Hellions

Hellions is the latest film from Bruce McDonald who helmed Pontypool (2008), a film which showed that he was a director who was not afraid to approach old ideas in new ways. With Hellions, it could be said that he is adopting the same philosophy. Its story focuses on a teenage girl who lives in a town famed for its pumpkin crop. On Halloween night she discovers she is pregnant to her boyfriend and very soon finds herself home alone and terrorized by strange, costumed, demonic children who seem to be after her unborn child.

To be honest just going by the synopsis you could be forgiven for thinking this is going to be no more than a routine horror outing with little to differentiate itself from the pack. But in practice it's a whole lot better than that. This is mainly on account of the stylised manner in which its story has been brought to the screen. Once our heroine is in the midst of her struggles, lots of colour filters are used to create a weird Halloween fantasy land which creates quite a nice off-kilter atmosphere. Not only that but this is one of the few recent horror films that actually makes an effort with its soundtrack too; the score by Todor Kobakov and Ian LeFeuvre is a consistently inventive, layered and spooky concoction. Rounding things off there is a strong central performance from Chloe Rose and decent support work from Robert Patrick.

Content-wise, there's nothing especially new here but the manner in which it is brought to the screen shows considerable care and effort. There's quite a lot to appreciate in the visuals and soundtrack in particular, while the creepy kids are donned out in some imaginatively sinister costumes. This one successfully creates its own distinctive ambiance and that seems like a pretty good enough achievement to me.

This is some trippy, dream-like metaphor for the fear of young parenthood. Little kids terrorizing a 17 year old who just found out she's pregnant. Does this whole thing take place in her head? It's presented as such, and even if it's not, you know from the way things unfold there's not much reality to the proceedings. This film should basically be a pure atmospheric horror ride but it's too much in the main character's head, a head we don't know that well and we know isn't that important beyond the type it represents anyway.

It's hard to find a tangible connection with this film and I found it hard to engage with the "terror" scenes outside a passing interest in the way they were shot and assembled. They didn't engage me, and in a non-cerebral film like this that's basically a death knell.

To be honest I can't really say I'd recommend Hellions. I found merit in it being quite different, having a decent cast and having some cool effects and not a bad and relatively original premise. The Hellions themselves had great potential and really looked quite cool. The movie eschewed normality for quite a surreal atmosphere and visual palette, there was also some cool original music which was creepy. It all got very confusing however between what was dream, reality, supernatural or whatever. By the end I didn't really care anymore as the narrative was lost due to me being confused generally. Maybe some horror fans may appreciate this movie, do not however watch if expecting a child it was quite graphic in some brief scenes.

It's Halloween again and my thoughts about this film, which I saw at TIFF 2015, are as mixed as ever. Bruce McDonald's art-house take on Halloween horror is terrific until the frustrating non-ending. I was loving the eccentric direction, off-kilter cinematography, sympathetic performances, mysterious killer kids, end the whole dream-or-reality puzzle. But then...

I suppose the short run time should be a hint this is an unfinished movie, but honestly what were the producers thinking, letting this be released? Why not sit down with the director, point out this glaring problem, and offer to scare up funds for some additional writing and shooting to finish a potentially worthy follow-up to his great Pontypool.

All that said, I still can't recommend against watching it; you don't want to miss what there is, but be prepared to imagine a third act.

This movie popped up in an email from Netflix as "something you may enjoy". Netflix, you couldn't have been more wrong.

To be honest, I'm still not sure what the hell I just watched. I thought it started out decent. It felt like I was watching The Strangers, but with children; home invasion and children, two very creepy things in my opinion. The movie quickly turned into "demons from hell" type movie, which I could get on board, if it weren't for the quick turn it made into that direction.

Some people say it's a pro-life propaganda movie, which I could kind of see, but that also may be reaching a little bit.

I thought the acting was good in some spots; I thought the music was definitely creepy (Christmas sounding music with a child like tone); and I thought some of the visual effects and costumes were cool.

What I didn't like were the lingering effects in scenes that looked choppy (the constant shot of her in the hanging sheets). I thought some of the dialogue was extremely lame. And, because the movie kind of goes by so quick, it's really hard to pin down what is actually happening. I felt like the film maker had a bunch of different good ideas in his head, and instead of picking one and running with it, he crammed everything into one movie.

Overall I think the movie could have been so much better. There are definitely good elements there, they just need to be justly presented.