The Barn (2017)

There's a good film buried somewhere deep inside The Barn, a film that could easily be a Halloween favourite for horror fans, but writer-director Justin M. Seaman spends a lot of time ensuring that nobody will ever see that film. Instead of working to the strengths of the central premise (the three main killers, the Halloween atmosphere, the gleeful fun of some of the kills), he pads everything out with lacklustre conversations before delivering a finale that is so poor that it undoes any of the good work that preceded it.

Mitchell Musolino and Will Stout play Sam and Josh, respectively. They're out and about on Halloween night with Michelle (Lexi Dripps), as well as Chris (Cortland Woodard), who happens to own his own vehicle, and his partner, Nikki (Nikki Howell), and it's not long until they end up near the titular barn, a cursed place that houses three monsters. There's the boogeyman, Hollow Jack, and the candy corn scarecrow, and they soon set out to cause panic and death in town, much to the dismay of Sam and Josh.

Written and directed by Justin M. Seaman, The Barn is a typical debut feature, complete with pacing issues, an unsatisfying script, and good ideas threatened by poor execution. It's not Seaman's debut feature though. While there's an obvious love for the horror genre, the Halloween atmosphere, and spooky iconography, Seaman doesn't seem to know how to put everything together into a wholly satisfying package. He has an excellent vision for his central killer creations, but doesn't manage to write a plot that can sustain interest for even 3/4 of the runtime.

Musolino and Stout aren't great, but they're okay, and okay is better than we see in quite a lot of horror movies. Dripps is disappointingly underused (correct me if I'm wrong, she just seems to disappear before the third act gets going), while Woodard and Howell may as well come onscreen with badges that say "most likely to die in order to underline the deadly threat to our leads". There are cameos from both Linnea Quigley and Ari Lehman, with the former much more fun than the latter, and everyone else just wanders in and out of the screen, killing time until the time for killing begins.

Although numerous issues made it seem as if this film wouldn't ever be completed, Seaman managed to get there in the end, and deserves some praise for persevering. There's even a sequel released by now, and I know I'll get to it one day. I also know that a few horror fans will enjoy this more than I did, but I suspect many will share my view. Seaman tries hard to get some good stuff onscreen, up until a finale that seems as if he stopped trying altogether. Maybe the sequel greatly improves on things, but there's not enough here to make people rush to see it.

4/10

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Prime Time: 10/31 (2017)

A horror anthology featuring the talents of Brett DeJager, Rocky Gray, Zane Hershberger, JohnWilliam Holt, Hunter Johnson, Justin M. Seaman and Jason Turner, 10/31 (which is the date of Halloween, although here in the UK we would use the better date format of 31/10) tries to be a bit of entertaining fun for horror fans, providing five tales hosted by Malvolia (Jennifer Nangle).

The five tales are "The Old Hag", "Trespassers", "Killing The Dance", "Halloween Blizzard Of '91" and "The Samhain Slasher". All of them have a chance of amusing you if you pick this film for a Halloween viewing (and that is a theme running throughout, so at least it has a consistent feel), but only two really worked for me. The best one is "Killing The Dance", which just needed a bit more spit and polish to make truly great. Perhaps it is telling that this one is the only tale with a separate director and writer. The other really good one is "The Old Hag", which benefits from a creepy central character, then almost undoes everything with a lame final jump scare akin to those videos you get sent on social media (you know the ones).

"The Samhain Slasher" is the worst of the bunch, saved by a decent bit of gore, but the best thing about 10/31 is that even the other weak stories aren't as bad as many others you have seen in the many anthology horrors that have appeared on streaming services over the past few years. I've enjoyed many unexpected treats, but also seen some truly dire short stories that seemed to be edited in because they were cheap and had a bit of blood in them.

The acting is as varying in quality as the tales, but nobody made me so angry that I feel the need to call them out. It may be entirely coincidental that the worst performances appear in the weakest tales, and it is hard to pinpoint what is worse, the material or the performances, so just be generally warned about both “The Samhain Slasher” and “Halloween Blizzard Of ‘91”.

On the plus side, the wraparound moments are minimal, simple bookends to present the tales, the seasonal vibe is strong throughout, and five tales being crammed in to a not-overlong runtime mean that you are usually not too far away from something that may amuse you.

4/10

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