Friday, October 29, 2021

Hack-O-Lantern 1988

 


Sometimes my movie viewing is well planned out ahead of time then sometimes, as is the case here, I just pull a title out of the proverbial hat.  What came out was this low budget slasher that absolutely screams late 80's.   Little Tommy has a weird Grandpa who is really into devil worshiping.  Tommy's father doesn't like his Grandpa being around Tommy and on Halloween night he goes to tell him just that.  After Grandpa kills his father, Tommy grows up and grows weird.  It's time for Tommy to take his place in the cult with his Grandpa.

 

 

Grandpa is played by Hy Pyke, Gregory Scott Cummins is Tommy, and Katina Garner is Tommy's mother Amanda.  Most of the acting is stiff and the story is fairly run of the mill.  Directed by Jag Mundhra there are so many different things going on here that I can't follow it all but I wanted to mention a few things.  First is the less than subtle hints at incest between Grandpa and his daughter Amanda.  Then we have Grandpa's awkward hand movements in fact to the point that above all the incest scenes, there's a weird handshake scene between Tommy and Grandpa that's even more odd. 

    

Now, on top of all that we have this guy dressed very similar to the people in Grandpa's group going around killing people that are close to Tommy.  Mundhra was into exploitation films back in the 80's before moving on to Indian films.  There's porn stars making legit attempts at acting, good amount of nudity, some bloody kills, and it even manages to throw in a twist ending.  Even so, this film is less 90 minutes long and it feels ohhh so much longer.  I give this two pickup trucks full of pumpkins out or five.  Buyer (or in this case viewer) beware!  

"The power is in the blood!" ~ Grandpa   
 

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, not a good one. Watched another today called The Legend of Halloween Jack. Avoid it.

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  2. It seems holidays, the bigger the better, is when we get many throw away copycat horror films. To give a fair chance I try to make it through every one of them at least once. There's been many I wanted to turn off or walk out on but there has only been a handful I didn't make it through.

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    Replies
    1. I give lots of movies a chance, cause you just never know. But once in, I watch to the end. Can't not finish a movie.

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