Once I saw All Hallow’s Eve and found out that there was a sequel, I knew that I had to find it and watch it. I loved Art the Clown. On with the bad news. There is no Art The Clown. On the positive side, there are more stories in this one, and the variety is a good thing in my opinion. I’ll review all of the shorts and the wrap around. I hope you enjoy!
Jack Attack
We meet Jack and his babysitter, Elizabeth, and it’s time to carve the pumpkin. Jack wonders if pumpkins feel pain. Elizabeth separates the seeds so that she can cook them. She then carves the face, inserts the candle, and bam, Jack-o-lantern. The dog is pumped. So she cooks the seeds and he gets dressed as a scarecrow. She tells him not to give the dog any seeds for fear of the dog choking, and then Jack starts choking. She smacks his back, does the Heimlich, and now is going to cut his throat to get some air, but his stomach starts bulging. There’s something in the windpipe, so she pulls on it, it’s like a vine, and it keeps growing and moving. He starts exploding with pumpkins. Then her belly expands and she slices herself open, and more little pumpkins and even the poor dog gets got. Her boyfriend stops by and we see the vines or whatever grow more as he enters.
The Last Halloween
A kid dressed as a ghost is trick r treating with his friends, a devil, a witch, and a grim reaper. The lady gives him a can of cat food and tells him to be careful. Odd. The devil knocks at the next house, and this dude looks like he is messed up, and he is crazy and gives them like a dead bird or something. He was awesome. The next house has these big spotlights and the guy has a video camera set up and tells the kids to go away. This guy, Jack, looks distraught. We see his woman, Kate, by a baby crib, and she looks sad, and she looks out the boarded up window, and all 4 kids immediately look over. She’s like, they’re only kids, and this is clearly a messed up world that we are living in. She asks Jack, what if the kids need their help, but Jack is in survival mode. Kate is very sick. Apparently people are infected, and they took somebody in before and got screwed over. We see that Kate is infected. Jack doesn’t even think it’s Halloween and that the kids are crazy. Jack turns his back to check the monitor, and Kate is missing. The doors close and he hears her scream. The ghost is in the room with Jack. He grabs his gun and asks the ghost where his wife is. He tells the ghost to take the food and give him back his wife, but it’s too late. He removes the ghost’s sheet, and the ghost grows. All the kids are in and say it’s too late and they all grow into the actual costume. The door opens and Jack sees Kate on her knees with tears in her eyes just looking up, and then it went dark and she disappeared. Jack is surrounded by the Ghost, Devil, and Witch. He backs him into the hands of the Grim Reaper. The kids walk out of the house with some goods. We see the house is set ablaze and then we see the whole city is run down with many burning buildings.
The Offering
We have a son driving his father, and they keep an eye on the clock, and it’s 11:57, and it’s time. The father makes up this plate, it’s very neat. The father realizes that the meat isn’t with them. The father forgot it, and this is apparently quite important, and the father reassures him that they are fine and can work this out, but son says they are fucked. The son is named Isaac, and this is a yearly thing, and it’s apparently the dad’s fault that they have to do an offering. The father tells Isaac to go out and deliver it and he will be fine. Well, we get some beast noises and whatnot. Isaac acknowledges to the thing that his father made a mistake and there is no meat, but they will bring double the next time. Well, Isaac gets spooked, tries to get back inside, but the dad locks the doors. Isaac gets got. Dad gets out after midnight to gather the bowl and he cries. The father drives away to live another year.
Descent
Andrea stops by Vanessa’s place and is trying to be let into her apartment building. A lady comes out so Andrea comes in, and knocks on the door, then just makes her way in. She sets her purse and phone down in the living room and goes upstairs to find Vanessa, but finds that she has been murdered by a bald dude, so Andrea hides in a panel or vented closet so she can peek out, and the killer whistles. Andrea’s phone goes off, and she is terrified. The killer eventually leaves. Six weeks later, Andrea gets on an elevator in her apartment building and is going down, like a descent. A guy gets on the elevator with her, he seems friendly. At the next stop is the killer and he’s whistling. Then our first dude gets off, and the elevator stops. Killer tries to calm Andrea down as she is in panic. She fears for her life and stabs him repeatedly with a pen. The elevator opens, and she runs into the security guard, who is also the killer. She looks at the front desk, and there’s the killer. Back to the security guard, and he’s different, and so is the front desk guy, and so is the murder victim. Yes, it was a mental descent as well.
M Is For Masochist
Sam, Fat Pat, and Rick are at a carnival, and it’s late. They come across this Masochist booth. The dude who is the carney, he’s awesome. A game so cruel, it’s cool. Basically you pay to use any weapon there and try to hit the Masochist who is on a spinning wheel. He has his mouth covered, so he can’t speak. Get enough blood, get some stuff. Rick chooses a baseball with pins. Sam passes, but Pat goes for it with throwing knives. Anytime the masochist is hit, over the loudspeaker, it encourages them to do more damage. The mouth guard comes off, and it’s Sam’s dad, and he begs Sam to help him. The carney is persuading Sam after seeing all of his bruises, and Sam grabs a nail gun, and Sam tells him to stop crying. So it was the nail gun, then a spiked ball to the nuts, then a thrown chainsaw.
A Boy’s Life
A boy and his mom live alone. The dad was killed in the war, and the boy believes that there is a monster under the bed and he has a thing for always holding on to his dad’s dog tags. The mom tries to eventually help him get out of this “monster” belief, so they fake going into combat, get the all clear, and then mom gets pulled under the bed.
Mr. Tricker’s Treat
We see Mr. Tricker getting dressed, and there is a teenage boy in a pet cage, and he’s puking. Mr Tricker looks pissed, and he is all in flannel attired. He puts a duct tape around the boy’s mouth to shut him up, and we see another unconscious boy in the distance with his wrists restrained. Mr. Tricker is listening to some music, and he gets his mask all set up. He drags the caged boy outside and set him on a bench, with the mask on, and puts a trick r treat bucket on his lap. He likes to decorate realistically. Then he gets the unconscious boy, who is waking up and puts a sheet over him like a ghost and lynches him. First, Boy is starting to move, so Mr. Tricker slits his throat. Some hot chick shows up as a fairy and is so enamored with his decorating, and she is a tad obnoxious but is meant to be, one of those dumb girls that don’t shut up. She goes to leave, he hits her from behind and drags her inside his place.
Alexia
We find out that Alexia is dead, and her ex, Franco, is on Facebook and having a hard time letting go. His current girl, Melina, is worried about him, as he is still dwelling on her death as it’s Alexia’s birthday. Lots of guilty feeling, but this girl sounded awful and used him for attention. Franco finally unfriends Alexia to finally let go. Then shit gets cray-cray as the bitches say. Alexia tries to message him, and his computer is getting all pixelated and goes back to her page. He sees an old pic of her. He tries to close, but to no avail. She says “Hello love”. This is creepy. We see her in pictures with slit wrists and now she’s asking who the new girl is and why he’s replacing her for someone new. He goes to close the page, but then her face comes on, looking all creepy and the volume goes up. He unplugs the PC, but then she starts coming from behind the monitor. Melina shows up and knows that he is shaken up. He goes to check on his PC, and there’s Melina sitting in his chair and the PC is unplugged, but the PC is on. Melina asks about what he is seeing, and it shows these messages that he didn’t write, but then looks over and sees that it’s Alexia about to kiss him.
Wrap Around
This is the same house as from the original, #237, probably a Shining homage. There’s a woman using an Ouija Board asking why Robert isn’t calling her, and then she gets startled by something outside. It’s a dude in a pumpkin mask, holding a knife it appears. Her phone rings, and it’s her friend Beth. There’s a knocking at the door, but nobody is there, but a VHS tape is. OH, at the bottom of the stairs is the guy in the mask who just stares and turns his head, like Kane used to. Beth calls back, and this dumb skank rips on blu ray and praises VHS because it makes Texas Chainsaw Massacre look better. OK. After Alexia, she sees footage of the dude standing outside, and then he is walking towards the screen but she struggles to get the tape out. He tries to bang on the TV screen like Art did, but she gets the tape out and static filled screen. He appears behind her and slits her throat.
End Film
Final Thoughts – This was surprisingly good, I mean, really good based on my expectations. I liked that the wrap-around story was kept short, and yet came back to the previous one in a way. Enough with the VHS hard on though, please. I really liked, in order: The Last Halloween, M Is For Masochist, Descent, Alexia, Mr. Tricker’s Treat, and Jack Attack. The Offering was quick, but it offered me nothing. If you’re a wrestling fan, you saw that father’s heel turn coming a mile away, but it was short. The only one I didn’t like, was also the longest: A Boy’s Life. It wasn’t terrible, but if you’ve seen Babadook, then this wasn’t good. This should have been cut in half and would have been just as effective, actually more so because people wouldn’t have been waiting for something better, when the whole set up was predictable, which isn’t a bad thing. it ended the right way. Still, 6 out of 8 shorts were good. A few were even great to me. Good quality, I just wished Art the Clown had returned.
Rating – 6.2 because this kept me enthralled most of the way. Great job, and highly recommended!
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