girl runs from a Jason-clone. He gets the girl, but we then see that there’s always a bigger fish.
- “The Ransom of Rusty Rex” – Two kidnappers nab Rusty Rex, the child of a very rich man. “You’ve made a terrible mistake. You poor bastards,” warns the father. For some reason, Dad doesn’t want his son back. Wait, is that Bat-Boy from the National World News?
- “Bad Seed” – Where we learn it’s not too smart to make your Jack-o-lanterns look too good. What harm can a hungry pumpkin do in one evening? This one tries to tie the other stories together a bit.
And the wraparound story with Adrienne Barbeau as the DJ. This isn’t really a story, just a voiceover thing.
Commentary
The credits give a small preview of what is to come as we zoom over an animated model of a small town. It gives off a very “Creepshow” vibe, and Adrienne Barbeau’s DJ character leads us into each segment.
This is not a low-budget film. The cast list is ridiculous for this kind of film, and none of it is taken remotely seriously. There’s a lot of humor here, and some of it is excellent. Clearly with the time constraints, they can’t go into anything too deep with ten stories, but what’s here is all really good. There’s not really a stinker in the batch.
The most creative (and goriest) segment is easily Friday the 31st.
The funniest was The Night Billy Raised Hell