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Halloween — the one time of year when even the stuffiest among us can let out our inner monster. But some people are more prone to demonic behavior than others. Take the hoodie-sporting, fright-mask-wearing, "Pop Goes the Weasel"-whistling cutthroat (Stephen Conroy, his real face never shown) at the center of the lackluster Hell Fest. He has a habit of stalking and stabbing teens each All Hallows Eve. One unlucky gal gets offed before the opening credits have finished rolling: She's hung, bloodied and battered among the plastic prop bodies in an amusement park haunted house, only to ...

Halloween — the one time of year when even the stuffiest among us can let out our inner monster. But some people are more prone to demonic behavior than others. Take the hoodie-sporting, fright-mask-wearing, "Pop Goes the Weasel"-whistling cutthroat (Stephen Conroy, his real face never shown) at the center of the lackluster Hell Fest. He has a habit of stalking and stabbing teens each All Hallows Eve. One unlucky gal gets offed before the opening credits have finished rolling: She's hung, bloodied and battered among the plastic prop bodies in an amusement park haunted house, only to ...

Eye candy without much to offer the brain or emotions, “Hell Fest” is a competently crafted slasher film rendered instantly forgettable by its disinterest in character, plot, and motivation, let alone original ideas. An early Halloween salvo, it will be gone from theaters before that holiday (or even the latest screen “Halloween”) arrives, but should in the short term satisfy that seasonal itch among horror fans before bigger, better fright-fests arrive.

After the obligatory prior-victim’s-fate prelude, we meet the film’s college student protagonists, who are young and cute but not much else. Natalie (Amy Forsyth) reunites with ex-roomie Bff Brooke (Reign Edwards) — the movie suggests there’s some reason why they haven’t seen each other for a while, but never gets around to explaining it — while less enthusiastically renewing acquaintance with Brooke’s irksome new flatmate Taylor (Bex Taylor-Klaus).

Nonetheless, all three are soon off to Hell Fest,...

The latest movie adaptation of a Meyer novel will likely not lead to a movie franchise Directed and adapted by Andrew Niccol, Stephenie Meyer's sci-fi book The Host debuted at no. 6 on the Us / Canada box-office chart this Easter weekend, earning an anemic $10.6 million at 3,202 North American venues, as per actuals found on the web site Box Office Mojo. Many pundits had been predicting The Host to debut in the mid-to-high teens. What that means (and considering the film's budget; see below), the romantic sci-fier featuring Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, and Jake Abel is this year's most recent big box-office disappointment. (Pictured above: Abel as one of the men in Ronan's in The Host) It may seem mean-spirited to compare The Host to either Twilight or The Hunger Games; but then again, both of those movies were also adaptations of popular novels geared to young adults, and featured a...

Early estimates point to a quite underwhelming box-office debut for the latest movie adapation of a Meyer novel: Really, nobody was predicting that The Host, the Andrew Niccol-directed film version of Stephenie Meyer's sci-fi book about parasitical aliens would reach the North American gross of the initial Twilight movie (2008), also based on a bestseller written by Meyer. And certainly no one was expecting that Niccol's film would get even remotely near the success of Gary Ross' sci-fier / adventure drama The Hunger Games, which, like Twilight and The Host, was based on a popular book for young adults, featuring a heroine (Jennifer Lawrence) and two men in her life (Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson). (Pictured above: 2007 Best Supporting Actress nominee Saoirse Ronan in The Host.) In fact, The Host would have boasted a fantastic debut were it to earn as much as half of the $69.63 million (not factoring...

Latest adaptation of a bestselling Meyer novel has received atrocious ratings on the review-aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes "Dopey, derivative and dull, The Host is a brazen combination of unoriginal science-fiction themes, young-adult pandering and bottom-line calculation," says New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis. And Dargis' opinion is one of the kinder ones that U.S. critics have written about Andrew Niccol's mix of romance, adventure, and science-fiction, starring Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, Max Irons, and Jake Abel, and co-produced by the author of the novel on which the film is based (Niccol himself is credited for the adapation): Stephenie Meyer, best known as the brain behind the Twilight Saga literary and cinematic franchises. (Pictured above: Ronan, a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominee back in early 2008, and co-star Abel) Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Twilight Saga? In the story, an alien force usurps the...

Chicago – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 30 pairs of movie passes up for grabs to the advance screening of the highly anticipated “The Host” from the author of “The Twilight Saga”!

“The Host,” which opens on March 29, 2013 and is rated “PG-13,” stars Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, William Hurt, Rachel Roberts, Shyaam Karra, Brent Wendell Williams, Jhil McEntyre, Jalen Coleman, Stephen Rider, Jaylen Moore, Stephen Conroy, Marcus Lyle Brown, Michael L. Parker, Phil Austin, Chandler Canterbury and J.D. Evermore from writer and director Andrew Niccol based on the novel by “The Twilight Saga” author Stephenie Meyer.

To win your free “The Host” passes courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just get interactive with our unique Hookup technology below. That’s it! This screening is on Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at 7 p.m. in downtown Chicago. The more social actions you complete, the more points you score...