(To get to the reviews of the titles below that were covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)
-MonsterZero NJ
(To get to the reviews of the titles below that were covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)
-MonsterZero NJ
(To get to the reviews of the titles below that were covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)
-MonsterZero NJ
(To get to the reviews of the titles below that were covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)
-MonsterZero NJ
(Click on the titles below the movie poster gallery to get to our reviews!)
Click on the highlighted titles below to go to the review page for the corresponding movie!
1. Halloween
2. Halloween II
3. Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (obviously, you may want to watch 4 thru Resurrection, too!)
6. Halloween RZ
8. Hellions
10. All Hallows Eve
11. The Town That Dreaded Sundown 2014
12. Creepshow
13. Ginger Snaps
14. The Crow
16. May
17. Lady In White
20. The Guest
21. Boo
-MonsterZero NJ
(Clicking the highlighted links brings you to corresponding reviews and articles here at The Movie Madhouse!)
Halloween set flick tells the story of nine year-old Dougie Whooly (Alexander Brickel) who is obsessed with a video game called Satan’s Little Helper where the player takes on the mantle of an assistant to Old Scratch who is gathering souls. Dougie is so obsessed with the game, that he dresses as Satan’s Little Helper for Halloween and when he meets up with a man wearing a devil costume, Dougie thinks the game is being acted out before his very eyes. Sadly, Dougie is either delusional or insane as the costume wearing individual is a real murderer who takes the all too willing youngster on a killing spree across town. Will Dougie’s hot number of a sister (Katheryn Winnick) be able to save Dougie from this fiend, or will she also become a victim of this all too real game.
Odd horror/comedy (?) is written and directed by Jeff Lieberman who gave us the cult classics Squirm and Blue Sunshine in the 70s and the slasher Just Before Dawn in the early 80s. The film asks us to forgive a lot to put it’s story in motion, mostly in how much little Dougie seems to go along with what are obviously real acts of violence. The film never establishes if Dougie has some sort of problem that causes his total detachment from reality, or is he one really stupid, or mentally challenged kid. He’d have to be to bond with a complete stranger and then join him in acts of violence and even murder…all on the pretense that this is a live reenactment of a video game and that it’s all a big prank. Even his eccentric mother (Amanda Plummer) seems to tolerate a lot in terms of Dougie’s game obsession, when most parents would be getting quite concerned. She even thinks it’s cute when the boy claims he is going to marry his older sister Jenna (Winnick). Then again, the dumb script expects us to believe that the town police force seems to be content to sit back and watch their fellow officer’s heads wrapped in tape while eagerly awaiting their turn, since they are all found like this in groups. As a horror, there is little suspense or frights as the whole thing is just so goofy and the only thing that gives it a bit of atmosphere is the Halloween setting and some gory moments. The costume our anonymous killer wears is pretty spooky, but again, the silliness of it all keeps this from being really effective. If the film was intended to be more of a comedy, it’s not very funny and produces few intentional laughs. The director also directs with a leaden pace and the flick is at least 10 minutes too long with our main characters leaving and returning to their home continuously.
The cast are all fine and seem to give it their all. Hard to fault young Alexander Brickel for the hard-to-believe behavior of Dougie as this is how the script is written. As the kid, he is a creepy and disturbing little boy and it’s hard to feel sorry for him when he finally figures out this is all real and he has been placating a psychopath…but that is how Dougie is written and directed. Katheryn Winnick really shines as his hot and quite resilient sister Jenna. She makes a good heroine and seems to be the only character with her head on straight and knows fairly early something very wrong is going on. Amanda Plummer plays the same type of eccentric, oddball she seems born to play and is fine as Jenna and Dougie’s clueless mother. Stephen Graham is also adequate as Jenna’s ‘friend’ from school, but he isn’t given all that much to do and the character never really gets developed much, despite a fairly large role in the film. The killer is played with some creepiness by Joshua Annex, but we never see his face or is he ever positively identified as any of the people he’s suspected to be.
The film has a bit of a cult following, but I don’t get it. Sure, there is some atmosphere and gore and Winnick is a very hot heroine, but there is way too much suspension of disbelief in terms of Dougie. It’s hard to believe any kid is that stupid that he sees people hurt and killed right before his eyes and thinks it’s all part of some Halloween game. He also seems disturbingly certain his favorite video game is being acted out live with himself as a participant, which also indicates a kid in desperate need of therapy. Lieberman directs with a slow pace and despite his experience, some of the set-ups seem a bit sloppy and the script definitely needed work. Check out Lieberman’s Just Before Dawn for a far more effective slasher unless you want to give this a shot, it does have it’s fans.
-MonsterZero NJ
Rated 2 (out of 4) devil masks.
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