BARE BONES: THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT-ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY (2011)

THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT-ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY (2011)

Bobby Roe’s fun 2014 found footage horror, The Houses October Built, had five friends deciding to take an RV road trip to seek out and find the most extreme and scary Halloween attractions…they got more than they bargained for. The film was actually inspired by a documentary Roe made three years earlier with the same premise. He, Brandy Schaefer, Mikey Roe, Jeff Larson, and Zack Andrews, all pile into an RV and seek out the scariest Halloween haunts they can find. The five friends take us through a tour of quite a few halloween haunts, focusing on the pretty and energetic Schaefer going inside, experiencing the haunts and then interviewing owners, employees and attendees. It’s fun and as Roe pursues the notion that some haunts employ real deviates and use actual corpses in their exhibits, one can see where the 2014 film idea grew from. This leads to tracking down the elusive Blue Skeleton Inn haunt which closes this amusing documentary in theatrical fashion, foreshadowing the movies to come.

If you are a fan of the 2014 film, and it’s 2017 sequel, this is actually a must see, that gives you some nice background on how those film’s came about. It is also a good way to get to know the real people behind the movie characters…who aren’t that much different…and some of the real haunts that made it into Roe’s found footage films. It’s also a fun look at Halloween haunts and the pursuit of the scariest way to spend All Hallow’s Eve. The documentary is currently found as an extra on the Houses October Built blu-ray, making the disc a real bargain, if you are a fan.

-MonsterZero NJ

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