HALLOWEEN NIGHT
** Out 5
Release Date- October 26th, 2006
Running Time- 85-Minutes
Rating- NR
Screenplay- Michael Gingold
Director- Mark Atkins
Starring- Derek Osedach, Rebekah Kochan, Scot Nery
Halloween Night was released in 2006 is from Asylum Films, which often knockoff big budget popular films. Quite honestly I’ve never been a big fan of Asylum, but I get their appeal to horror fans though I did enjoy Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies more than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (though the book trumps both). Halloween Night had potential to be a fun throwback to 80s slasher films and it started off that way, but as the film goes on my enjoyment level started to drop and drop. While the film does provide some fun moments, but for me it ended up being quite a chore to get through.
Halloween Night was written by Michael Gingold of Fangoria and writing articles on the horror genre is totally different than writing screenplays and that very much shows here. The basic plot deals with an escaped mental patient who returns home. I think its quite clear the basic idea of the plot stems from Halloween; however once our escaped mental patient is out he heads home and finds people in his old house throwing a Halloween party and this reminds me a bit of Halloween: Resurrection just replace reality show with a party. I doubt Gingold was inspired by Halloween: Resurrection since I can’t see anyone in their right mind being inspired by that film, but the truly terrifying thing is Resurrection is actually the better film! As a child Chris Vale saw his mother raped and killed and Vale ended up horribly burnt. It seems as if the father was involved, but the writing and editing are so sloppy nothing is clear. Now 10-years later Vale (Nery) as stated before makes his escape from the insane asylum and returns home.
After a fun start, Gingold’s script quickly becomes a poorly plotted mess of a script. The characters are dull and lifeless and better off dead. There’s no depth or anything it’s just boring characters that the sooner they die the better. If you wanna create a backstory for the killer fine, but really nothing is explained and it seems these pages were written simply to fill a required page count. Michael Gingold early on does deliver a fun script, which makes it more frustrating when things quickly go downhill. The concept even if hardly original was fun and Gingold had the right idea, but as it goes on the writing gets worse and Halloween Night is in my opinion quite poorly written and granted slasher films aren’t exactly known for writing, but this is poor even by slasher movie standards.
As director Mark Atkins fails at brining any suspense or excitement and the film is quite poorly paced. Halloween Night gets off to a fun start as mentioned, but quickly falls a part and can be quite a chore to sit through. Horror films can get away with a subpar script, but too weak and there is only so much the director can do, but Atkins just ends up making more of a mess out of the production.
Overall Halloween Night is a terrible film and while fans of Asylum make find something here worthwhile everyone else are better off passing.
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