spottylittlegit

I came into this already aware of it dismal reviews. I also come into it after already watching two of the youtube shorts and being unimpressed. The shorts felt like a weak attempt at a Terrifier vibe, but with no point whatsoever. Masked man harasses random people on the street with increasingly obnoxious and menacing magic tricks until they get scared, then he kills them... for some reason. Seemed very lazy

That said, I still wanted to give this a chance because i'll admit it, i'm a sucker for anything Halloween related. Plus I felt like maybe since this was a full length film there'd be more of a narrative, and point to all of this. And in the beginning I admit, I was actually pleasantly surprised to the point that I started wondering exactly why this was getting so many bad reviews.

The cinematography was nice, the locations looked good and appropriately autumnal, the actors were all actually fairly decent and believable, and there did seem to be a story developing that I found myself becoming interested in. Sure, the Jester was still showing up and menacing what seemed like random people, but I felt like maybe there was a point to all of it, and was enjoying the story, and wanted to see what happened next... and then it happened

About 3/4 of the way through the story just kind of flops, and the movie takes this confusing, yet mediocre turn. Suddenly it becomes all about these two sisters and their strained relationship with their dad, and becomes this weird unearned drama that somehow gets tied up with this supernatural element that is never explained. It simply makes no sense. The questions that have been building up since the very first scene just sort of go completely unanswered, and then the movie just sort of ends. Nothing is wrapped up, nothing is explained, like whatsoever. It's like "Dad was a bad dad back in the day, and because of that... now there's a demon? Literally. Apparently being a deadbeat dad, somehow summons a demon curse upon you, your family, and your offspring, that also kills other random people indiscriminately too, and you're just stuck with that, I guess? At least that's the impression you are left with because the movie doesn't care to explain it any further than that.

Why is this happening? Who is the Jester? What does he want? Why did he go after the person he did? Why is he here now going after that persons family? Why is he also killing anyone else he randomly crosses paths with? What is he? Why does he have the powers he does? What was the point to anything that happened in this movie? None of this is answered. Instead we just get this weird family drama, some truly random, pointless kills, an overpowered "unstoppable" big bad that just feels lazily written, with no clear rules, weakness, or motivation, and a nonsensical ending

As forgettable as the shorts were, in retrospect I prefer them. They were non sensical as well, but at least we didn't have a bunch of tacked on, unneeded melodrama, and they were mercifully short. This on the other hand just felt pointless and long. You had me for the beginning, but that end was a major whiff. I went from "Huh...this actually isn't that bad" to "what did I even just watch? That made no sense, and had no point whatsoever."

This left with with a profound sense of "uh...what?". Do not recommend. Good acting all around, a plot that could have been fun, and a setting that should have been fun (Halloween night, AND a Halloween carnival? How did you screw that up?) but extremely poor writing tanked it.

First off, one of the most sure fire ways of identifying that movie is probably going to be awful is if Ari Lehman is in it, and he pops up in the first 5 minutes. And as predicted, this film is another whiff. The premise itself sounded fun. Horror themed amusement park opens, then turns into a real life slasher when the titular "Phantom" begins knocking off the staff. Kind of sounds like a Scooby Doo episode taken to a psychotic level. I didn't expect it to be fine cinema, but I was just hoping for stupid fun. Weirdly enough it didn't even hit that low bar. For one thing, this movie has a real identity crisis. The theme sounds stupid, but possibly fun, the budget is low, the acting is atrocious, and Ari Lehman is there right off the bat, hamming it up in an ad for the park, in the most cringe inducing fashion, complete with the requisite blond bimbo in a tight dress oohing and aweing, and striking "sexy" poses beside him. So again, it' setting this stupid, cartoonish vibe immediately. Yet then, it introduces the main character, and suddenly cuts to this very serious, somber, drama vibe. She's showering, sadly, while very somber lifetime channel esque music is playing, then she's talking to her little brother about their mother, and how she abandoned them both, and tries to have this heartfelt moment. In fact, pretty much every time this character has a scene to herself it cuts to this very dramatic, sad, sober vibe as she attempts to relate to her brother, and connect with her estranged mother. And she's actually quite good. She's a talented actress. The problem is... she's acting in the wrong movie

Everything else, and every other character in this movie is cartoonish, and cringey. Every other character is a ridiculous stereotype. No one else can act at all, everyone is overacting horribly, every other character you encounter are all obnoxious, unlikable caricatures of people who don't speak, act, or behave like real human beings, and the rest of the movie feels like it was written by a child. Then back to the lifetime channel drama, then back to the cartoon. It makes no sense. It's like two different people wrote this film, and couldn't even agree on what kind of film they were making

Props to the main character, her brother, and to a lesser extent their mother. They are actually trying to act, far better than the awful script they were given. And major thumbs down to the park owner, the cheesy stereotypes that worked there, and Ari Lehman's ridiculously cringe...whatever it is he is trying to be (the dude played Jason as a child in Friday the 13th, long, LONG ago and has been riding that fame ever since. STOP CASTING THIS DUDE. HE CANNOT ACT, AT ALL, AND HAS A MASSIVELY OVERINFLATED EGO, EVEN LARGER THAN HIS STUPID HIPSTER MOUSTACHE).

Anyway, dull movie, weird bi polar vibe to it, with a few standouts that deserve to be in much better films.

Logged on and couldn't believe this thing had 100% positive... then I realized that's because it only has 5 votes, lol. That tracks. I saw this and it's prequel being really pushed by Bloody Disgusting this October for some reason. My guess is that someone on the staff is related to these folks, because this movie is ROUGH. I'm sure it is intended as some sort of parody, but it doesn't feel nearly clever enough to pull it off. It just feels like a bad, low budget effort. Not so bad it's good, just so bad it's... mid?

I also feel bad for several of these actors. The little girl in particular, because you can tell that they are new to acting, which is fine (everyone has to start somewhere), but they also aren't being given much direction, so it feels like they are just tasked with filling in their own dialogue for much of their scenes, and the result is extreme unnatural awkwardness. The little girl has nonsensical, overly long bits where she's basically making small talk with cats (or a picture of a cat in one part) but was given no instructions on what to say, so she's just rambling on to fill time, like "i like catfish, do you like catfish? You are a cat... do you like fish? Maybe you are also a fish? Are you a catfish?", or asking a picture of a cat if it's "hungry" and "about ready for dinner?"... then just meowing repeatedly after she runs out of things to say to it. She (and the babysitter) are also obviously instructed to dance to music in several scenes, but it's clear they hadn't locked down the music selection yet, so they are dancing to a completely different beat, and/or just awkwardly making fists and unnaturally jerking them in the air to simulate "dancing", ala Elaine from Sinefeld, lol

The special effects are also rouuuuugh. So far (i'm only like 30 minutes in) i've seen a very bad, photoshop style cartoonish animated "rip" as a head comes off, some off screen awkward kills, horrible dialogue like "make like a gravy train and get those greased wheels down the road and outta my face boy!" and an awkward guy in "gameface" makeup unenthusiastically walking out of the bedroom singing "do the commonwealth shuffle. The commonwealth shuffle. Come on yall, do the commonwealth shuffle" in a monotone, while his daughter responds (also in monotone) "stop being embarrassing".

And the killer, isn't ominous, and honestly doesn't even make sense. He just casually, almost lethargically drives from house to house, blandly walking in without any real purpose and killing people in the most unenthusiastic, color by numbers way, before shuffling off to repeat, He also seems to be immortal, which is demonstrated in the most uninteresting way. A guy points a gun at him and tells him to leave, then oddly, and unemotionally just shoots him anyway, the killer doesn't react, or even flinch, a really cheap after effects, subdued blood spray plays, the guy opens fire several more times, same cheap special effect, no reaction, then they both just sort of stand there looking at each other, presumably waiting to be cued on whatever the next line is lol, this isn't intentionally bad, despite what you've heard. This is just plain of middling bad.