La nuit d'Halloween

Five-year-old Michael sees his mother getting axed to death by his serial killer father "The Highwayman," who later commits suicide. "20 years later" grown Mike (Gordon Currie, from PUPPET MASTER 4 and 5) invites seven of his friends to his secluded grandparents home to "master their own fears" at a Halloween night costume party. Morty, a life-size wooden doll kept in the attic by the Indian handyman, becomes possessed by the dead father's spirit and kills them off using their phobias. Characters are thrown out a window, drowned in a toilet, eaten by rats, blown up, etc. Morty morphs into the dad and a tree, walks around and makes stupid wisecracks. After finding a girl chopped up and stuffed in a cardboard box, the characters remain in the house, act cheerful, crack jokes and have sex.

The Morty design is good and Betsy Palmer (Mrs. Voorhees from the original Friday THE 13TH) is surprisingly delightful as the grandmother, but this thing is even more senseless and confusing than the original and is full of false scares, bad acting, brain-dead characters, repeat flashback footage and annoying distorted camera-work. Plus the only two minority characters (the Indian and a half-black girl) are the first to die. BLAH!

...it deserves to be watched for the only reason that you can see what a bad horror movie is. The plot was good, the acting wasn't that sucky, and this movie had a great beginning. Don't get me wrong, this movie had a good potential, and it had Betsy Palmer and hot girls, but turned out to be a mess in the end. Low budget, a lame score, off-screen deaths, and a killer that is to laugh for, make "FEAR : THE RESURRECTION" a bad horror film. What is a slasher film without on-screen deaths?

Anyways, check it out and think : more budget, and more wishes to make a good movie would make this a good one.

It's a strange phenomenon when obscure films are released and somehow they end up getting sequels. How dothese kinds of events happen in the time of the 1990s? When The Fear (1995) came out, it wasn't a smash hit nor did it even gain marginally favorable reviews. It was a horror film that had a unique concept but lacked any kind of vision to help make it feel largely different from that of others in the same genre. The one aspect to the film that still remains a highlight was the antagonist named Morty; the wooden mannequin. Somehow, somewhere, someone found this movie to be groundbreaking and demanded a sequel be made. Not sure how this was accomplished with the absence of social media and internet reviews. But whatever. It's not like it was worth it. This followup is by no means any improvement to the original.

As like the original, the plot is very similar. A group of adults venture into a house for a weekend getaway during the Halloween season. The leader of the group, Mike (Gordon Currie) is seeking to rid himself of post traumatic stress. When he was young, he witnessed his mother's death after his father (Garvin Cross) axed her and kidnapped him. Now he's taking his soon to be wife Peg (Stacy Grant), her brother Chris (MYC Agnew), Mitch (Phillip Rhys), Jennifer (Emmanuelle Vaugier), LisaAnne (Kelly Benson), Ned (Brendan Beiser) and Trish (Rachel Hayward) all to his grandma Mams (Betsy Palmer). There, they plan on all facing their fears with the help of Crow (Byron Chief-Moon) and his friend Morty (John Paul Fedele). Written by Kevin Richards, the script doesn't try anything new with this plot.

There is barely a drive in this plot. The execution by Chris Angel as director has the same setup to that of the first film. All the characters come together for a ceremony to embrace their fears only to have Morty let loose on them. The fears the group have don't even vary from that of its predecessor. What is the point in rehashing the same material? Richard's script doesn't make sense from the beginning either. Mike's father kills his mother and yet when it's displayed on screen, it looks as though Mike's mother stumbled across a stranger who killed her. What was Mike's father doing out in the wilderness? How did Mike escape his rampaging father? None of that is explored or explained. Not even an exposition dump as some people say. What's even worse is how oblivious some characters are.

An example of this is when Crow explicitly says that a certain mystical item needs to be around Morty for it to keep the evil inside it at bay. However when the object is removed without him knowing, he doesn't realize until much later. Really? We can't be this neglectful. Yet even with these problems, there are a couple of noteworthy things. For 1999 and from what the film looked like it had budget wise, the physical and special effects don't look too bad. The Morty prop and suit worn by Fedele is about the same in visual texture as was the old suit from the first film. Although it's a tad redder in color. Sometimes it even looks like when the prop is still, someone is actually sitting in makeup. The special effects for this film are used more for Morty's physical transformations. Whether that be morphing his hands or entire body.

The cinematography to this picture though was rather unimpressive. Taking place in a similar setting to that of the original, nothing feels different about it. Shot by Brian Pearson, the camerawork is okay but just isn't enough to truly make the experience engaging. Mike, the protagonist also suffers from dizzy spells, where the screen will become wavy but that's about the only added feature. Pearson also worked on projects like Final Destination 5 (2011) and Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015). Then there's Robert O. Ragland who composed the score to this franchise (I can't believe I typed that) once more. And it's alright for what it's worth. It's has some deep thumping bass notes at points and can add some suspense to certain scenes. After all he did work on the original movie and Grizzly (1976).

Music and visual effects are really the only highlights. Why not see Morty do cool things right? However, the actors, the characters they play, the script itself and the camerawork are bland and more or less copies of what the original film had already done. It's just an updated rehash of the original.

This movie was crap with a capital "C." The opening scene showed promise. But that "promise" was broken shortly after the viewer learns where the plot is going.

And the wooden statue, Morty, who was rather creepy in the original film, looks plain goofy in this one. It was so obviously just a guy in a cheap plastic costume. (And by the way, who else thinks "Morty" is one of the most un-scary names on planet earth? It ranks right up there with "Jimmy" or "Fred" when it comes to horror value. Or why not just name the wooden statute Henry-freakin'-Kissinger. "Run, it's Dr. Kissinger!" That'd be about as scary as "Morty.)

And then there's a scene where the "hero" hits his father's tombstone with---"a sledgehammer?" you might guess--"a two-by-four?" someone might venture. No, he angrily beats his father's tombstone with a twig---a freakin' twig. But worse than that, once the characters walk away, the tombstone actually, and inexplicably, bleeds. Oh brother!

There's also a Native American guy who lives with the main character's grandparents, but apparently, does nothing except Morty-maintenance. He perpetuates creepy Morty-legends, warns those who scoff, and even fixes Morty's arm when it becomes damaged during a childish prank. But for all his respect for and tenderness toward Morty, does Morty give a rat's hairy behind? No.

The movie drags on, and eventually several people die in ways that correspond to their worst fears (sort of). This film is a real yawner. Don't rent it.

A young boy sees his mother getting killed and his father hanging himself. 20 years later he gets a bunch of friends together to perform an exorcism on himself so he won't turn out like his father. All the stock characters are in place: the nice couple; the "funny" guy; the tough (but sensitive) hood; the smart girl (she wears glasses--that's how we know); the nerd and two no-personality blondes. It all involves some stupid wooden statue that comes to life (don't ask) and kills people. I knew I was in trouble when, after a great opening scene, we jump to 20 years later--ALL bad horror movies do that!

The dialogue is atrocious, the acting is bad (except for Betsy Palmer--why Betsy?) and the killings are stupid and/or unimaginative. My favorite scene is when two people are supposedly having sex and the statue knocks the guy off the bed to show he's fully dressed! A real bad, stupid incoherent horror film. Avoid at all costs.