The first All Hallows Eve movie may not have been for everyone, but it was notable for the unusual savagery and violence it had compared to other such cheesy and campy Halloween flicks of its type – it was actively uncomfortable to watch. Then I guess someone wasn't happy with that, so they made a sequel and said 'okay, change absolutely everything, take out your cool clown mascot character, and also make it fucking terrible.' Here's All Hallows Eve 2!
Director: Various
Starring: A ouija board and a glass of wine
Co-written with Nathan.
Like the first one, this is an anthology of short horror films, each by a different director. But the first one had three fairly fleshed out stories with clear plots and development from beginning to end. This one has about four billion shorter stories and none of them are that good – in fact, the whole thing is like a wet fart, with no worthwhile moments and nothing of substance. They didn't even bring back their clown mascot, Art, from the first one. Instead, we get the jackass pumpkin-faced killer on the cover, who's never given a name or any kind of storyline. Just look at this piece of garbage:
Don't you just hate it already? It's like a watered down, dollar-store knock off version of a nationally well-known brand. It just sucks, reeking of pandering and not trying very hard. He is probably the kind of guy who bums rides off of his friends and then makes fun of them in a way that he thinks is much more charming than it really is, all while smoking in the car even though you asked him three times not to. Anyway, let's move on...
The wrap-around story is already a step down from the first one. This time, rather than the babysitter and the kids exchanging actual dialogue like real characters, we get a random mid-20s chick sitting at home alone drinking wine, playing with a Ouija board, asking it whether her boyfriend is going to come over or not. You know, I don't blame her boyfriend for not being there – this chick is kinda lame.
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| Yeah, fuck all the cool Halloween parties at bars, THIS is where the fun's REALLY at! |
Then a mysterious haunted video tape is dropped off at her doorstep. So she starts watching it... wow, is that the entire set-up? How much lazier can you get?
The first story is about a babysitter carving a pumpkin with some dumb kid, in a world that recalls the 1978 Halloween with the Halloween imagery turned up to 1,000. You could overdose on the amount of orange colors and pumpkin imagery just in the first scene.
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| What season is it again?! |
I guess they try to bake some pumpkin seeds for whatever reason, and the little kid accidentally starts choking on one. Here's where Nathan and I tried to play a game: who's dumber, the kid for choking on a fucking pumpkin seed, or the babysitter who's first idea for first aid is to take a knife to the kid's throat to try and get it out that way? I think I'm going with the babysitter. I mean, fuck calling 9-1-1, am I right? What can THOSE jackasses do?
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| What was her plan for when this kid's parents come home? "Sorry guys, I had to cut your kid's throat"? I have a feeling she wouldn't be called back. |
Then I guess it turns out the pumpkin seeds start mutating into some kind of vague Alien-like chest-burster thing, which is the end of the story as both of them die from it. Wow. I am so amazed that this cliché deadpan sarcasm is all I can muster up. If this isn't the worst fear-mongering I've ever seen about GMOs, then I guess it's just a shitty horror story.
Second story is about a bunch of kids trick or treating in some weird post-apocalyptic hellscape. They come across a heavily guarded house that turns on its lights just to tell them to go away. Wow, sounds like you already had your mind made up, huh jackass? Inside, I guess, it's a dude and his wife, both kind of sick looking, pondering if it's even Halloween at all. Because the best Halloween movies are set in dreary dystopias where you don't know if it's Halloween. Ah the spirit of the holidays.
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| Yeah, I'm sick of the movie too. Maybe go get some Mucinex. |
The kids find their ways inside, only to turn into a bunch of actual monsters for, uh, no reason that I can see. Seriously, there's no explanation. This shit is the equivalent of homework turned in with no explaining how you got the answer to that math problem. It's basically like an unfinished plot. I guess we do get some decent makeup for a few minutes?
I'm also calling bullshit on the devil in this one - I saw the first All Hallows Eve, and the devil in THAT movie's story about a cult that impregnates women in the sewer looked nothing like THIS guy. Clearly this is a sham and I want my money back. Is this the kind of shitty service I can expect from this establishment???
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| It's Satan's make-over day here at All Hallows Eve. |
It ends with, I dunno, the wife sitting in the dark and then disappearing. What does it mean? Who knows - maybe her contract expired before they could finish shooting.
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| "My contract didn't cover speaking more than two lines, or even really getting up from kneeling. Too bad!" |
It really doesn't get any better from here on out – there are a lot of half-baked stories with no good characters, story ideas or scares. It really just seems like there wasn't much thought put into these – I hate to dump on a bunch of indie filmmakers probably trying their best, but they're just kind of bad all around. I love how you barely ever even go back to the wrap-around story about the girl with the Ouija board. What was the point of even having it then?
I'll try to say something positive here... uh, it's less misogynist than the first movie? Maybe? However I don't get why that means they had to make this one so boring. Honestly, I was hoping for a shot of Art the murderous clown from last movie in therapy for his horrific crimes. It would be stupid, but at least it would tie together the two movies.
Like, one story is just a three-minute thing where some idiot teenagers go to a carnival and the first thing they see is a booth where you're allowed to throw deadly weapons at a person tied to a board defenseless. I always loved doing this the moment I walked into a fucking carnival too:
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| I guess doing this in public where anyone can see is no big deal... oh who am I kidding, trying to nitpick at something this vapid? |
And it turns out one of the kids is the son of the guy tied up, and the guy apparently abused the kid. So then you just get a few quick shots of them throwing knives and spiked balls at the guy's crotch and stuff. Wow. I have no idea what we're supposed to gain from this except that child abuse is BAD and only SPAWNS MORE VIOLENCE LATER... oh, wait, it doesn't even really mean to say the second part. Never mind. Forgive me for accusing this movie of ever having a point.
Another one is absurdly long and focuses on a little kid afraid of a monster under the bed. There are absolutely no surprises here – it goes exactly as you expect. The kid is afraid of a monster, his mom tells him it's not real, there is some tragic backstory about his dad dying in the war so he is obsessed with his dad's old dog tags. All that's missing is Christopher Walken with a solid speech about how there was a watch up his ass for years.
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| Man I wish there was a watch-up-ass story in this. It would be one thing that actually came out from up its own ass in this story. |
Honestly, I was so bored with this, I just used it as naptime before the next story. It's by far the longest one for no reason at all. How does it end; the mother getting sucked under the bed and the kid screaming like every single story like this? ZZZzzzzzz...
Of special ridiculousness is the final story, which is an absurd Spanish horror story about this guy who finds a ghost on his computer. Weird, usually that's just called porn ads. Are you sure you had your ad blocker running, dude?
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| Ah yes, the greatest social media site, Unnamed Facebook Knockoff Because Copyright. I love it so. |
It's just another boring-ass story – nothing at all of interest happens, and the ghost kills this dude and his girlfriend at the end and that's it. It's straightforward to the point of being completely uneventful. But why is it in Spanish with no subtitles? The movie itself is all in English otherwise. It just feels like someone put this whole anthology together at the last minute after a cocaine binge once he realized it was almost time to turn it in.
Then in the wrap-around story, we get a very quick, watered down version of the ending of the first one - the girl tries to turn off the evil videotape, only it doesn't work. Instead, the pumpkin-faced killer appears and then comes into real life and kills her! Wow! All those other dumb movies that had EXPLANATIONS and STORYLINES for their killers sure are suckers! Who knew all you needed was a quick two-second shot of your killer murdering someone at the very end of an anthology that had nothing to do with him? It's SO FUCKING EASY.
That's All Hallows Eve 2. It's so boring and dumb that I don't even want to finish this review properly. It would be more effort to do that than anyone put into this movie... so, bye!
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