10/31: Part 2

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.

Hosted by Malvolia, The Queen of Screams, a special Halloween Night marathon featuring five gruesome, spine-chilling tales.

The Good Stor(ies): A Samhain Liturgy-Arriving at a charge's house, a woman begins her babysitting duties looking after a quiet kid while her parents are out at a Halloween party, allowing her to invite her boyfriend over for company. When they realize that something's wrong inside the house, they try to fight off a series of escalating occult dangers to themselves and their families. Overall, this was a general fun and enjoyable start to things. The old-school atmosphere from the 80s, from the cheesy setup and atmosphere, makes this highly likable even before the other stuff starts happening where they realize how psychotic and protective the kid is. That he's doing all this under the guise of being dangerous towards the figure in the basement, only makes for a startling twist when it occurs but the action taken is quite brutal as well. The creature itself looks great, while the later reveal about the antics of the cult and their connection to everything is integrated and explained nicely but feels like overkill to tack on with little build-up in a short segment like this.

Dead Lift--Enduring a night of rude customers, a ride-share driver manages to keep going for one more passenger before calling it a night and takes home an actor from a local play. As the trip goes on and more details about the passenger are revealed, he realizes the danger he's brought on for himself by taking on this last passenger. This was a decent enough if still somewhat flawed segment. That everything here comes off as a strong, psychological venture alternating between the old man speaking cryptically like normal and his inner consciousness playing on the insecurities present as a macabre form of a recruitment pitch. The full reveal of what's going on and all the various actions here to play off what's going on give this a lot to like, but at the end of the day the segment is overly talky without much in the way of action. It's also somewhat overlong in the epitaph to finish off the transformation that goes on way too long without offering anything that could've been explained in less time despite offering the best gore in the segment.

Overkill-After being compelled to killer already, a serial killer stalking the open streets of a small town on Halloween night finds his next target to be a pervy teenager babysitting at a house before a party. When he spots another killer attempting to scout the girl as his next target, they must decide who's going to kill her if it even gets to be one of them. This was a gloriously fun and goofy entry. The first part stalking the couple who are closed up for the night is a fantastic series of stalking goodness featuring a strong old-school style, tons of atmosphere, and great, gory kills. The later scenes at the babysitters' house are immensely fun and silly, featuring the two going back-and-forth in a one-sided conversation of his increasingly pathetic pleas to a stoic killer not reacting to anything which is immensely entertaining and hilarious. The only issue here is a strangely underwhelming and off-beat ending that comes off as a great gag in concept but is weirdly executed with the morning Sun rising up betraying the pitch-black nighttime setting moments earlier. Otherwise, this was a lot of fun.

The Bad Stor(ies): Apache Hatchet Massacre II-Gathering together for a Halloween party, a group of friends decides to pass the time by telling stories which includes one about the area involving a mystical Indian burial ground. When they realize that the Indian burial ground has brought a savage killer to life, they try to escape the situation alive. There was a lot to both like and dislike with this one. It works best as a simple, straightforward slasher, focusing on the fun setup involving how the spirit gets released and the resulting massacre that follows here which is the typically goofy, over-the-top reactions to everything going on. The main problem is that it lasts so briefly it's hard to really get a feel for what's going on, moving from the resurrection to the party, the massacre, and the aftermath so quickly that it can be nearly impossible to keep track of what's going on, who's who since we barely have time for names or even the big twist at the end. This one really could've been a lot more fun if it had a few more minutes added.

Sister Mary-Tormented by various demonic forces, a woman living in her home finds the same figure again coming after her once she's believed to be in the clear. Forced to confront her past trauma in order to stop the demonic being from torturing her, she realizes that she's never going to be free from the creature and his threats. This was a rather confusing segment to end this one on. The fact that the demonic torture is genuinely unnerving and terrifying, making her either believe that she's murdered her husband or taunting her with the memory of doing so which is all incredibly fun to watch carry out with its dynamic visual creations. However, it's too confusing to tell what's happening with the mostly-dialogue-free setup that never explains for sure what's going on, and with the brief running time that doesn't let enough time develop for that to happen, this comes off rather disappointing.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.

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.

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.

A hit-and-miss anthology that starts well but does not sustain it, and it suffers from uneven timings and clunky mood changes.

The first story, about Samhain, is spoiled by characters mispronouncing 'Samhain', some unconvincing effects (probably to avoid depiction of a child beating an adult to death), repetitive script, irregular continuity, and some bizarre colour balance. The opening drone shot would be excellent were it not for light saturation, then scenes inside the house are washed out in reds and browns. A violent scene offscreen is rendered amateurish by entrails apparently thrown into view before being snatched back. A character plays a tape at loud volume but sits down a metre away and the music is all but silenced.

An undead story doesn't really go anywhere but mixes speech with telepathy randomly. Once it is established that characters are reading each other's thoughts, slipping back to speaking seems pointless.

An 'Indian burial ground' story is a mess. Names are stressed as if important when they are not; reference to Indians as "feather, not red dot" feels borderline racist but disrespectful anyway. Events take place a year apart, but without any idea what a character might have been doing during that time. The story is not developed and is an opportunity wasted.

The serial killer story loses its way and tries to be too many things, none of them well, and the nun story just wants to be something else. Jump cuts, jumbled timeline, unexplained characters and questionable motivation make it feel more arthouse horror than snappy short.

A lengthy credits sequence includes cast and crew for five stories not in the version I saw. Research tells me these were trailers for other films but all content has been edited out other than the closing credits. With only five stories in the film itself, this sequence could have been half the length.

The first story could have been made into a 90-minute standalone feature but the rest do not sit well together and offer no progression. The bookending by 'Malvolia' is unnecessary, but a running theme or transition story might have helped. Major edits following trial screenings would have been advisable.