Halloween: noche de brujas

Christopher Vale witnesses his mother brutally raped and killed before being hideously burned and being sent to a mental asylum. Years later some local dweebs get together and throw a party in a nearby cabin. But good old Chris has escaped from the nut-hut to terrorize them. This 'Asylum' outfit has produced 50 some movies, you'd think one of this would be actually watchable, right??? Well you'd be wrong as this film's as awful as all the other films under their banner. It doesn't help that Micheal Gingold's story is hopelessly contrived, dreadfully acted, and deathly dull. I don't mean to single out Gingold exclusively (I'm still sore from suffering through "Leeches"). Oh no, the blame can be spread liberally from the director who has yet to make a decent film on down to the atrocious acting and further down to the sloppy editing and mediocre special effects. Awful with a resounding capital A.

My Grade: D-

Eye Candy: Jan Anderson, Alicia Klein, Stephanie Medina, Erica Roby,and Amanda Ward all got topless. (but you can see Stephanie's twin talents in the MUCH, MUCH better low-budget film "the Janitor")

I have to agree. The guy who plays "David" in this movie is one of the worse actors I have ever seen. The effects were good, the storyline was OK, but the acting really sucked for this guy. Even the killer, Chris Vale, did a better acting job than this David character and he didn't even have any dialog in the movie. Shows how bad of an actor this David character really was. I have noticed that the guy who plays David has directed a few B-movies. I think this guy should just stick to directing and leave the acting to the professionals because he totally get a thumbs down for me. The other characters in the movie did an OK job. Now, the woman who plays David's girlfriend, Shannon, her acting was OK, up to the part where she gets tied up and starts squealing like a pig. That was the annoying part of the movie. But everyone else in this movie did pretty fair as actors.

This is an entertaingly bad b-horror movie, but like all movies like this the bottom line is its just horrible. I really really hated Derek Osedach who played David Baxter, he really really sucks. I'm not sure what they hell he was trying to do for his 'performance' in this film. Its so laughable, I guess he was trying to improvise and ad lib, but he kept stumbling, and sounded so ridiclous, one of the worst acting jobs ever, honestly he gives the guy from El Chupacabra, Eric Alegria, a run for his money for the worst performance ever given in one of the worst movies ever made. Where was the director on this dumbass' acting? Well I guess this may not be one of the worst movies ever made. It does has satisfying killings. You end up hating the characters and are happy when they get brutally killed. That is the halmark of a true b-horror movie - characters so annoying you root for the killer.

However, the greatest thing about this movie is the hot girl-on-girl action! And I'm not kidding, there are a couple of hot chicks that get naked and get it on a couple times during the movie. most excellent. The nudity in this movie is one of its few good points. The music was really really well done too, but the one string melody was interesting but overused. But the script, acting, directing, camera work, etc all sucked big time.

Clearly an attempt to cash in on the success of other Halloween-themed slashers, "Halloween Night" offers nothing new to the genre. However, new offerings does not equate to entertainment, and this movie certainly entertains. For a low-budget DTV, it certainly isn't terrible...I have seen much worse.

The BAD: A weak script, and sub-par acting are this films main faults. Many have posted opinions of the guy who plays David's acting--honestly, I didn't have a big problem with him. That is probably because NOBODY was good in this movie, even Rebekah Kochon who gave a good performance in "When A Killer Calls." None of the actors seem to be really into the film, which is problematic. The script is laughable in parts on the dialogue really consists of nothing but high school hallway banter. The films looks like it was filmed all in one day, and yes, the killer resembles a zombie much more than he does a burn victim! Have the filmmakers ever even seen a burn victim???? I'm pretty sure they don't like they just climbed out of a coffin after decaying for 15 years. I also felt extremely let down by the ending....it was pretty predictable and by-the-book, but also very rushed. There wasn't a big chase scene and really no suspense as to who was gonna live/die.

The GOOD: Some pretty decent death scenes are about all this has going for it, and they aren't even THAT great. Also, the killer here is pretty ruthless and viscous, which some genre fans might find refreshing. But mainly, this entertains because of the old "it's so bad it's good" cliché, and sometimes, like on Halloween eve, that's all I really need out of horror flick--entertainment, no matter what its source. Still die-hard and picky slasher fans should probably just stick to watching the original "Halloween" for the 30th time.

My Grade: D-

Students throwing an epic Halloween party are infiltrated by a real homicidal maniac escaped from the local mental institution and who apparently doesn't like parties or partygoers. Clumsily edited, quickly made cash-in on the 2006 'Halloween' remake starts off okay, but despite some over the top, gory makeup effects, it quickly deteriorates into a cheap farce, little more than an orgy of mindless slaughter that defies logic.

I'm guessing the budget went on the costumes and the extras fees, and I hope there's receipts, because there's nothing else to show for it on the screen. The dialogue is an occasional highlight with some literary gold e.g. 'the real deal was psychological horror not medieval decadence' and my personal favourite 'you get tired of tasting tuna, you call me'.

Overall despite the tongue cheek tone and a reasonably sympathetic antagonist, there's only so much gratuitous nudity and corny one liners on which you can trade before you need to stump up on a coherent storyline. Unfortunately 'Halloween Night' the story, like its neglected killer, needed more attention in its development. Might just qualify as 'so bad it's good' and if you do take the plunge, make sure to stick around long enough for the coat-hanger killing, the whole set-up for which is totally wild.