Since we had a tornado warning on Halloween, we decided to stay in, order pizza and watch scary movies. Our watch list included
1. Hocus Pocus, which is not a scary movie but simply a must for Halloween,
2. All Hallows’ Eve, which I will be reviewing in this post
3. Mischief Night, which unlike other Halloween movies is set on the night before Halloween
4. Scary or Die, and
5. Killer Klowns from Outa Space, which sounds more horrifying than it actually was.

… click on the movie titles to get the review! 😀

Besides Hocus Pocus all movies were new to me, and I will review all of them, but I want to start with the most positive experience I had: All Hallows’ Eve

Actors: Katie Maguire, Catherine A. Callahan, Marie Maser, Cole Mathewson, Sydney Freihofer, Mike Giannelli
Duration: 83 min
Rated: NOT RATED

You might like this movie if you enjoyed:
It (1990), Scary or Die (2012)

Long Story Short:
While watching two children on Halloween, a babysitter discovers a mysterious VHS tape in one of the kids’ trick’ or treat bag. The children want to watch it and bother her until she finally gives in. What they see will change their lives forever.

Review:
I have not seen any trailers of the movie, but I have read the plot and thought I’d give it a shot. The movie looks it’s from the late 80’s/ early 90’s, and even Sarah the babysitter and the children Tia and Timmy look like they actually belong in this era, so the VHS tape would have fit in perfectly. Unfortunately when they pull out their smart phones it is obvious that the story takes place in current times, and honestly, who still owns a VCR recorder? I ignored the smart phones, which took me back to the early 90’s, so the flat dialogues seemed perfect as well. What follows is basically a story within a story. We watch the videotape while seeing the reactions from the babysitter and the children. The videotape contains three short movies, but after the first one Sarah decides to send the siblings to bed, because it gets too violent. Then she watches the second one by herself. It gets a weird and creepy, but also unintentionally funny, at least to me. When she starts the third and last short film, something strange happens. But I won’t tell what it is. 🙂
Out of all short movies the third one creeped me out the most. It was disgusting, shocking and disturbing. The ending didn’t really come as a surprise, but the execution definitely made my mouth drop. The content of the videotape seems like an homage to old slasher movies: the image treatment looks old and worn out, the shock moments have very disturbing music themes, and the violence is over the top gory, and sometimes unrealistic, yet quite stomach turning. The clown which is the key figure in All Hollows’ Eve is very scary and might cause sleepless nights, especially to the ones who deeply fear clowns.
Not knowing what to expect, I really enjoyed this little Indie gem, had to turn away twice, and even jumped once. It is not a milestone in horror history but it is worth a watch, if you appreciate an artistic concept that pays homage to the horror movies from the slasher time.

Rating: 6/10

Published by Elias

Biracial Kid, born in the late 80s. I write short stories, lyrics, books, I love Food, and I watch as many TV shows and movies as I can. My dream is to share my happiness and joy with the world... and to open a luxury hotel. View all posts by Elias