This week's SAW begins with the 3 most terrifying words you'll ever see at the start of any slasher or general horror film: 'The Asylum Presents'...Yeah, this isn't going to be a fun week. Netflix pushed back the film that I had intended to watch, Don't Go in the Woods, and sent me a "mockbuster" of Halloween, called Halloween Night. Will it be terrible? Probably. Will I watch it right now? Yup. Will there be SPOILERS beyond this paragraph? Hmmmm....
The movie begins with the nuttiest nutbag in Nuttyville, Chris Vale, as a young boy. He's wearing a white mask and hiding under a bed, as some men rape--and then kill--his mother. After they shoot her once, young Chris somehow manages to escape unseen, and leans against the wall in the next room. His mother makes a sound, so her attackers shoot her again, and the bullet hits a pipe next to Chris, scalding his face with steam and hot water.
Then it's a decade later, and Chris is living on the funny farm. His body was apparently also scarred severely with burns and he went non-verbal, leading the authorities to assume that he killed his own mother. 2 orderlies come to his room with a plain white mask to freak him out, and he rips out the throat of the one wearing the mask. Oh, and he escapes, and sets out to return to his childhood home. Gosh, where have I heard this story before?
Anyway, after the credits reveal that they couldn't even hire a D-List celebrity to do a cameo in this clunker, we meet our cannon fodder. First up is Larry, a scrawny nerd; Todd, a shaggy guy who mumbles and grins...and has zero personality beyond that in his introductory scene; David, the host of a Halloween party that the others are all arriving for; David's clueless girlfriend Shannon; Angela, a strong-willed lesbian(did I really just type out my adolescent fantasy, or was I daydreaming?); her nervous lover Kendall; and, uh, Sleepy, Bashful and Dopey.
As the movie gets bogged down in mumbled greetings, things pick up with a little softcore make out session between Angela and Kendall. Angela removes her lover's bra, but a knock at the door ruins the mood. Kendall gets dressed, and they both leave the room to re-join their friends.
David leaves the house to pick up someone named Darryl at a bus stop. Darryl is some type of musician, and all he wants to know is how many hot women will be at the party. Before we find out anything else about this guy, we then get introduced to Todd and Jeanine, another couple heading to the party. Todd has a big box in the backseat, filled with his costume and an assortment of authentic(and dangerous!) medieval weapons. When Jeanine examines an axe, Todd warns her that it could kill her if they hit a speed bump.
They see traffic gathered at a roadblock up ahead. Todd tells his girlfriend to cover and hide the box of weapons, and a cop saunters up to their vehicle. He tells them about Chris being on the loose, and shows them a picture. Yum. They promise to be alert, and he lets them drive away.
Then we go back to another session of D&D...David and Darryl, that is. David has his friend duck under the dashboard, and they both quietly get out of the car. David then opens the entrance into the basement, and urges Darryl to get in and pick out a hiding place.
Todd pulls into a gas station to get the car filled up, and to put on his costume. In the restroom he gets murdered by Chris, who shoves a blade through his mouth, and out of the back of his head. Then Chris wears Todd's costume, drives away with Jeanine, and stabs her multiple times with the axe she was examining earlier. After she dies, Chris sees the variety of weapons in the back seat, and it's like the serial killer version of Christmas!
There's some nonsense about answering a riddle to get into the party, then Larry reads an article online about Chris and his recent escape. Since rape and murder are such fun topics, everyone decides to get ready for the bash after Larry finishes the story. This movie deserves a special room in Hell.
The large group moves to head into the house, but "Troll"(the guy asking the riddle at the door) blocks the way. David tells Troll to let the group in, and use the riddle only on folks who arrive late. Then David gives Shannon some jewelry as a romantic gesture. Oh, and Troll gets to ask one guy his riddle, but the late guest answers correctly before he even finishes saying it. As a bonus, the guest is given the option of setting free one of the people who gave a wrong answer. The only 2 "prisoners" are a cute girl and a sad-looking dude, so the cute girl gets to enter the party.
Darryl emerges from the cellar, and some short kid starts bugging him. David intercedes, and sends the kid on a wild goose-chase for an hour or so. Mean, but kind of funny.
Outside, Chris pulls in behind the kid's car, and both step out of their vehicles. Chris shoves the axe into his forehead, then admires his handiwork. Amazingly, no one sees this happen, not even Troll. In what universe does that make any sense?
Darryl sees Kendall standing by the refreshments, and decides to try out his best pick-up lines on her. Since those lines mostly consist of "Durrrrr" and "Uhhhhh", he doesn't get far. Then Angela arrives, and the lesbians put on a little display just to frustrate poor Darryl even further. The guests hear a helicopter flying low, looking for Chris, and he also looks up from his spot outside.
David plays dumb when the lesbians ask him about Darryl being invited, and they wander away. Troll, who is slightly drunk, nearly forgets his own riddle, and a young woman who speaks Spanish inadvertently gives him the correct answer(She says "aqui", and the answer is "a key"), so he lets her in. Oh, and she lets the nerdy zombie guy go with her, by setting him free as well. The zombie gives Troll the finger as they walk away.
Unfortunately, Chris is the next person to approach Troll. He mumbles the riddle, and Chris tries to push past him, so they get into a shoving match. Chris plants a sword into his skull, spins him a few times, then rips his head apart getting the sword back. Kicking down the outer door, as Chris prepares to enter the main section of the house h`e is greeted by Shannon, who mistakes him for Todd. Chris spares her life because she resembles his dead mother, right down to the same necklace.
David also sees Chris at the party, and also greets him. When Chris tries to kill him with the axe, David makes him hide it, and tells him to stay where he is. Geez man, are they all this dumb? Are Chris and Todd even the same height? What about the blood on both the costume and the weapon?
David calls somebody named Mitch, and apparently "it's go time" for whatever prank they have planned. David then walks up to Darryl, and asks him to leave. They pretend not to know each other, and the party stops as they have a fake fight. Chris doesn't know it's a prank though, and attempts to attack Darryl with his bloodstained axe.
Darryl draws a gun, and then the shit gets real, at a rapid rate. Chris drops the axe, but sirens can be heard approaching. Darryl jumps up, and decides to use Chris as a hostage. Yeah, I'm calling it...this is still part of the prank, I'd bet money on it. It has to be.
A cop shows up, and he tries to calm Darryl down. Darryl takes his weapon as well, then also gets his keys and makes a getaway with Chris as a hostage. After several seconds, the officer gets David to give him his car keys, and announces that he's going to pursue them. Shannon hugs her boyfriend, worried about what will happen.
...and that's when a second cop pulls up. Shannon starts to tell him what went down, and David is forced to admit that it was an elaborate joke. Shannon slaps him, and the real cop shuts the party down. The majority leave immediately, and barely notice Troll's corpse, assuming it's just part of the joke.
Darryl pulls the car over, and starts to congratulate Chris on his "role" in the prank. Chris tries to shoot him with the fake gun from the cop costume, then settles on choking Darryl with a seatbelt strap instead. Chris finishes him off by dragging him out of the car, and driving the sword into his chest.
Back inside the house, Shannon and David argue about the prank. He tries to compare it to a roller coaster, but she insists that it was stupid and childish. She walks away, and David just sits there and sulks. Nope, nothing childish about that!
The fake cop finds his car, but it's locked. Chris appears, and the actor asks for his keys back, but gets a blade through the chest instead. What is it with this guy and torso wounds? Chop off a random arm or a leg...variety is the spice of life, right?
Shannon gets to her car, just as some of David's friends return and offer to stay the night, to cheer him up. Shannon sees the killer walk by, but he ignores her to go after some random couple having sex in David's basement. Chris removes his mask, and swiftly drives the axe into the young woman's back. The guy makes Chris chase him a little, then also gets stabbed in the back.
Shannon finds Chris cleaning up after his latest kills, and still thinks he's Todd. Chris attacks her, but only lets her pass out, rather than killing her. Oh, and he kind of gives her a hug. Have YOU hugged YOUR local maniac today?
Hey, look, more lesbian porn! They both go wild with the stripping, and the kissing, and the writhing. Then I fainted from the pressure of having to get my cheap thrills from a stupid Asylum movie. I am filled with shame and self-loathing now.
Shannon wakes up, and discovers herself handcuffed next to a corpse. She screams, but Chris gags her and takes the dead person somewhere else. As he decides to leave the basement, we see some random shots of a woman eating while taking a bubble bath. Well, NOW it all makes sense!
Larry is back on the computer. He reads some more articles about Chris Vale, then scares the Bubblebath Girl by walking in on her to tell her about Vale. She tells him to leave, and to close the door when he does. Faster than you can say "Larry's a goner!", Chris sneaks up on him, and plunges a knife through the top of his head. The he takes care of Bubbles after she traps herself with him, by slitting her throat.
David tries to call Shannon's cell, but she obviously can't reach it. He finds Bubbles, but at first he thinks that she and Larry are pranking him. When he sees her neck, he realizes that there's a real killer in the house, and he tries to warn Angela and Kendall that they might be in danger. They dismiss it as Halloween hijinks, until Chris actually appears.
Kendall runs away, screaming for assistance from David, while Angela fights off the attacker. Kendall and David run into each other outside, and he re-enters the house to try to save the day. Angela gives Chris quite a beating, considering that he has none of his weapons nearby. He spots a hanger, and kills Angela with it, by shoving one end into her eye repeatedly.
David grabs a handgun, and tries to rescue Shannon. Instead, he gets to be the character who discovers the bodies of his friends. When he finally succeeds at finding his girlfriend, Chris easily knocks him out from behind. Chris then blindfolds Shannon, but can't seem to bring himself to kill her. Instead, he traces the knife over her face, then has flashbacks about the night his mother was killed. The memories reveal that the mother was never found, because his father stashed her behind a secret panel he had built, right before he killed himself. Chris reunites with his Mommy, who smells funny.
After waiting for awhile, Shannon removes her blindfold, and grabs a gun on the floor. Freeing herself from captivity, she finds and shoots Chris 2 times. When the authorities arrive, Shannon sees the body on the stretcher sit up, so she shoots him a third time. Then she sees that the figure in the costume is actually David. Then Chris is seen getting away, hitching a ride with a friendly stranger. THE END...?
Okay, so the kills were brutal, if a little bit redundant. Still, by Asylum standards, this is probably the closest they'll ever get to "good". Now, if they could just find actual actors, they could really make a bearable movie. 2 out of 5, with 1 of those points going to the effects.
And what did I learn from Halloween Night?
-When you don't have a script, just use a lot of swears instead.
-Killers hate having to be creative.
-When you can't write anything exciting or scary, just add in some quick porn.
Hopefully, my next movie will be better. It almost has to be! TTFN
