The Night Before Halloween

RELEASED TO TV IN 2016 and written & directed by Sheldon Wilson, "The Night before Halloween" concerns a group of teens who must deal with the ramifications of a Halloween prank gone wrong. It is eventually revealed that they are under the Curse of the Carver: a curse that slays you on the night before Halloween unless you can trick someone into killing someone else.

The overall filmmaking is professional and the cast takes the material seriously and perform proficiently with Bailee Madison & Justin Kelly emerging as the main protagonists. Anthony Lemke is particularly effective as the detective. There's an almost "Wow!" moment at the halfway point where Wyatt (Alex Harrouch) reveals what was really going on during the confusing opening act and I hoped the rest of the movie would change my "Meh" feelings, but it was not to be.

The perplexing curse and the baffling non-creature it unleashes (a bunch of flies that sometimes morph into a partial monster) are too befuddling. If the viewer can hardly understand what's happening how can the teens in the story comprehend their life-or-death situation with any certainty?

Note to emerging filmmakers: Work the kinks out of your premise BEFORE making the movie. The director, Sheldon Wilson, needs to improve his scriptwriting skills because the movies he writes tend to be problematic story-wise ("The Hollow," "Neverknock" and "Stickman") whereas his movies written by others can be quite good for TV-budgeted flicks ("Mothman," "Red, Werewolf Hunter" and "Scarecrow," which is excellent).

The female cast is decent, but not stellar, rounded out by Kiana Madeira as Lindsay and Dani Kind as the secondary detective. Natalie Ganzhorn has a small role as Beth.

THE MOVIE RUNS 90 minutes and was shot in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

GRADE: C-

It's ok, but slow and confusing kinda tbh. Wouldn't watch it again. Stupid ending too

Some kids play a prank on a friend who ends up electrocuted in the process. So they do the logical thing--drop her off in front of the hospital and escape. Back at home they come up with a story. One of them borrows another's car and tries to escape from something chasing him. He crashes but manages to make a video before he dies.

A year later all the kids start getting texts from the injured girl who is actually in a coma. They go the hospital. There we learn of a stain on the ceiling and flies. One of the kids who's gone missing reappears and shows them the video of the dead guy where things are explained. So it turns out that guy was cursed and the only way to pass on the curse is buy getting someone else killed. Because they were all part of the prank now they are cursed and have this night, the night before Halloween to make someone else die or they will die.

The police are sort of after them and so is the curse--a bunch of flies that can take on the shape of a creature or of weapons. Of course the kids will have different ways of dealing with this, some will be fine with trying to get someone else killed others reject the idea and will try to figure out some other way out.

The Night Before Halloween is a surprisingly good production for a Syfy movie. Unfortunately only the production is good. Everything else isn't. In particular the story, which would be more suited for a short. The problem is that all we focus on is these unremarkable kids we can't even care about. It's actually a relief to see some adults, in the form of the cops. It's also Anthony Lemke who in the role of the main detective gives the most convincing performance. Surprisingly, this movie is all business. There's not much of an attempt at romance, or comedy or anything else for that matter. The problem is that the business of this movie just doesn't convince. It would have helped if the curse didn't come in the utterly unscary form of flies. The idea itself of a curse that has to be resolved in 24 hours isn't a bad idea nor is it new. More should have been done with the idea if an additional writer would have been hired. Granted, this is a pretty bland movie for teens and about teens, I'm not sure though even teens would enjoy this.

When a prank inadvertently kills someone, a group of friends attempting to get away with the crime find themselves stalked one year later by a strange being that's part of a curse against them and they must find a way to stop the deadly creature from taking them all out.

This here turned out to be quite a problematic offering. The vast majority of the problems with this one lies in the fact that there's just not a whole lot of work done here to make the main group likable enough to follow them. The concept of their initial prank is so ludicrous and stupid that it really boggles the mind what it was supposed to accomplish, and then to top it off the idea of them abandoning the whole affair in light of the accident the way they do so here by actually figuring on letting a friend die instead of trying to save her merely to save themselves makes them out as utterly despicable and deplorable so that they deserve the fate that befalls them. How easily they get coerced into going along with it isn't all that much better, and the fact that it almost lets them get away with the accident when a simple matter of innocent explanation all could've saved themselves the trouble and kept themselves from revealing what could've happened would have made the story hold together a lot stronger. There's also the fact that the film here presents itself as such an utter cliché in the manner of how the creature goes about being unleashed against the group which doesn't make any sense why they would need to carry out a dangerous action here in order to let the creature get involved. As well as some typically spotty CGI used in the concept of the flies, these here are what really hold this back even with a few rather decent elements. One of the stronger parts to this one is the actual attack scenes which are some of the most fun and enjoyable parts of this one with the opening prank resulting in a frantic chase down the streets trying to stop them, their first encounter in the hospital room where the creature assembles as flies to confront them in the vicinity of the bedridden-witness and the stellar scenes in the parking lot where they get arrested only to get confronted by the creature again and leads into the crazy encounter at the police station which is a strong highlight series of confrontations here. Even the fun scenes in the later half, detailing their battle in the warehouse that's quite detailed and much more action-packed than anything else in the film while managing to fill in the blanks of one of the biggest unresolved plot-points so far and becomes a spectacular twist ending as well. These here really manage to hold this one up although a vast majority of it's flaws do hold it back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

I'm not going to lie-the acting was pretty good, and the movie was alright. It was a bit entertaining, but I still didn't really understand where the "game of the bees" originated, why it started, or what the motives were. I wish there had been more explanation or depth to that part. Maybe I just didn't pay close enough attention. Overall, it's an okay film. You don't lose anything by watching another silly horror movie. So go ahead-don't always rely on critics. Be your own critic.

I think this movie needed a bit more depth when it comes to the curse-how it started, who created it, and why it chose that specific method of killing. It wasn't particularly scary, but it did show how friendship and love can take a dark turn between the characters. And of course, it's always ironic that it all happens on Halloween-apparently the devil's favorite playtime.

Like I said before, it's an okay film and worth a watch.