Le Masque d'Halloween

I always like an Halloween themed movie. I am always on the lookout for them. Despite being 18 years old, i had never heard of this one until a few years ago wich i stumble across it randomly on some "website" if you know what i mean. I had it in my Halloween season backlog for a few years and finally decided to have a go.

Lets start by the good. The movie happen all on Halloween and does feature several carved pumpkins. Costumes are rather lame but at least peoples are costumed. The actresses are for the most part fairly attractives. Yup... think it sum it up.

Sure this movie is very low budget but there is no excuse for the mess that it is. First of all there is so much time spent with characters dialogues that could had gone to stalking or killing. The movies has a ton of characters and just forget about some of them. As in litterally they don't even die or participate in the "horror parts".

Speaking of characters, this movie has some of the worst ones i seen in a long time. Loud, obnoxious, annoying to an insane degree, especially the 2 in the white robes, you wish they would be written off as early as possible.

Amy Weber plays one of the few decent character. I remember her from WWE Diva Search and i know she done a few movies but i am not familiar with them. Minka Kelly altough never getting an A status achieved some popularity over the years and was the other character i cared for. The rest were absolutely horribles.

They try to establish some kind of romance between the main male character and Minka's (Tammy if i recall correctly) but it feel so off, as in why would she care about this weirdo? You never feel a reason why she would be attracted to him.

The movie goes the mystery masked man route and have us playing the guessing game, but the payoff was not satisfactory at all.

The kills themselves were for the most part started on-screen but finished off-screen, probably for budget restrain. There is a few post-mortem gore but its not enough to justify enduring the rest.

Overall this is a VERY mediocre movie. I juggled between a 3 and a 4, but ultimately this is not "slightly below average". Its worst. Im sure i will rate other movies a 4 that i will have enjoy way better.

Its possible to make a good horror movie on a tight budget (first Terrifier comes to mind). And if i would judge only the kills and horror i wouldn't be so harsh. But there is no excuse for these terrible obnoxious characters and for not showcasing more kills/horror/stalking instead of lame dialogues and juvenile terrible "jokes". And the general plot is nothing special or original.

So yeah 3 out of 10... can't go higher.

"Low budget" is not a valid excuse for a lousy film. Some great films have been products of extremely low budgets. This is not one of them.

Quick plot summary: Halloween night, sister's boyfriend pretends he's a masked murderer. Sister doesn't get the joke and screams for help. Young brother arrives with blade in hand and viciously attacks assailant. Shoot forward one year, sister and brother are moving to a new town and attend a locals' Halloween party on a pumpkin farm. As the evening progresses, so does the body count.

The villain's mask in this film is above average in the grotesque category and was pretty effective. Amy Weber and Minka Kelly are gorgeous. A couple of interesting plot twists.

Now for the bad: 4000 plot holes! Albeit, the masked-serial murderer has been (pardon the pun) done to death, but this film had potential to be a decent Halloween flick. Unfortunately, it is all presented in a choppy, careless manner that not even its gratuitous (and extremely brief) bare breast scene could assist in saving.

Amy Weber and Minka Kelly are gorgeous, though.

This film was very hard to rate. For a low budget horror flick, it wasn't bad, but it could have been so much better.

First, it spent entirely too much time with the actors just acing stupid. Lots of hot girls running around, but the guys were just plain dumb. It wasted a lot of time that could have been spent on horror. After all, it is a Halloween slasher film.

The old man was one of the best parts of the film. Now, he was really creepy. Lance (David Austin) and his buds were just like Draco Malfoy and his crew. You just wanted them to get their due.

The pissing on the head bit was certainly original - and funny.

Less silliness and more slashing.

In the Halloween in West Minister, the teenager Lynn Starks (Amy Weber) is attacked by a man wearing a pumpkin face mask in the basement of her house. Her younger brother Jonathan Starks (Michael Zara) is carving a pumpkin in his room and hears her sister crying for help. He uses the knife to protect his sister, stabbing the assaulter. When they take the mask off his face, they realize that the man is Lynn's boyfriend Alec (David J. Wright) playing a prank on Lynn.

One year later, the siblings are living in Carver, and they are invited to a Halloween party in the field. Lynn introduces her friend Tammy (Minka Kelly) to her brother, who is haunted by Alec, and Jonathan stays with Tammy. However, her former boyfriend Lance (David Austin) bullies Jonathan along the night. Meanwhile several youngsters are attacked by the Pumpkin Face that carves their faces.

"The Pumpkin Karver" is a film with terrible story, characters, direction and acting. The plot is unoriginal and full of clichés; there are several slashers very similar to "The Pumpkin Karver", but the conclusion is awful. The characters are stupid and non-charismatic and the two guys dressed in white are annoying and unbearable. The direction and the acting are bad, and Michael Zara is very weak in the lead role. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Pumpkin Karver, a Nova Face do Terror" ("Pumpkin Karver, the New Face of Terror")

The Pumpkin Carver is yet another one of the recent attempts to apply the tried and true slasher formula. And as so many do, this movie fails to deliver. The plot is plain stupid as are most of the stock characters. You have the fragile hero (whiney is more like it), the drugged out party dudes (annoying as hell), and the token asshole jock type. These are the party-people, and yes, they are destined to get killed.

The movie would have us believe that some evil pumpkin carver is killing kids at a Halloween party.....in a pumpkin patch! Actually, the movie can't find a plausible reason why this thing is killing kids. The premise is very confused and ultimately hurts the movie. The ending is plain awful....I still don't know what really happened.

The kills were low budget all the way, which is unfortunate given the polished look of the film in general. Really not an ounce of clever to be found here. And as one reviewer has pointed out, no nudity despite saying otherwise on the box.

One bright spot was Minka Kelly, a pouty lipped poor man's Jessica Alba. She was stunning and I anticipate seeing a lot more of her. Overall, I say avoid the Pumpkin Carver.