Halloween Night

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.

For The Asylum Halloween Night is not too bad, they have certainly done much worse. Even with that taken into account, Halloween Night is still not a good movie. There are some things that are done reasonably, some of the daylight scenes are shot nicely, the music is a good mix of jaunty and eerie, Scot Nery does bravely as the one character that we come close to rooting for and there are some gory and imaginative slasher death scenes(honourable mention must go to the hanger death which is just hilarious). There have been worse-looking movies from The Asylum, but the special effects are poorly rendered, the editing is sloppy for much of the movie and some scenes especially the first 10-15 minutes are really amateurishly shot. Chris Vale's make-up is appropriately hideous considering what happens to him, but he looks too much of a zombie and some have already said. The acting is pretty dire from almost everybody, Nery is the best of the lot but then we have Rebekah Kochan overacts her rather shallow character and Derek Osedach mumbles his way through his lines and not much else. The characters are exceedingly annoying and shallow with non-existent character development, the one exception is Chris Vale but he is not much different from similar characters from similar movies. The dialogue is dumb and just painful to listen to, making something like the worst Disney Channel movie seem like Casablanca comparatively. The story is even more of a problem, that it's mind-numbingly ridiculous, painfully predictable and deathly dull is one thing but we also have a complete lack of tension, thrills sense of horror/terror(mainly because of the characters' interactions and expressions being so blank) and suspense, situations and interactions are really contrived and implausible, and there is a heavy reliance on drawn-out done-to-death clichés that are marred even further by being played far too straight. The ending is inept in every way, and if you're finding it difficult to buy or swallow don't blame yourself, you won't be the only one. In conclusion, could have been worse but rather mediocre, not the terrifying story that the cover advertised. 4/10 Bethany Cox

After witnessing his mother being raped and murdered by two thugs, a boy named "Christopher Vale" (Scott Nery) is left badly disfigured and is eventually committed to an insane asylum. Ten years later, he kills a couple of guards who were mocking him, and after escaping from the mental institution, he heads back to his childhood home. Meanwhile, a teenager named "David Baxter" (Derek Osedach) is hosting a Halloween costume party at his house and has invited several of his schoolmates. In addition to the party, David has planned a creepy prank to scare everyone attending. What he doesn't realize, however, is that the house he lives in was once the home of Chris Vale--and he's heading straight there. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will simply say that this film is an obvious low-budget version of the famous movie "Halloween," made almost 30 years earlier, but lacking the suspense, acting, drama, and a bit of the gore that made the original so fascinating. It also lacked any likeable characters. Be that as it may, I wasn't particularly impressed with this movie, and I have rated it accordingly.

Well, I gotta say that this was the best Asylum movie I've seen so far. All the others were spin offs of blockbuster movies ("The Da Vinci Treasure," "Snakes on A Train," "Pirates of Treasure Island"...) which honestly sucked. Even though this storyline is old, the plot was understandable and smooth for a change. The killing scenes were pretty decent, although the blood seemed fake in a couple of cases. The only thing that bothered me was David's fidgety speech. I couldn't understand what he was saying half the time. I think Asylum should stick to making horror films (I believe it's what they first started off doing), which seems to be what they're better at.

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-