All Hallows' Eve

Given the overwhelming popularity of shockfests like Martyrs and the Saw series, the nearly universal disapproval of this film is itself shocking. It's strange how some films can make their mark for the very things that cause others to be rebuked. All Hallows' Eve is low budget and has its mistakes, but overall is a wonderful, very scary exploitation horror film with a memorable villain and surprisingly good production values.

All Hallows' Eve is an anthology film. Like most horror anthologies such as Tales From the Darkside: The Movie, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and Trick R' Treat, All Hallows' Eve has three main stories plus a wraparound story that ties them together. Director Damien Leone chose this format to showcase his pre-existing short films ("The 9th Circle" and "Terrifier"), so only the second story and the wraparound are totally new. The film opens with a woman babysitting two children on Halloween night and the discovery that someone has sneaked a VHS tape into one of the children's trick-or-treat bags. Reluctantly the babysitter plays the tape and the first of three stories begins.

With regard to reputation, there seem to be three primary complaints about the movie: 1) The director used previously created material, 2) The film is excessively gory, and 3) The acting is bad. Each of these is easily negated. First, most people have not seen the two short films, so the director seized his chance to have them viewed by a large audience. Completely understandable. Second, yes the film is graphic, but certainly no more than a hundred others released in the past decade, many of which were very popular. Third, the acting is actually pretty good. It's definitely strong enough to let the audience suspend their disbelief, which is after all the name of the game.

If there's one thing I've learned from reading reviews and posts on IMDb and elsewhere, it's that people will complain about anything. The truth is that All Hallows' Eve is a tense, entertaining horror film alive with creativity, realistic effects, and inspired direction. Its rating on IMDb (as of this writing) is unfortunate and unfair. If you want a polished horror film that's long on plot and every shot perfectly framed, see something else. If you want to have a good time and be scared, see this.

OK before you go all on me, saying that this movie is horrible. I know. It is don't worry. But you know it has the right amount of goofyness to make it decent. Is it scary you ask, well somewhat yea there are a few great scares that I won't forget and guess what there are barely any jump scares! This film relies mostly on atmosphere and outfits to scare you and it works well besides the really fake looking alien. But that's fine it's an indie flick. The acting actually isn't too bad, it has horrible moments but it's pretty solid. It was directed really well for a first timer. And that's another reason for the high score. If this was a higher budget film I woul give it a 5 or 6. But it's really fun so you know I'll cut slack. But I did have my few gripes 1: it was very slow and repeating at times mostly during the 2nd tape. And the last one isn't really a gripe but an opinion, not enough Art the clown!!!

I sat down to watch this movie, expecting the absolute worst, based on the 4.6 rating. What I found instead was actually a pretty decent movie, with a creepy atmosphere, an even creepier clown, and entertainment worth more than such a low rating.

I admit, along with everyone else who liked it, that the acting was somewhat stiff and awkward at times and some scenes seemed to drag on way too long, but the fun cheesiness of the movie far outweighed a little bad acting.

If you can enjoy a campy, low budget movie and/or are terrified of clowns, you shouldn't overlook this one. Just don't sit down with high expectations or you'll probably be disappointed.

This movie is basically the original Terrifier (which is just a diabolically tremendous short) with two pretty terrible stories beforehand.

The first one, the 9th circle features some pretty gnarly-low budget but effective imagery. But that's it.

The second may as well be an Ed Wood short minus the humor. Just god awful.

Then the reason this movie exists: to propel Art the Clown into an icon

(which they have succeeded with the balls to the wall blood fest that is Terrifier 2 and 3 coming this year)

The only reason I'd recommend watching this and not just the original Terrifier short is the wrap around story. I won't spoil that---but the ending outside of the shorts reminds us were watching a film by Damien Leone who's seemed to corner the "breaking every rule torture rampage" market atm.

Lastly, I found both actors who played Art to be utterly terrifying but it was interesting seeing minor aesthetic differences.

The 4.6 rating seems a bit low, but this movie isn't a masterpiece. Actually it's pretty far from being a masterpiece, lol. The acting was really awkward at certain points and some of the material is really questionable, but that f***ing clown is freaky as hell. And I'm not one of those types that are "afraid of clowns." But... the awkwardness of it all actually sort of enhanced the feeling of creepiness, in a weird way?

Also, how they linked and wrapped up the story was really clever. It didn't help that something crashed outside my window when the movie was over.

I usually don't watch movies below a 6.0 rating and I would never watch a movie below 5.0 (yes, I'm that type of person), but I was bored and I thought the clown looked scary so I gave this movie a try. Really glad that I did.