Today we have a supernatural thriller from 2019 titled Halloween Party but there's not really much of a party to speak of. Jay Dahl (There Are Monsters and countless documentaries and shorts) pulled triple duty on this one as writer, director, and producer. Halloween Party is a Ring (Ringu) wannabe as it is about an internet meme that once a person answers the meme (What scares you the most?) they are then killed in a similar way as their fear.
The film stars Amy Groening (Father's Day, Teen Lust, and countless TV Christmas films that I'm sure can be seen any time of the year on the Hallmark channel) as Grace. Grace is a college student who tries to solve the mystery of the curse the meme brings to those who view it. Along the way she meets Dr. Barbara Macall (Shelley Thompson from Labyrinth and There Are Monsters) and her husband Dr. Arthur Macall (Jeremy Ackerman from Hobo With a Shotgun, Cloudburst, and many of the Jesse Stone TV movie series) who knows a secret about the college dorm that Grace lives in. As more and more of her college classmates tempt fate and answer the Halloween meme she struggles to stay alive. She discovers some horrifying truths about her college in the process.
The first thing I have to mention about this film is the college that is shown in wide shots is gorgeous. After some research it appears the college is Dalhousie University in Halifax Nova Scotia. Now about the film itself; I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised as I was expecting a good deal less than what I got. The film really did it's job of creeping me out. Special effects were decent and the acting as a whole was also better than what you normally get in a low budget generic horror film. As the story progresses it does become a bit predictable but I'm not going to take much off for that. I'll give this three and a half bubbles in the tub out of five. A nice surprise, from at first impressions, a very generic looking film.
I just recently watched this and I too quite enjoyed it. I actually loved the beginning with the whole "what scares you the most" meme and I thought it was going to continue that way. Not original, no, but I thought it was nicely done. The movie actually starts to fall apart for me as soon as the "balloon children" are brought into the plot. I thought this part dragged on and on and on and made the middle of the film sag dreadfully. It picked up again at the end but that middle really brought down my enjoyment level quite a bit. I also didn't quite catch how exactly the balloon kids were making the "what scares you the most" meme work actually? Did I miss that part or was it never really explained?
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I somehow missed this, so will be adding to my watchlist.
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