Almost everyone seemed to enjoy All Hallow’s Eve, at least to some degree, the horror anthology movie that introduced horror fans to Art the clown. So it is no surprise to see that a sequel was made. What is slightly surprising, although also an obvious approach, is the fact that this is one of those horror anthology movies created by making use of a handful of talented people all delivering their own tales. Damien Leone, the writer-director of the first movie, was probably already too busy developing the Terrifier movies to deliver more Art “hijinks” for his fans.
The framing device here involves a young woman who has received a videotape on her doorstep. There also seems to be someone watching her. Slightly perturbed, but not half as anxious as I would be, she decides to watch the tape, which contains a mix of tales all revolving around Halloween.
With a film like this, based around so many different writers and directors, using a cast that doesn’t really have any familiar faces in the mix (the only one I immediately recognised was the excellent Bill Oberst Jr), it’s hard to sit down and write out an informative and all-encompassing review. If I went into enough detail here then you would just be reading a page full of names, and there are many other places on the internet to just read film credits.
That is also a good sign though. I don’t have any one person I want to single out, for good or bad, and that shows just how surprisingly consistent this movie is. I still have favourite tales (“Jack Attack” and “The Last Halloween” help the movie get off to a strong start), but I enjoyed pretty much everything presented here. Of course I liked some more than others, but there wasn’t any one take that I loathed.
The biggest downside is the lack of any strong through-line. The Halloween theme may be good enough to loosely link the tales together, but there’s a disappointing lack of flow as we move abruptly from one to the next, and it’s a shame that there was no room for any scenes allowing some more bleed over. There are also some sequences that look worse than others, but that just adds to the feeling of people really putting blood, sweat, and tears into getting their films made.
The cast generally do good work, everyone is clearly making the most of relatively limited resources, and there is a surprisingly high hit rate when it comes to the “punchline” of every segment. Although I didn’t absolutely love it, I would put this on a par with the first film. It’s a perfect choice for the spooky season, providing an entertaining variety of thrills and chills without outstaying its welcome.
6/10
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