ALL HALLOWS' EVE (2013)

Studio:       Image Entertainment
Director:    Damien Leone
Writer:       Damien Leone
Producer:  Jesse Baget
Stars:     Katie Maguire, Catherine Callahan, Marie Maser, Kayla Lian, Sydney Freihofer, Cole Mathewson, Brandon Despain, Michael Chmiel, Mike Giannelli

Review Score: 

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Summary:

A VHS videocassette found in a trick or treat bag contains three tales of terror linked together by a murderous clown. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Sarah babysits Timmy and his sister Tia on Halloween night. While sorting through his Halloween candy, Timmy finds an unlabeled VHS videocassette in his trick or treat bag. After a lengthy debate, Sarah hesitantly allows the children to watch the strange tape with her.

The 9th Circle – A woman sits in a station waiting for a train. Art the Clown sits silently nearby until pestering the woman with a horn and fake flowers that contain roaches. When the woman attempts to leave, Art grabs her and stabs her hand with a syringe. She collapses and later wakes chained underground alongside two other women. As the women argue about escaping, one of them is pulled away by a creature in the shadows. The remaining two captives try to flee, but they are also attacked. The woman is eventually tied up in a ritual chamber where several monsters in robes continually assault her.

Sarah sends the siblings to bed. Tia sleeps in her brother’s room after hearing strange noises coming from her closet. Sarah decides to continue watching the videocassette alone.

Caroline talks on the phone to her friend Mary about how much she enjoys the secluded new home that she shares with her artist boyfriend John. Caroline mentions that John recently painted a face that disturbs her, but John does not recall creating it. A bright light outside is followed by a crash. The power goes out in the home and the house phone no longer works. Caroline tries to leave, but the car will not start. John calls and Caroline tells him how frightened she is. He tells her to call the police before their call is cut off. Caroline is suddenly confronted by an alien who chases her throughout the home. She tries hiding, but the alien finds her location when John calls her cell phone to tell her that the police are coming. As the alien drags Caroline away, she pulls at the sheet covering John’s painting and reveals a portrait of Art the Clown.

Sarah sees a figure running upstairs and assumes it is one of the kids. The kids hear noises outside their door and assume it is Sarah. Sarah decides to finish watching the tape.

Terrifier – A costume designer stops at a gas station on her way home from a film set. The attendant is in the process of kicking out Art the Clown after Art destroyed the restroom. The attendant goes inside to check on a noise. When the woman follows shortly thereafter, she finds Art decapitating the attendant. The woman escapes in her car, but strangely continues to encounter Art along the road. She also finds a mutilated woman before using her cell phone to call for help. Art suddenly appears from the backseat and suffocates her with plastic. The woman escapes, hides, and eventually stabs the clown. She then flags down a passing motorist. Art returns to follow them in another car and drives them off the road. When the woman regains consciousness, she finds herself on a table having been dismembered by Art the Clown.

Sarah takes a phone call that sounds exactly like the one she just heard from the woman in the third short. The television then shows the living room that Sarah is standing in. She goes upstairs and discovers that Art has decapitated Timmy and Tia.

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Review:

Nestled amidst the fun size Milky Way bars, rolls of Smarties, and individually wrapped pieces of Dubble Bubble, trick or treat sacks have always contained a fear or two.  Urban legends have had parents afraid of injected poisons and hidden razor blades.  Kids have been afraid they might get stuck with a box of Sun-Maid raisins or an apple.  Now, Art the Clown wants everyone to be wary of unmarked VHS videocassettes that might be lurking at the bottom of that bag beneath a pile of Tootsie Rolls and Charms Blow Pops.

In a scene more than just a little bit reminiscent of John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” Sarah spends her Halloween evening babysitting Tommy, er, Timmy and his sister Tia.  Timmy dumps his candy on the floor to revel in this year’s haul, and finds a VHS tape mixed in with his goodies.  If “The Ring” has taught us anything, it is that playing videotapes of an unknown origin cannot possibly be a good idea.  But tell a child that he cannot do something and he only wants to do it more.  After some typical babysitter hemming and hawing, Sarah relents and the trio sets down to see what the video contains.  Good thing Timmy and Tia’s parents happen to have a VCR hooked up to their flat screen.

Writer/director Damien Leone has taken his 2008 short film “The 9th Circle,” his 2011 short “Terrifier,” sandwiched a new segment in between, and given everything the wraparound described above to create “All Hallows’ Eve.”  Halloween is truly a fitting theme as Leone’s horror anthology mimics a trick or treat bag loaded with many goodies, but also packed with a few handfuls of stale treats that can go right into the rubbish.

“All Hallows’ Eve” is clearly a low budget independent movie, although it is also clear that every penny of that budget is right up there on the screen.  Something rare about the production is that it is packed with countless nods to other films and genre influences, yet they actually play as fitting homage rather than misplaced plagiarism.

Shadows of John Carpenter fall everywhere over “All Hallows’ Eve,” whether it is in the form of Dean Cundey hued lighting or the synthesizer heavy soundtrack.  A holiday jingle on the radio apes the familiar Silver Shamrock incarnation of “London Bridge.”  Rod Serling’s “Night Gallery” inspires the use of a painting in one segment while “Tales from the Darkside” takes a tip of the hat from the film’s overall throwback tone.  “All Hallows’ Eve” lifts liberally from myriad predecessors, but Leone makes the cut-and-paste elements work in unison to suit his anthology’s mood.

Where these borrowed techniques do not fit so well are in sequences where an emphasis on style relies too heavily on the suspension of disbelief.  The final story in the core trilogy uses grindhouse film scratches for a 1970’s feel that is right in line with the bloody climax.  Yet that “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” vibe shatters like fragile glass when the lead character whips out a cell phone and snaps the story into the present day.  It was already a stretch that the boy in the wraparound even recognized a VHS tape, much less had a readily available way to watch it.  “All Hallows’ Eve” cannot seem to make its style and its stories work in tandem when the settings clash with the desire to look cool.

Running only 80 minutes without credits, the three segments plus the wraparound story are, oddly enough, surprisingly too long.  The segments range in setup from monster rally satanic kidnapping to alien home invasion to car chase carnage.  Diverse as those ideas sound, each one molts its uniqueness and degrades into a simple cat and mouse between a Final Girl and an evil pursuer.  There is an illusion of getting four individual stories, but thematically they are all identical.  Realizing that what the package actually offers is four overlong chases makes even 80 minutes feel like a scam.

At least the gore and the creature effects keep things modestly entertaining, although they also range from pretty poor to pretty on point.  The space alien is downright embarrassing.  However, “All Hallows’ Eve” is one of the first efforts to successfully produce an evil clown that rivals the iconic look of Pennywise.  Many horror films have tried and failed.  Art the Clown works because he does not try so hard to be deliberately eerie.  His always silent miming and always smiling demeanor adds an inherent Gacy-esque creepiness beneath the makeup.  Art the Clown is the stuff of nightmares.

Had the stories offered something more than just four variations on women in peril, and had the acting been less uneven, “All Hallows’ Eve” would be easier to recommend.  At a minimum, the anthology might have been better served if each segment trimmed out the redundant running in terror sequences and slipped in another short to offset the time difference.  “All Hallows’ Eve” is not the type of middling distraction that one regrets spending time with, but it is the sort of experience that leaves the viewer with a stomach rumbling for something more satisfying.

Review Score:  65

Click here for Culture Crypt's review of the sequel, "All Hallows' Eve 2."

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