10/31: Part 2

10/31 Part II is a Halloween themed horror anthology consisting of five terrifying tales hosted by Malvolia: the Queen of Screams.

The film kicks off with about ten minutes or so of mock trailers. Then our hostess gets the five tales going. Tale number one is: A Samhain Liturgy. In this tale, Holly is dropped off to babysit Tommy while his parents away. Tommy likes to sit in his room and make masks. Holly sneaks her boyfriend Cam over to the house. Holly and Cam discover a secret of the family that she is babysitting for.

Dead Lift is our second tale. Jeremy is working on Halloween, while his girlfriend Whitney wants him to come over and party. Jeremy picks up Howard. Howard turns out to be an interesting passenger who will change Jeremy's life.

Apache Hatchet Massacre II is tale number three. It's one of the better ones, but also the shortest. A Halloween party is held at a cabin that is on an ancient Indian Burial Ground.

The best tale is tale number four, Overkill. Overkill is directed by Drew Marvick (Murdercise, XXX-Mas). This is the best and most fun story of the anthology. It literally has everything in it that I love about horror films. There's some eye candy, gore, and good dose of humor in this story.

Sister Mary is the final tale of this anthology. Basically a nun is haunted by her past sins.

10/31 Part II is a decent horror anthology. I really enjoyed a couple of the stories, but there were also a couple that ran on too long. I went ahead and gave it a 7 based on stories number 3 and 4.

How in the world can you produce a movie that contains references to the holiday of Samhain, then have actors in a scene in that movie pronounce it "sam-hain?" It's pronounced "saw-in." It's like you made a movie that took place in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar, and the actors pronounced it as "cater." It takes a lot of incompetence among a large crew of morons for this mistake to actually make it to print.

While not as good as it's predecessor, the 2021 release of 10/31 part 2 still has it's moments. The independent film makers show some new and some old twists on horror tropes. A few of which were so purposefully over the top with mirth and cheesiness, that it's hard not to give them a pat on the back for their tongue in cheek approach. Some of the stories seem very confusing and I simply felt the story lacked the punch they deserved, but over all it definitely filled a cheese craving for a Friday night.

So, between this one and it's predecessor it's pretty obvious which one of them is the stronger film. This one had a fair amount of choppy transitions from time to time. There was also some a weird shifts in tone from story to story. I get each story is it's own thing as well as has its own director and because of that there are bound to be different feels to each of their story. I just felt the first anthology series tied them together a little better with a collective atmosphere than this one did. But overall it's just fine for a casual viewing... also was weird how they kept pronouncing Samhain wrong and it really took me out of the otherwise better story of the bunch.

I purchased this to upgrade to free shipping from Scream Team. I'm pretty glad I did overall. It's a cool company and I was in a perfect mood for some fun horror shorts. That's exactly what you get, for the most part.

The trailers were OK - nothing great and maybe one chuckle or two.

The first short is the highlight of the movie. "A Samhain Liturgy" is one of the better shorts I have seen in a long time. It's a horror/comedy mix as most of these are, but does it really well. It's a simple, familiar formula done well. What makes it work is the acting. It's well above average for the budget. 8/10

The second short, "Dead Lift," is well-paced and starts off creepy and fun. The climax was a bit corny, but then the ending redeemed it. Again, good acting, but needed some more polishing. 7/10

Unfortunately, the last two dropped off a bit. The third is a pure parody that's relatively funny, but nor particularly special or memorable. It's also the first glimpse into (purposeful) bad acting. The kid was annoying, but not in a good way. 5/10

The last segment, to me, was useless and contended to be serious, I think? It was displaced and pretty hard to watch. 2/10.

I was actually torn between a 6/10 and 7/10. I'm not sure I'll recommend it or watch it again, but it made for a pretty fun night overall and is good, indie horror done right. It's just a shame the last segment was a bit of a throwaway.