Horror Movie Review: Halloween Night (2006)

Hold on to your pumpkins, this is a rough one.

Directed by Mark Atkins with a story by Michael Gingold, we’re introduced to Chris Vale as a 12-year-old who witnesses a horrific crime. His mother is murdered by two masked men while he hides out of view. While Chris watches he sees that his father planned this but when he makes a noise the killers shoot at him causing a steam pipe to burst in his face.

The boy is badly disfigured and blamed for the murder of his mother following his father’s subsequent suicide. Chris is locked up in an asylum where many years later he snaps after too much bullying by the staff and escapes.

Chris heads back to his old home where a Halloween party is taking place. Donning a mask to hide his disfigured face he sets about slashing his way through the night.

Sound familiar? Well it should as Halloween Night is unashamed in its attempt to grab a bit of the Halloween slasher cash by putting in next to no effort. This is a bad horror movie.

What makes it bad? Well, the story is poor, very poor. We’ve seen this done a bazillion times before and in this exact same fashion but way better. A low budget does not excuse the laziness on show here. It’s like the writers watched Halloween and thought, what small changes can we make to ensure we don’t get sued?

It might be easier to overlook a bad story if the movie had other things going for it, but it doesn’t.

The acting is awful, really awful and so much of the dialogue is pointless high-school kids talking over each other. It’s incredibly annoying and forces you to filter them out but you won’t be missing out on much. Almost everyone comes across like they’d rather be anywhere else and can you blame them?

Then there is Chris. Now he doesn’t have any dialogue so the issue with him actually comes from how he looks. It’s like the make-up department had never seen an actual burn victim. He resembles something more akin to a zombie and it’s almost unbelievable that anyone could have survived in his condition. Not that he looks particularly good either, it’s clearly a rubbish mask.

Is there anything to enjoy in Halloween Night? Well, some of the deaths are alright. Nothing particularly thrilling but with enough viciousness about them to stop you nodding off. If you choose to watch this movie for kills alone, you’re going to be extremely disappointed.

The total lack of imagination, originality, quality control or respect for the slasher genre makes this a chore, one that everyone should avoid.

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