All Hallows Eve Movie Review

The Film begins with a babysitter, watching two kids on Halloween night. The kids have been out trick or treating and they are going through their candy. Well, they happen to find a video tape in one of the candy bags.  Begging to watch the tape, the kids finally convince the babysitter to put it in the VCR to see whats on it. And so the horror begins….

The film is done in anthology style, much like “VHS”. The babysitter watches each installment on the video tape, and notices that things in the real world start to get creepier with every story. She continues watching, after the children have gone to bed. Reality shifts more and more into a nightmare, with each story she witnesses. Until finally the nightmare is right there with her.

If you read my other reviews, you’ll notice I am pretty brutal when it comes to rating a movie. Sometimes I am borderline abusive. I wont hesitate to backhand an awful movie all around the house, calling it names and degrading it to tears.  I call it how I see it.  But like I said earlier, this film isn’t for everyone. let’s get down to the details, shall we?

I would give this one a good rating just based on the creepy clown character that makes an appearance in all of the stories. This clown is badass. If you didn’t have a fear of clowns before watching this, you certainly will afterwards. Everything about the character is scary as Hell, and I could see him becoming a franchise if this film does well. His name is “Art The Clown” and he is the common thread of evil in all of the stories.

Speaking of the stories, let’s go ahead and summarize them for you:

1. A Demonic cult lives in the under-workings of a train station
2. A woman living in the middle of nowhere has a close encounter
3. A young girl lost on the highway runs into a psycho, that will follow her anywhere.
4. The babysitter wrap-around story

The film is definitely low budget. Like, you might be able to buy a couple used Hondas with the money they spent on this. That being said, the effects are all practical. The only problem: Sometimes they work. Sometimes they fall flat. But look at it this way, at least they didn’t use any cheap CGI. This is going to be the dividing line for most of you. Either you will be able to excuse the cheap effects and gore, and enjoy the movie, or you will hate it. There really isn’t much room for middle ground here. Some of it looks great, some of it looks lame. The different settings all look great, especially the creepy train station.

The shooting style is a hybrid of found-footage, and voyeuristic. Both  styles seem to put you into the movie. The styles are very diverse as well. It is the same director throughout the film, but each segment has it’s own style and feel. So if you thought the previous segment was lame, then the next one might shock you.

There is a good bit of cheese in the dialogue as well. Once again, this is a possible dividing factor. The movie has plenty of campy moments. The acting is OK. No one in this film will be winning an Oscar anytime soon.

So if you can get past cheesy acting, lackluster effects and gore, The maybe you will see it for what it is: Fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if this style of film is something you enjoy then check it out! I honestly think there is more to like, than to dislike with this one.

A little trivia: After doing a little post-research, I have found that director Damien Leone has been working on this film for quite a while. Two of the stories ( “Terrifier” and “9th Circle”) have been shorts on youtube for the past 5 years. He added material and used the original shorts to compile “All Hallows Eve”.