Lots of Tricks, Little of Treats: The Jester (2023)

The Jester (2023)
Rating: **
Starring: Michael Sheffield, Lelia Symington, Delaney White

Based on a series of Youtube short films from 2016 to 2019, The Jester (2023) should have been about the exploits of a mysterious masked jester as he terrorizes a small town celebrating Halloween with twistedly deadly magic tricks, but it instead focuses mostly on soapy drama between two estranged half-sisters who are meeting for the first time after their father seemingly committed suicide. (Read. Seemingly) This draggy attempt of a plot spends its run rubbing in the fact that it have some form of depth going here, with the women discussing their issues of having a father who abandoned a family to move on to another; one of them is rightfully pissed at him for leaving her and her mum, while the other just wants to patch things up and, hopefully, help her sister move on from the pain.

This is all easier said than done when, somehow, a supernatural masked magician gets connected to all of this. And I don't mean this in a way that the girls had a chance encounter-gone-hellishly wrong with the Jester while out for coffee and swapping around childhood stories, no. That would have been preferrable. Rather, the maniac magician just happens the one who killed their father after the guy failed to gain the forgiveness for ditching a family, which implies that the Jester has some bit of history with the guy, even more so when the ghoul starts berating one of the sisters with frightening visions of their undead pa scolding them for being unforgiving and cold. The story never bothered to explain, though, why the masked creep is this invested with the family, opting to hide this fact behind more conflicted melodrama and strived emotional horror of the B-grade kind, which makes the whole gag of the movie having some semblance of layers feel boringly cliched, flimsy and borderline pretentious. 

You can clearly tell The Jester (2023) wanted to make something out of its titular villain, perhaps a representation of grief or trauma given the ending narrative. A novel goal, sure, but greatly lacking in execution. If anything, the whole movie is unnecessarily dramatic and could have benefitted more as a straightforward supernatural slasher seeing that the best moments here are The Jester doing his killer tricks. From an elevated strangling and death by tied shoelaces, to an entire head disappearing via magic hat and body parts removed ala cup tricks, our ghastly grinning ghoul does all of this magical terror through enigmatic yet playful pantomime body language, with special effects that are delightfully practical. The whole concept of a mute killer magician murdering their victims via paranormally empowered parlor tricks should have opened an opportunity to be wild and imaginative with the story, but, once more, the movie shackled itself as overly serious psychological horror, thus reducing the villain's role to almost just a lingering presence, his whimsically twisted kills an afterthought 

The Jester (2023), by the end of it, is plainly underwhelming. Clumsily mixing psychodrama with slasher tropes that barely benefits one another, the movie is a misfire of missed opportunities. Its story would have worked better with a different, less flashy villain. Its villain would have worked better with a cheesier, more popcorn-friendly story. All in all, a hardly passable affair.

Bodycount:

1 male strangled by an elevated noose

1 male trips on a tied shoelace, hits his head on a tombstone 

1 male gets an entire apple rupture out from his throat and mouth

1 male had his head removed via hat trick, shot

1 male killed offscreen

1 male had his eyes and teeth removed via a cup trick

Total: 6

It's a Terrifier Christmas, Let Horror Fill Your Heart: Terrifier 3 (2024)

Terrifier 3 (2024)

Rating: ****

Starring: Lauren LaVera, David Howard Thornton, Antonella Rose

I'm just gonna put it out there that I was considering knocking down a few points from this movie for being a Christmas slasher because, damn it! The Terrifier franchise already established itself as a Halloween staple all the way back to its iconic killer's first appearance in Damien Leone's short, The 9th Circle (2008), and y'all wanna terrorize another holiday? Way to break the momentum! 

But, hey, this little blow to my obsessive compulsiveness aside, Terrifier 3 (2024) is just a damn good movie.

The film opens on a night before Christmas, with a girl named Juliet having a tough time sleeping, disturbed by the weird noises she's been hearing. Her family dismisses her concerns, explaining it away as just the house settling (or Santa's elves), but Juliet isn't convinced. Not when the noises start to resemble footfalls. Once her folks go back to bed, the little darling decided to snoop a bit, soon spotting none other than Santa Claus himself walking to their Christmas tree and pulling out from his sack... a heavy axe. What was once a silent night becomes a gory night as every single one from this family gets hacked apart, dismembered all the way, revealing to us that under the red suit and heavy boots isn't a jolly old fat man. It's Art the Clown, up and walking around once again!

Jump back to five years ago; after another Halloween rampage, Art seems to have met his match when one of his supposed victims, Sienna Shaw, fought back and managed to defeat him by cutting his head clean off with a seemingly mystic sword. This, however, is no setback for the clown as his now headless body kills its way to where his head ended up after the brawl, at the psychiatric clinic holding one of his former victims, the heavily disfigured Victoria Heyes, who appears to have finally succumbed to whatever demonic forces at play here. The two escapes, leaving more bodies on their trail as they flee back to Art's dilapidated hideout-slash-work shop where they go into a dormant state.

 

Moving ahead to the present, Sienna Shaw is undergoing a great deal of therapy as the events of that one Halloween night haunt her to this day, with visions of her dead friends and family blaming her for their demises. Upon her release from a mental health center, she's to stay with her aunt Jess' family, an arrangement Jess' husband Greg isn't too sure about despite putting on a cheerful face whenever Sienna is in the room with them, fearing she's one or two breakdowns away from endangering the family. Their daughter Gabbie, however, is simply ecstatic to have her big cousin around, completely unaware of the nightmares Sienna's dealing with. 

All the while, Jonathan, Sienna's kid brother, is now in college trying to move on with his life, something that's proven to be a tad hard when his sister is keeps blaming herself for surviving and just wouldn't let it go, as well as the fact that there will always be someone out there who will recognize him as one of the 'supposed' survivors of a killing spree perpetrated by Art the Clown, who at this point is something of a Miles County urban legend.

And speaking of the devil; when couple of demolition workers arrive to inspect a rather familiar dilapidated house, they didn't expect to find both Art and Victoria there, now awakened from their unnatural slumber and ready to take more lives as brutally as possible. With this starts another round of murders and torture for ole' Art, and with it being the Christmas season, he's gonna try on some new looks and explore new painful ways to end people. Hell, maybe he and his new accomplice will even take the time to be home for the holiday and celebrate it with a certain girl who got away the only way they can: with a crown of thorns (and razor blades), rat torture and even a roaring chainsaw...

As you watch Terrifier 3 (2024) start itself with the annihilation of a random family before treating you with a gag of a headless body wearing a victim's head to get around inconspicuously, and then grossing you out with the imagery of a now-demonic woman eating chewed flesh straight out of a still-living decapitated head's own gullet, you know damn well that this movie's going to continue the franchise's tradition of delivering some of the most-messed up things you could pull off in a slasher flick and I'm glad to say it's done all here with some noticeable improvements; for one, the pacing is just a breeze, wonderfully balancing out the story of our heroine undergoing an emotional and mental crisis as she tries to live a normal life past that one gore-soaked Halloween massacre, with that of Art the Clown being, well, Art the Clown. Just savage hijinks with a good dose of black humor that only a creepy grinning killer mime can pull off. The direction wisely opted to not overly dwell on the plot to the point that it overcooks the drama and character depth, giving it time to breathe a bit in between brutal hijinks of little mall kids getting one hell of a Christmas popper courtesy of Art, or that of a man getting the skin and flesh of his head dressed down from the skull while a disfigured witch watches and sodomize herself with a mirror shard. (Yes. You read that right) 

Curiously, apart from Sienna's descent towards a fractured case of survivor's guilt and her increasingly strained relationship with her brother, Terrifier 3 (2024) technically adds nothing that we didn't already know since the last film. Rather, it expanded upon what was given before and dives further down its layers, throwing in biblical lore behind Art's supernatural durability and immortality, as well as Sienna's mysterious sword for what could be a set-up to something big and immaculate in the future. It's not hard to see how this scattershot plotting can get real testy for some audience, as the increasingly overcomplicated mythology could stray the franchise away from what was originally just a simple story of a deranged clown killing folks, but for some of us who can roll with the punches, it's a tolerable dent on a showcase of gore and darkly hilarious clownery. Plus, admittedly, my curiosity is peaked by what they're hinting here. I mean, how couldn't you when one of these visions involves a living statue of the Virgin Mary seemingly commanding a chained demon to forge the armor of a warrior angel in hellfire? That's not simple badassery. That's pure metal!

One cannot deny, too, the top-tier special effects here; despite some of these being your typical slasher murder fares of axe hackings or knife murders, the way they're executed to push the boundaries of an iron stomach keeps them fresh, the increasing absurdity of their own brutality fitting nicely with its darkly imaginative savagery and/or the unrelenting intensity of its overkills. One axe blow isn't enough to kill someone here, oh no. Unlike most slashers out there, Terrifier 3 (2024) wanted to make sure a victim is dead and that typically means more than a couple of whacks! And, yes, why not get kooky and experimental with the murder weapons? Would a handheld tank that blows liquid nitrogen do? Of course, all of this wouldn't mean much if it wasn't for David Howard Thornton's morbidly charming portrayal of Art the Clown, who's at his most expressive here considering the clown is basically playing pretend as Santa Claus, spinning his own take on Christmas spirit and holiday cheers via cartoonish body language and facial acting, effectively hiding his deadly intentions. From enthusiastically losing himself over meeting "Santa", to mockingly mute laughing at a wife's distress while hacking apart her husband, Art continues to be a real slasher icon and there's no sign of slowing down or stopping!

Thus the saga of this hyper-violent slasher franchise continues and Terrifier 3 (2024) sets itself as a real solid treat as a holiday bodycounter, may it be Halloween's or Christmas'. There's room for improvement, sure, but it's safe to say that this one undoubtedly served the demented and the defiled! The gruesome and the gory! Have a Terrifier Christmas! Let horror fill your heart!

Bodycount:

1 boy hacked to pieces with an axe

1 male hacked to death with an axe

1 female hacked to death with an axe

1 girl killed with an axe (heavily implied)

1 male killed offscreen, head seen

1 female killed offscreen, later found being eaten

1 male had his head pried apart

1 male murdered offcamera, clothes seen

1 male jabbed in the neck, stabbed to death with a mirror shard

1 male had his head cut open with a box cutter, flesh flayed off

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot on the neck, bled to death

1 male had his limbs and head sprayed with liquid nitrogen, bashed apart with a hammer

1 boy blown apart by a bomb

1 female blown apart by a bomb

1 girl blown apart by a bomb

2 victims blown apart by a bomb

1 female slaughtered to death with a chainsaw

1 male bisected with a chainsaw

1 male found headless, gutted and nailed to a wall

1 male head seen inside a cage, eaten by rats

1 female gets a tube shoved down her throat and force fed with live rats, throat cut with a knife

1 female gets a sword to the mouth, decapitated

Total: 24

Flesh For Oíche Shamhna: Creeping Death (2023)

Creeping Death (2023)

Rating: ***

Starring: Matt Sampere, Monique Parent, Alan Maxson

With his mother recently diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and his father working doubles to cover the medical expenses, Tim Garner's Halloween plans of partying the night up with his friends and maybe hooking up with a long time crush are thrown out in favor of him simply staying at home entertaining trick-or-treaters, all the while making sure his mum doesn't go down on a fatal seizing fit. Though upset at first, Tim recognizes his responsibilities as their son and does his best to make this All Hallows Eve comfortable for his mother.

The evening, unfortunately, will soon get worse for the young man when his friends decided to crash in after an evening of mischief, one of which involving stealing a suspicious sack from the local grump's porch. Much to everyone's horror, it turns out the bag is filled with animal carcasses that were supposed to be offerings to an ancient and vengeful being known as the Aos Si, who doesn't take kindly to those stealing their boon. With them now marked for death as the creature hunts them down one by one, Tim and his friends must find a way to survive the night long enough until midnight, the end of Halloween and the Aos Si's reign of bloodshed.

An adequate enough Halloween supernatural slasher, Creeping Death (2023) tries laying its hunting grounds with a bit more direction and weight by throwing in family drama to go along its themes of suffering and sacrifice. It's a novel effort for a B-grade production, one that did help make its leading troubled teen that more relatable and sympathetic despite the acting and execution dipping to cheesier territories here and there. In fact, the dramatics can get overly worked to the point that it's occasionally laughable at how hard it tries, even more so when it clashes in mood with the movie's comically-inclined moments. One bit we're being tugged at our heartstrings as we watch Tim emotionally bond with his sickly mother as she tears up knowing she's burdening her family, next we're seeing the gang dealing with an overly-chill car driver who's surprisingly casual with the idea he's giving a lift to a distraught group on the run from a paranormal threat. Inconsistent tone-wise, but oddly charming.

When it comes to the slasher bits, Creeping Death (2023) wins a few points for trying something new for a villain, the Aos Si, which is based on a Celtic folk creature of the same name, fae people of various forms and abilities known for their fierceness when it comes to defending their turf, as well as the punishments they inflict at those who anger them. In here, they're given a somewhat tweaked lore that's simple enough to work in a mostly paint-by-number slasher movie, reducing them to a creature bound by tradition, crossing paths to the mortal planes during Halloween to murder those who dishonor the old ways and leave alone those who still follows them. Nothing too ambitious, per se, but its design looks alright with its large grinning maw, clawed hands and hulkish stature, overlooking the cheap make up and digital effects applied to enhance it, of course. (Admittedly, the glowing flame eyes are a nice touch!)

As for the kills, they're a fair deal. Bloody enough with a healthy serving of gore and a few messed-up visuals for the harm count. At times you can certainly tell the latex guts and corn syrup blood, but that hardly matters when you have murders like a satisfying end to an obnoxiously annoying character, or a rather brutal death to come across with a scythe.

Though a lot of areas could use some work, Creeping Death (2023) gets a pass for its endeavors, especially when the resulting product is still a functional piece. Emotionally charged yet gory and hammy, this is one Halloween fright flick you can peek a try.

Bodycount:

1 male gets a bottle shoved through his face, head stomped on

1 male found decapitated

1 female seen dead with a cut throat

1 male had an arm torn off, later found dismembered and flayed 

1 male impaled on a prop crucifix, jaw torn off

1 male killed offscreen, later found with a car jack to the mouth

1 female clawed though the gut, disemboweled

1 male impaled to and dragged across a scythe, sliced in half

1 male found dead

1 male found dead

1 victim found dead

1 female found dead

1 male found dead

1 victim found dead

1 victim found dead

1 female had her face stomped on

Total: 16

Crazy Crazy Carousel Rides: Halloween Park (2023)

Halloween Park (Karusell) (Sweden, 2023) (AKA "Carousel")
Rating: ***

Starring: Wilma Lidén, Omar Rudberg, Amanda Lindh

It was one Halloween night when Fiona Wilma Lidén) tagged along her weird friend Petra (Amanda Nilsson) to a costume party for a fun time, only for it all to go horribly wrong. Like 'Petra wigging out, getting harassed by partygoers and then later found dead in the morning' kind of wrong.

Exactly a year later, it'll be another Halloween night when the past catches up to Fiona, who now works at Gothenburg's Liseberg amusement park, as she's instructed to spend the night shift accompanying a small VIP group as they enjoy the place all to themselves, from the bumper cars to the roller coaster. The guests, much to Fiona's uneasiness, turns out to be her former friends who were all present during that fiasco with Petra, most of who are upset at her now for leaving the group and blaming them for the girl's demise. Resentfully, Fiona does her best to work with the gang all the while keeping the peace and enforcing park rules, even rekindling some sparks with her old crush, Dante (Omar Rudberg), who's currently dating the group queen bee Jenny (Amanda Lindh). 

It's literally fun and game until the power suddenly goes out for the park, trapping everyone inside, and someone wearing dead Petra's Halloween mask (plus pig-tails!) starts thinning down the group one murder at a time. With a killer hellbent on ending them all, Fiona and the gang have no choice but to stick together to try surviving the night and get out alive... 

Halloween Park (2023) is, frankly, everything you'd expect from a basic slasher film; it opens with a character dying, it skips ahead some time later and those who were somewhat connected with the tragedy starts to get snuffed out by someone who is clearly doing it out of revenge. The classic set-up. Nothing is added here, not even a few additional layers of depth for its characters to up the stakes and engagement, or a bit of creativity towards who's who behind the mask. It's all a familiar walk in the park and, frankly, I do see this as an issue for horror fans who were expecting a tad more pizzazz for their bodycounting kicks. Yet, still, if you're not in a demanding streak and doesn't overly mind predictability, then this movie's 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' direction and plotting might do well for you.

Once the slayings begin, Halloween Park (2023) utilizes all it could with the isolated theme park settings, using empty haunt houses and merry-go-rounds as potential prowling spots between the killer and the teens in a macabre game of hide-and-seek. While the kills themselves are not overly gruesome, they mostly done away in fun set-pieces, a decent bunch of them involving roller coasters like one poor fella who gets axed while riding one, forcing their friends to watch in horror as they're unable to do anything to help seeing they're locked in their seats. The massacre's emphasis is clearly more on splash and splatter than vile viscera, and seeing the resulting bodycount, I say it done the assignment suitably enough for its thrills. With their mechanic get-up and broken doll mask combo, the simplistic design of the killer also adds a few good points. 

Not particularly exciting, but an alright holiday slasher offering. 

Bodycount:

1 female seen dead

1 male hacked on the chest with an axe

1 female had her wrist repeatedly slice open with a box cutter, hacked with an axe

1 male decapitated with an axe

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male falls to his death

Total: 6

A Heart of Tainted Candy: Dark Harvest (2023)

Dark Harvest (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Casey Likes, Emyri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer

Based on a 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel of the same name penned by author Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest (2023) could have been your classic creature feature with small town misfits joining forces to become unlikely heroes fighting against a powerful threat and, in a way, it does walk that path, but not without its bittersweet twists and grim turns.

Set in the1960s, at the rural town of Bradbury, a curse plagues the community every Halloween as a creature known as Sawtooth Jack makes its presence to wreck havoc and take lives, promising even greater devastation once it reaches the church by midnight. To fend off this entity, the folks of Bradbury initiate a ritualistic competition dubbed The Run, wherein the male teens of the town are starved for three days before being unleashed on Halloween night with masks and weapons, with the goal of hunting down Sawtooth Jack before it steps even one foot to the town church. (Given, that is, they don't end up either killing one another or raid butcher shops for food after brutally murdering the owners) The boy who successfully kills Sawtooth Jack will be heftily rewarded with a prize money, a decent housing and brand new Corvettes for a chance to get out of town to see the rest of the world.

This year, Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) is anxious yet adamant to join The Run, hoping to prove to himself as well as the rest of the town's doubters and bullies that he is just as good as his older brother Jim (Britain Dalton), who won last year's Run and is currently travelling across the states. All Hallows Eve night would eventually come and the town's boys, riled-up with a bloodlust for violence and the need to eat, are sent off to hunt down Sawtooth Jack once again. As Richie joins in the macabre competition with his small gang of friends, including the town's newest African-American resident Kelly (Emyri Crutchfield), they will unfortunately learn that there's more to the annual The Run than most expected, a deadly secret that puts them not only in danger of Sawtooth Jack and the murderous gang of teens, but also of those working in between.

Directed by David Slade of 30 Days of Night (2007), Dark Harvest (2023) looks and breathes small town horror story with its population of archetypical caricatures of meathead bullies, untrustworthy police forces and parents hiding dark secrets hounding over the main casts stirring up trouble and drama, all in the backdrop of an old rural American town that holds its traditions seriously, strictly and, dare I say, dangerously under the rule of a powerful group who may know more than they're letting on but choose to keep quiet about it for the sake of the peace. There's practically an allegory running throughout the plot, of class conflict and the repetitive nature of violence disguised as tradition, and for some parts it is handled quite nicely as it adds a little more weight and depth to an otherwise standard creature feature affair of teen victims getting slaughtered by a rampaging monster. But the further the story goes, the more questions it leaves open as it tells us how things work in Bradbury, though never bothering to dive deeper into the rabbit hole they introduced thus leaving some vital plot points hanging in the air unsatisfyingly. 

Fortunately, what Dark Harvest (2023) lacks in substance, it makes up with style; whenever the movie decides to focus on The Run, it guarantees at least one or two satisfying murders with a generous amount of gore, a crisp Halloween atmosphere and a very novel-looking creature design for our dear Sawtooth Jack. Makeup effects designer Francois Dagenais (of many Saw sequels) and visual effects supervisor James McQuaide manages the onscreen violence and it is impressive how well both practical and CG effects blend in with one another here, showcasing kills from both the monster and the deranged young men that's as entertainingly gruesome as they are absurdly inspired. Cinematography strikingly evokes a genuine Autumn spirit and captures perfectly the wide destruction both Sawtooth Jack and The Run cause. Talent-wise, Likes and Crutchfield more or less sold themselves as the empathetic duo since majority of the character development and focus fall on them, following their characters bond over their outcast status as they find warmth and trust from each other in this dangerous night, which does make the movie's conclusion effectively bittersweet to swallow.

Dark Harvest (2023) may not work all the way with its narrative, but it does a fair service of providing us a fair amount of thrills and kills, an interesting lore behind its creature and a couple of good leads with a heart. It's crafted to look cozy good and, I say, it succeeds at that, making this film a fulfilling enough watch for the spooky season, preferably with a bucket of sweets and nice cold bottle of pop!

Bodycount:

1 boy killed, later seen set on fire

1 boy torn in half

1 boy had his head sliced in half

1 boy had his head pried apart by the mouth

12+ boys slaughtered, blood splash seen

1 boy shot on the gut with a shotgun

1 male beaten to death

1 boy had his head sliced down with a machete

1 female knifed in the neck

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot dead

1 boy buried alive

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

Total: 24+

The Campus Halloween Rampage Massacre: Primal Rage (1988)

Primal Rage (Italy, 1988)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Patrick Lowe, Cheryl Arutt, Sarah Buxton

Taking more interest in covering leisurely school events and saving lovely girls from getting their cars towed, university journalist Sam (Patrick Lowe) have his fellow reporter and friend Duffy (Mitch Watson) tackle on an assignment concerning a possible animal abuse case. Unbeknownst to the two, said animal abuse is actually a part of a secret experiment on curing degenerative brain conditions handled by one Dr. Ethridge (Bo Svenson), though the endeavor is threatened to be cut off financially when supervising investors point out its lack of progressive results after watching an experimented baboon going nutzoid.

That night, Duffy breaks into Dr. Ethridge's lab to take pictures of all the inhumane treatments happening behind its closed doors and frees the experimented baboon. The primate, unfortunately, is carrying an "infectious rage" as a result from all that medical poking and prodding, thus spreading its sickness to Duffy through a scratch before the monkey gets killed off by a responding campus cop car, running it down by accident.

Over time, Duffy starts to feel ill but pushes himself to tough it out when Sam invites him to a double date with two female students he befriended, Lauren (Cheryl Arutt) and Debbie (Sarah Buxton). The night mostly went swimmingly with Sam and Lauren getting romantic with one another on the dance floor, while Duffy protects Debbie from an aggressive campus horndog who started to get too forward to the gal. Trouble comes spreading, though, when Duffy starts to act erratically and scratches his date while they were making out, thus starting the outbreak of "rage" across campus, building up to a trio of degenerates going full slasher maniacs at the university's rather impressive Halloween bash.

An outbreak horror film with a handful of zombie and slasher film tropes mingled in within the chaos of its story, Primal Rage (1988) is a gruesomely enjoyable melting pot of horror sub-genres done on a generous enough budget and a tad more cheddar in its execution, far from great cinema but dripping with a sense of B-grade badness that screams a riot of a good time! Its script oozes with laughably odd writing, its direction filled with crazy scenes of rabid terror and there's an aggressive amount of late-80s aesthetic, it shouldn't have work as well as it does, but the adorable chemistry from its likeable main casts and the way the easy-to-digest plot fooled around with our expectations makes the film a worthwhile spectacle of hammy romps and contagion horror.

Despite being a 14-year forerunner to Danny Boyle's 'rage zombie' movie 28 Days Later (2002), it's intriguing to note that in spite of the large cast, the outbreak only get to spread on a handful of victims and, by the end of the film, all of the them were killed off which pretty much meant the threat of the virus died along with the infected. No, the focus of the viral scare here was more on the body horror aspect of the infection (with gnarly make-up effects by Carlo Rambaldi, who did movies like A Bay of Blood (1971) and that 1976 remake of King Kong!), which relatively takes a while before the infected starts to drool black sludge, literally pop a vessel or start shrieking like an angry monkey on steroids. It's also interesting to point out that not a lot of the infected's victims get to live long enough to become infected themselves, and the trio of gang-rapists who eventually becomes this movie's penultimate bad guys doesn't even show the same kind of primal rage as of the others, instead acting more like bloodthirsty psychos who coordinate their attacks and take extra pleasure on their killings. So those expecting more of a zombie bash may want to look elsewhere, but slasher fans will definitely get something a tad unique from this run.

The contamination nightmare eventually leads to the movie's best part, a last act taking place in a Halloween ball where all the students attending don tons of frightening, comical and inspired costumes in the midst of the fancy dresses and typical get-ups. Like, for real, there are so much surreal and quirky costumes here, from a lady who's wearing an entire nostril as a mask to another whose entire gaunt face splits open via motor revealing a spooky skull, all dancing while the live band sings an earworm of a song, 'Say The Word' by The Facade Band, which I'm pretty sure is this movie's theme. Entertainingly, a few of these costumes were utilized by the killers in their murder spree, with one wearing a three-headed mask with taps for each of the noses getting the life crushed out of them, blood spilling out said taps in great grisly detail! Our do-gooders eventually steps in to stop the (mostly ignored) chaos, setting up a classic cat-and-mouse stalking as our maniacs, fittingly dressed up as grim reapers with red blinking electric eyes, attempt to end our protagonists.

All in all, Primal Rage (1988) is far from a great example of a contamination horror flick but it’s a genuinely fun one for its novel plotting, positively fantastic physical gore effects and make-ups and, too, a manageable amount of ham. It's an underrated mish-mash of ideas, reputable enough for a watch on a Halloween nights or any nights swimming in good booze and good friends!

Bodycount:

1 male brained to death against the wall

1 female found murdered

1 male mauled to death

1 male shot

1 male had his scalp torn off

1 male clawed to death

1 male had his throat ripped off

1 male hanged with a noose

1 male had his throat crushed

1 male ran through the head with a pole

1 male crushed inside retractable bleachers 

1 female beaten, later found mutilated

1 male decapitated with an axe

1 male tossed off a building, jaw impaled on a sprinkler head

Total: 14

Nine Knocks For Deadly Chops: Natty Knocks (2023)

Natty Knocks (2023)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Charlotte Fountain-Jardim, Thomas Robie, Noen Perez

On Halloween 1976, B-horror starlet and town tart "Natty Knocks" gets dragged out of her home by a group of religious fanatics who accused her of witchcraft and adultery before being set ablaze inside a gasoline-doused outhouse. All while her young son, Abner, watches in horror.  

Cut forward to the present and Natty Knocks is now a small town legend, with effigies burned in bonfire parties and little kids warning each other not to answer nine knocks at night or risk being killed by the witch. Caught up in this macabre celebration are two teen friends, Wyatt (Thomas Robie) and Robby (Noen Perez), as they unwillingly become witnesses to what looks like a man abusing and kidnapping a girl inside a house they targeted for a Natty Knocks prank. The two anonymously report the attack but, seeing little to nothing being done about the potential crime in the following day, one of them decided to give the creep a bit of a scare by throwing a baseball at his house, hinting somebody knew what he did.

Little to the teens' realization is that the man's Abner Honeywell, grown-up, still traumatized by his mother's horrific passing and is one of the town's police officers. Using the resources he have at his disposal as a cop, Abner learns the identity of kids who've been causing him a bit of trouble, stalking them from time to time and killing off a few folks who got in the way. All of this while Abner obsessively watches old grindhouse horror flicks his dear late-mum starred in, imagining(?) her spirit commanding him to kill.

Teetering between the line of a young adult horror mystery and a bloody yet cheesy B-grade slasher, Natty Knocks (2023) appears to have a lot going for in its plot, but only manages to get a few of its introduced ideas to work as it mostly struggles with its direction and tone. There's simply too many convoluted turns but not enough plot pieces to have them work to the film's favor, such as the fact that our killer is squatting inside the foreclosed house of his late-mother all the while still holding a job as a cop, as well as the bits of supernatural at play here which the movie throws in from time to time, but it's barely explained to the point that the film could've gone by well enough without it! In turn, the flow of the film is hindered a lot by its own disjointed plotting, leaving the entirety of the story feeling barely connected as a whole and missing a lot of marks.

For what Natty Knocks (2023) did right, the main characters are at least likeable enough to follow through their little misadventure of murders and maniacs, with Wyatt, his realtor single mum Diane (scream queen Danielle Harris) and his young sister Jolie (Channah Zeitung of Nickelodeon's Game Shakers)'s emotional baggage as a broken family adding a bit of sympathetic weight in their depth. The film also boasts other familiar faces from the horror fad, mainly cult icon Bill Moseley playing our Abner with a quiet, subtle yet murderous creepiness may it be as a psycho-killer with mommy issues or as a cop who's doing shady stuff under the table. Robert Englund also shows up in a small role as a higher up working at a realtors office who tells one of the teens the tale behind Natty Knocks' infamy, and does it quite engagingly even if most of it is just him sitting behind a desk. Both Moseley and Englund's characters would soon cross paths and, though brief, the engagement is nothing short of fun.

As a slasher, there's a stronger focus on build-up and mystery so the kills are a little lacking on the bodycount, though a good few of them are at least generously bloody and intense. There's a whole deal of stalking and creeping around instead, which is unsettling enough for most parts especially whenever Moseley plays it unnervingly straight, but the fact that this leads to an unremarkable last act wherein we witness cheesy ghost effects and a climactic brawl that ended way too soon simply ruins the mood. It also doesn't help that the villain got defeated disgustingly easy after all that trouble and the film ends with a sequel tease that overstayed its welcome.   

Natty Knocks (2023) has an honest potential to be a good film; it has an engaging casts with additional star power, a modest production quality and a genuinely interesting backstory behind its killer and the legend they're involved with. It just has the unfortunate flaw of having an unnecessarily cluttered story and some mishandled directions but, hey, at least it got the Halloween feel right...-ish. 

 

Bodycount:

1 female set on fire inside an outhouse

1 male ran through the chest with a fire poker

1 male hacked on the chest with an axe

1 male found dead from a throat cut

1  male shot

Total: 5

Another Baghead In The Woods - The Trilogy: Terror at Black Tree Forest (2010), Escape to Black Tree Forest (2012) and Black Tree Forest III (2012)

Welp, here we are. Across the wide open plains of a cheapjack franchise involving another bag-masked loonie killing people in the woods, channeling their inner-Jason Voorhees. How original...

Terror At Black Tree Forest (2010)

Rating: 1/2

Starring: Allison Scott II, Paul Albers, Steve Carty

So for the first six minutes of this mostly hour long-trek, we see a 1970s married couple and their boy Brian Mellows out in the woods, with mom and pop deciding to leave lil' Brian alone to play while they go hanky-panky in the forest. This private baby-making session is unfortunately interrupted by a random killer in a sack mask who proceeds to stab dear hubby dead and go rapey on dear wifey. Brian hears the commotion and arrives there just in time to see his mother get snuffed out by the masked man, leading to a chase scene that kinda goes forever with both the kid and the killer tripping on stuff. The boy eventually outruns his assailant and was soon found tuckered out near the road by a passing driver.

Cut to the present and we now follow four friends out to camp at the very same woods Brian Mellows had his haunting experience and, wouldn't you know it, Mr. Mellows, now fully grown yet mentally broken from the trauma, has just escaped from an asylum and made his way to the very same backwoods with a murderous streak. Take a wild guess where all of this is heading to...

There's really not a lot go by this one; the story can be easily shortened down to "kids go to the wood, kids go dead" and nothing much else, all shot and edited in that psuedo-grainy "grindhouse" aesthetic then popularized by the Tarantino/Rodriguez double-feature throwback Grindhouse (2007), only with more eye-straining colored tinting that I'm sure would fry some people's eyes blind if they look at it too long, as well as brain-numbingly dull rock acoustics and synthesizer music to bore our ears, too. All the characters were written unremarkably generic and, worse even, acted with the flair of a wooden stump, so, really, this is honestly one of the most forgettable slasher titles out there, which makes the fact this thing got a movie series even more shocking.

I honestly see very little appeal in this one. Sure, you could call this title an attempt to capture the good old days of hacking and slashing, but it just doesn't feel like it tried too much. Everything about it look, sounds and feel half-assed and it shows. If y'all are looking for a throwback slasher, you can do better than this limp piece of work...

Bodycount:

1 male knifed through the head

1 female had her throat cut with a knife

1 female knifed in the gut

1 female knifed to death

1 female knifed in the eye, killed

1 male had his throat sliced with a knife

1 male found murdered, method unknown

Total: 8

~~~

Escape to Black Tree Forest (2012)

Rating: 1/2

Starring: Paul Albers, Brandon Aylor, Karrie Bauman

Taking place two weeks after the events of the first film, now dubbed in the news as the "Black Tree Terror Massacre", lone survivor Mare Strode is still reeling from the fact that she narrowly escaped being butchered by the mad masked slasher Brian Mellows and her recent stay at the hospital to recover did little to help. So much so that, the moment she got home, Mary picked up a pillow case and turned it into a mask before going Halloween (1978) opening sequence on her own mother, knifing her to death. 

Yep, it looks like we're going down the route of Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985), only this one's a lot more open with the fact that our then-final girl is now a mad slasher, returning to Black Tree Forest to start another killing spree. And everything from there is basically a repeat of the first film as we have yet another set of four teens visiting the titular woods to camp out, all the while doing some dumb shenanigans like stopping by a grocery to buy some supplies and pig out on free samples, as well as skinny dip on a pond albeit some footages missing. (Yep, they're still doing the Grindhouse (2007) shtick here) These tomfooleries are mostly intertwined with Mare's dad and a detective out driving to the same site in hopes of finding the girl, unaware that she'd gone cuckoo for murder and is about to go Michael Myers on our main gaggle around (and I kid you not) the last fifteen minutes of the damn movie.

Frankly, the whole thing simply failed to bring anything with actual substance as despite the plot implying a lot of interesting directions, like Mare's sudden turn to the stabby side, her father's desperate search for her or the suggestions that the first film's original killer may still be out there seeing no actual body was found, none of that really mattered as these are all set aside for what basically amounted to nothing but a lot of padding and even more padding. There's no real urgency to the pace here and by the time we do get some actual slasher horror, the fucking shit is rushed like hell with cheap kills, one uninspired chase sequence and an ending that I'm certain would have been more impacting given we actually gave a shit.

Much like the first film, this sequel is damn forgettable. Heck, even more so as practically nothing happened here to earn any genuine form of thrills, scares or intrigue. It doesn't help too that the writing is as bland as the talent acting them out, as well as the sound design and editing are basically shit. It's simply a boring follow-up to an already boring film and I would rather eat a laundry pod than subject myself to another helping of this movie. Throw it out on a pile of dog doo and carry on with your day...

Bodycount: 

1 male knifed in the eye

1 female knifed to death

1 male knifed in the back

1 male implied brained, bloody rock seen (flashback)

1 female knifed

1 male impaled on a tree branch

1 female knifed to death

1 female killed offscreen with a knife

1 female shot with a shotgun

1 male shot through the head with a shotgun

Total: 9 

~~~

Black Tree Forest III (2012)

Rating: 1/2

Starring: Brandon Aylor, Jennii Caroline, Breana Mitchell

Wow. Like, actual wow. You couldn't even see shit most of the time in this one!

So apart from being a backwoods slasher, this third entry to a franchise that doesn't even need to exist is also a holiday bodycounter, taking place around Halloween. Here we follow Chuck, a character from the prior film who survived the massacre that took the lives of his friends and girlfriend. He's now locked up in a nuthouse where we see a doctor interviewing him about the events that led to them camping at the titular Black Tree Forest, which meant half the running time of the entire run focusing on random shots of him and his girlfriend having fun at an amusement park before eventually showing us the clip note version of the second movie. (Think Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987), only less funny, less 'Garbage Day!' and grainer)

Chuck also now believes he's part of a cycle of violence which may or may not be an actual curse inflected by the Black Tree Forest and it is this belief that motivates him to escape the nuthouse, don a raincoat and dollar store mask, as well as steal a knife from an old lady's house ala Halloween II (1981) before legging it back to the woods. All the while, yet another set of four characters planning a Halloween night bonfire at Black Tree Forest and, well, you know what comes after...

...That is, of course, if you could see goddamn anything! Seriously, there's little to no lighting done in this mess so most of the time I'm trying to figure out what half of the crap I'm looking at whenever a scene takes place either at night or in the dark. And because of this, I couldn't even make out most of the killings and for those that I did see, they're nothing to clamor about, making Black Tree Forest III's talky direction, muddled audio, padded pacing, and overly grainy and irritatingly saturated shot-on-video visual aesthetics not really worth sitting through.

I mean, I can give it some respect for perfectly capturing the feel of an 80s local channel midnight Halloween viewing, this film definitely replicated the look. (complete with a shlocky TV host and an intermission courtesy of a black-and-white Trick 'r Treat safety PSA!) I can also appreciate it for trying some type of twist in the form of a random red herring involving a woman being tortured inside someone's basement which eventually ties up to this movie's ending but, aside from these, Black Tree Forest III is just a big bore of a movie and a headache to watch. What really else is there to say about this movie but 'fuck off' !

Bodycount:

1 male murdered, seen strangled with a cord

1 male found dead with a missing eye

1 female had her throat cut with a knife

1 male stabbed with a knife

1 male stabbed with a knife

1 male hit on the temple with a nailed wooden board

1 female brained with a hammer, body later seen dumped off a bridge

1 female killed, method unknown

Total: 8

~~~

And that's all of them. All three of the original Black Tree Forest movies and, my god, I think I need a strong drink to cleanse away these horrifically atrocious exploitation throwbacks I just subjected my eyeballs to. I'd be even more fortunate if I pass out drunk and get a hangover in the following morning because that would have been a far more engaging experience compared to this movie, too! But oh, what's that? Why did I phrase these three films as the original? Well, dear reader, you curious scamp, you! The franchise found a way to be remade in United Kingdom back in 2021! In fact, I reviewed that movie first and swore then that I wouldn't even touch this franchise for how horrible that movie was but I'm a completist. 

A fucking stupid completist...

You're welcome.

Boogie Bop Flop: 1962 Halloween Massacre (2023)

1962 Halloween Massacre (2023)

Rating: 1/2

Starring: Ariel Ash, Caroline Beagles, Will Branner

Yeah, this one is a real doozy of a slasher movie. And here I was thinking watching the side of my painted house dry was terrible, I have no idea there's something even more boring!

This hogwash of a film is actually based on an internet urban legend involving a vintage photo of a 1960s Halloween party. Among the people in the picture is a figure wearing a simple black mask and story has it that the fella would soon lock all the guests in and start attacking them, killing seven before disappearing into the night and leaving the FBI the black mask as the only piece of evidence from the massacre. 

1962 Halloween Massacre (2023) basically tries molding a story out of the urban legend, focusing on four friends who happen to be members of an elite circle of pharmaceutical families, driving to a remote cottage in the woods for a Halloween party. As they enjoy the spirit of the night and the debaucheries that comes with it (mainly sex, booze and a game of hide-and-seek apparently), an unexpected guest drops by to skulk around and say random doomsayer shit to himself, before soon enough trapping everybody in the cottage by tying the doors with heavy duty rope and going around stabbing people to death.

Now, see, this would have been exciting given that the film wasn't so focused on way too many conversations between its main casts or the random spouting of nonsensicals from the deranged maniac, so much so that 1962 Halloween Massacre (2023) is mostly jabber and little horror action from the maniac stabber. It's slowburn beyond slowburn, a direction littered with dull yakking about things that barely made the movie's dry run intriguing, something that doesn't help the fact that the low budget is more than evident from the cheap sets, use of CG blood and lackluster visual work that's obviously shot by some guy walking around with a camera. Most of the acting is okay(ish) at least, although I can't help but feel awkward watching some of these actors line read 1960s lingo with the enthusiasm of a highschool theater play. 

Damning of it all, though, is how this film concludes; without giving out a lot, too many survivors ran away scott-free with the killer leaving them be under the reason that they prefer a "captive audience" and "when you buy a ticket to the movies, you don't have to chase the picture to watch that". Uh, bullshit! Just tell us you're lazy, you self-glorifying asshat! This is then followed by more mad ramblings from the jerk before they phone in the killings to the police while pretending to be some sort of cross between a murder victim and an entitled bitch who cries "lawyer" when shit doesn't go their way. (No, really) The scene then simply cuts to the following morning, with FBI detectives weirdly scoping out the place and ending with heavy implications that the killer is among the investigators. Riveting, it ain't.

1962 Halloween Massacre (2023), as a concept, has the potential to be a good time capsule slasher flick set in the 60s, but its cheap and rushed production unsurprisingly results to one of the most nerve-wreckingly unexciting slasher to ever disgrace the face of horror. To be plain and simple, this one is just a drag. 

Bodycount:

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 female knifed to death

1 male knifed to death

1 male knifed to death

1 male knifed to death

1 female knifed to death

1 female knifed to death 

Total: 7

Stoned, Boned and Owned: Halloweed (2016)

Halloweed (2016)
Rating: ***

Starring: Simon Rex, Shannon Brown and Jim O'Heir

Not wanting the infamy of having a serial killer father tainting their already lackluster lives screwing teachers of the night and smoking the devil's lettuce, step-brothers Trent and Joey Modine haul their asses to a town called Mooseheart to start anew, get their shit together and maybe even make a honest living to better themselves. 

Easier said than done, though, when the supposed All American Dream town is more of an all American dumpster fire with overly excited cops inching to do cavity searches, small town politicians getting on each other's throats and intolerable trailer trash making up the majority of the headcount. Nonetheless, the brothers make it work as Trent gets a job at a suicide support circle in hopes of impressing a local girl who starred in an infomercial promoting the town, all the while Joey works under Mooseheart's main pumpkin (and weed) supplier, Patch, as a drug donkey.

All is well until the town's legendary boogeyman, the Candy Corn Killer, suddenly makes a reappearance, coinciding conveniently with the Modine brother's arrival. Not wanting Mooseheart to figure out their less than stellar reputation as the sons of a maniac and have the new wave of murders blamed on them, Trent and Joey have no choice but to figure out who's behind the killings, save the town they're starting to accept as home and maybe, just maybe, smoke a hashful to celebrate a job well done. (Given they survive all of this...)

A stoner comedy at most, a slasher film as an afterthought, Halloweed (2016) is an absurd mix of humor and horror that doesn't quite balanced the "haha's" and the "holy shits" as nicely as it should, but I appreciate the effort done as it does have its moments of lowbrow quippy, cheesy fun and even a decent slasher murder or two. 

For half of the film's hundred minute running time, the story focuses on the Modine brothers settling in to the new town and getting around the weirdos living in it, leading up to plentiful subplots such as an election campaign between two manipulative arses brilliantly played by Parks and Recreation's Jim O'Heir and Reaper's Ray Wise, and Joey's drug-selling shenanigans under the literal watchful eye of Danny Trejo's eye-patch wearing wannabe drug lord who kept spewing "he who has the weed, has the power", even dragging along a pot dealer played by, unsurprisingly, Jason Mewes of Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob fame, to help with the operation. It amounts to a what's more or less a series of comedic moments tackling lowbrow topics of gross bodily functions, sexual and gay innuendos, and, yes, weed jokes, though only a handful of these seems to hit their marks on the laughs, while the rest kinda fizzled out for how over-the-top and desperate they feel. Fortunately, Shannon Brown and Simon Rex did a swell job on comedic timing and delivery as Trent and Joey respectively, with Trent being the straight man to Joey's immature and giddy personality, both actors giving their best to make these brothers be the hilarity that mostly carried the film. 

Things do get a lot better once Halloweed (2016) finally goes hack'n stab on us on its second half, kicking it off with a decently fun scene in a courthouse wherein one of the politicians gets a surprise visit from a killer donning a baby mask and full grown onesie, somehow pulling in all the good ropes of a cat-and-mouse chase and even throwing in seemingly supernatural hints with doors opening and closing by themselves and hauntingly devilish baby giggles echoing throughout the empty halls. Cue in the murder mystery angle as we learn of the town's history with a maniac who terrorized its citizens back in the 80s, somehow evading capture over the years, and I do get the vibes that this film is aiming to be a little smarter or wittier with its humor by going meta on us suddenly, name-dropping horror movies left and right, though it never took the horror itself too seriously, going as far as having this angle play second bananas to a romantic comedy plotting between Trent and his love interest. This means that the slashings are kept to a bare minimum after the initial attack and the slayings that come after are hardly on the creative side, but the comedic flow of the whole thing works nicely enough and the goofiness of the killer's get-up and how our heroes try to save their skin (and the town) without actually doing much in terms of confronting the goon did got a decent chuckle out of me. 

As stoner horror comedies go, Halloweed (2016) is watchable. Even more so, perhaps, if you're in a recreational state during Halloween (Yes, this is also a Halloween movie. Hardly felt like one but, yeah...) It's far from the best example of clashing marijuana humor with masked maniac massacre mayhem, but it works close enough to being a worthwhile viewing, given you don't mind the obvious low budget and the low blow running gags.

Bodycount:

1 male executed via electric chair

1 male knifed to death

1 female knifed to death

1 male gutted with a knife

1 male killed with a knife, mostly offscreen

1 male knifed in the side, bled to death

Total: 6