Hallows Eve (2016)

Let's be realistic.

An Exercise In Nonsense

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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.

I guess on virtually every review page there will be someone who describes the film they are reviewing as the "worst film ever made".....well they are all wrong because this IS the worst and most stupid film ever made.Why is it stupid? The timeline in the narrative makes no sense - the vigilantes start posting their "tags" and planning their revenge BEFORE the most heinous of the acts they seek vengeance for has even occurred. The revenge takes place against some completely innocent people for no reason whatsoever. We are expected to believe that the ordinary working class dad's who are the vigilantes apparently decided it was important to spend around 8 hours huddled together making about 100 pumpkin lanterns - and even the most stupid policeman would then know to arrest the blokes who bought at consignment of 100 pumpkins.The direction is flat and lifeless. The editing is by the numbers. The dialogue is laughable. And the acting.....oh the "acting"....Ethan Taylor and Lenox Kambaba, the toughest, baddest guys in town, are 2 of the biggest mummy's boys you are likely to encounter in any film. I'm afraid to say that Sarah Akokhia, who is supposed to have had some previous romance with Mr Kambaba and is supposedly at University looks old enough to be his mum! Lots of running around, lots of very sub Attack the Block attitude, lots of silly and inconsistent behaviour and not a single brain cell in use.I have honestly seen thousands of films and obviously among that number there have been some truly awful films over the years but none that made me feel as if my intelligence was being insulted quite as badly as this one.There is a great inter generational horror film to be made about the old killing the young with a post Brexit sub text but this isn't it, this is simply STUPID. There are so many great films to watch so I'm just trying to save your precious time by warning you.......please don't waste your time on this utter rubbish.

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.

This movie is an insult to the whole Horror genre.The idea of the whole movie was okay. There could have actually been an okay movie in this. But the script is absolute crap.What is even worse is the directing.I'm supposed to root for the characters, but I just wanted them all to die, so this movie could be over. And they're so dumb. One Person is connected with a zip-tie to a pipe. She manages to get a burning candle, and what does she do - Instead of burning the zip-tie at the side of the pipe, she burns the side where her Hand is.The third act is in one Location. And the supposed to be scary villains, put up pumpkins all over the place. That's not scary that's just stupid.Oh, and the heavy breathing all the time. It's just bad.And of course, we have that moment when she has the chance to pull away one of the masks of the killers. And she slowly, very slowly reaches for it. Everyone knows what's going to happen. Next time, just pull the mask off.Most of the acting is terrible. A better direction would have helped.The movie has some references to good movies, which isn't a bad thing. But they take something good and turn it into something terrible.The last act plays in one building, nothing bad about that fact. The "villains" weren't scary at any time. It was unintentionally funny and most of the time cringe-worthy. Even the intentionally funny moments were cringe-worthy.Sorry, but I can't think of anything good about this movie.I could go on about this movie for a while, but I hope you got an Impression how bad this movie is. Filmmakers, use that as an example how not to do it.