Hallows Eve (2016)

the audience applauded

Expected more

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Hallows eve was a very competently shot film, well lit film. Contrary to many reviews I think the acting was serviceable, nothing great but not bad. I never really felt this was a horror, more of a gangland violent drama. The first half of the film builds toward a gang that is coming Halloween night to 'take over' and the gang that we follow live in an estate called hallows and are hell bent in not letting that happen, so again it doesn't feel at all like a horror.The main characters are a menace to the estate, and we learn that they have committed terrible acts and ultimately they're killed as a means to restore order to the estate. I get the feeling the point was that the audience was supposed to root for the killers. Thats great but the problem is the fact I never really get to see and experience how awful these people are. I hear stories introduced too late, newspaper snippets, brief CCTV footage, an opening scene thats after the fact of their wrong doing, but not a visceral experience of their behavior. Additionally I didn't really experience the fear, pain and suffering of the other residents who ultimately become the killers....so what I'm saying is I wasn't rooting for either of them. To add I never really bought the fact these older residents of the estate would kill this gang because of what I just mentioned among other things.The other thing I felt this film lacked was the establishment of the level of threat/danger early in the film. I think of the recent successful horror 'It Follows", also set mainly in an estate in America, it opens with a haunting scene where a girl is afraid for her life, is running from something we cant see and gets killed in a horrific way, so there is a genuine creepy element, something brutally killed this girl and we don't know what, or how, that misunderstanding puts us on edge. Thats whats needed here, there is a mystery to who is coming but no sense of brutal threat. We learn the gang is coming to take over....take over the estate? take over the residents houses? The film goes over the hour mark and we never see any sign of what this ominous gang that's coming will do that is scary, or horrifying. In fact the first thing they do is tie up the main characters sister....you see my point how this doesn't feel like a horror?, and more like a violent drama. On a side note, when she gets tied up and tries to burn off the plastic binding, why did she burn the binding covering her hand and not the binding covering the pole its attached to???why? When she screamed out in pain why didn't the hooded gang rush in? Why did they have a pumpkin with a burning candle in the room for her to use?As I said, this could an interesting, alternative horror if written well....shame.

Shame i gave it a 1 star because it was a pretty good story, but the acting was bad and i mean really bad. not worth watching just for the story. please dont waste your time on this

I'll admit I only gave this a chance because of the fantastic cover art by Graham Humpreys, who if you didn't know already is responsible for some of the greatest VHS horror cover art of the 1980's. What I got was one of the worst acted, unoriginal, and terrible films that I've seen for years.The acting from pretty much the entire cast was unbelievable bad, especially the main kid Derren played by Ethan Taylor. Obviously the cast aren't Oscar winning actors, but even for unknowns there was some unforgivable displays of 'acting' throughout. The sound mixing was also a massive issue in some scenes and felt like I was watching an old school Jackie Chan film at times.The attempt to create a Halloween atmosphere littered with pumpkins and various other decorations around the estate, while wasn't a bad effort just didn't really add anything, and the need to add even more pumpkins to the third act of the film in the abandoned factory setting was just completely unnecessary and just seemed forced to try and create a 'spooky' atmosphere and failing miserably.Overall though it really is a boring, clichéd, drab piece of work which will no doubt be found on the horror channel repeating itself every other week, or in the bargain section of HMV.

I've being working in the film industry for several years and this film doesn't look bad at all, especially considering the budget they claim to have spent. When it comes to horror movies, I think the two most crucial elements are the cinematography, the soundtrack. Actually, sometimes I prefer there to be no music at all but in this case it created a good 80's mood and the main theme got stuck in my head for a few days. The storyline is pretty decent. It's not genuinely creepy on it's own but together with the great cinematography and sound design it does a decent enough job to keep your interest and sell what your seeing unfold on screen. And it's safe to say that this is a very different take on your typical low-budget Halloween/horror movie. I'm not a really big fan of that British accent but the acting was more than decent in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of those guys on mainstream productions one day.