Tales of Halloween

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Tales of Halloween is a 2015 American horror comedy film anthology consisting of ten interlocking segments, each revolving around the titular holiday. It is directed by Neil Marshall, Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Lucky McKee, Andrew Kasch, Paul Solet, John Skipp, Adam Gierasch, Jace Anderson, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, and Dave Parker.

The film had its world premiere on July 24, 2015, at the Fantasia International Film Festival. It was released in a limited release and through video on demand on October 16, 2015, by Epic Pictures.

Video Tales of Halloween

Synopsis

The ten stories take place in a suburban American town whose denizens are terrorized by ghouls, aliens, and killers one Halloween night as a DJ (Adrienne Barbeau) adds her commentary to each one.

Sweet Tooth

Written and directed by Dave Parker.

Mikey (Daniel DiMaggio) has just finished trick-or-treating around his neighborhood and come home with a bag full of candy. His parents (Greg Grunberg and Clare Kramer) have left him in the care of his babysitter Lizzy (Madison Iseman), who has invited her boyfriend Kyle over to watch the film Night of the Living Dead. As Mikey begins to enjoy the candy he's collected, Lizzy and Kyle share the urban legend of "Sweet Tooth"; long ago, a boy of Mikey's age named Timothy was denied his trick-or-treat candy by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Blake, but a curious Timothy discovered that the parents kept and ate all his candy themselves. Enraged, Timothy killed both of his parents and ate all the candy, including the ones already in their stomach, and thus became Sweet Tooth, a demon who appears each Halloween looking everywhere for candy. Mikey is rattled by this story and decides to go to sleep early, much to Lizzy and Kyle's amusement. They decide to make out and eat the candy, before being attacked by Sweet Tooth himself, which Mikey overhears. The ghostly being heads toward Mikey's bedroom but Mikey has left a bar of chocolate for Sweet Tooth on the floor to take. That, combined with the fact that Mikey hasn't eaten any candy, spares him from death. Later, Mikey's parents come home to find Lizzy and Kyle's grotesque corpses, with Mikey standing nearby exclaiming that they ate all his Halloween candy.

The Night Billy Raised Hell

Written by Clint Sears, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman.

Billy Thompson (Marcus Eckert) absurdly tries to start trick-or-treating really early in the afternoon, prompting his big sister Britney (Natalis Castillo) and her boyfriend Todd (Ben Stillwell) to trick him into playing a prank, that, according to both teenagers, had been going on for years. They prepared an egg for Billy to throw at Mr. Abbadon's (Barry Bostwick) house, who's notoriously stingy and never gives out candy for the children across the years, but Billy was caught red-handed by the man of the hour, while his sister and her boyfriend fled. Billy was ushered into Mr. Abbadon's house, where he says he's going to teach Billy a lesson, and takes Mordecai, a little boy of Billy's age who has the same Halloween costume (red devil) as him. Mr. Abbadon then lets Mordecai, in a costume and mask similar to Billy, to wreck around the neighborhood, from doing harmless pranks like spray-painting the walls into the more bloody terrors, like stabbing a rude neighbor who gave him toothbrush instead of candy, and then later on tricking the same neighbor into stepping to a bear trap, severing his foot. The duo even hijacked Adrianne Curry's car along the way. After all the ruckus, Mr. Abbadon returns to his house to a tied Billy and releases him, and reveals that he is the Devil himself and under the mask Mordecai is also the Little Devil. He lets Billy go, only for Billy to be shot dead outside by a swarm of waiting police from the previous terror caused by Mordecai in his Halloween costume.

Trick

Written by Greg Commons, directed by Adam Gierasch.

On a seemingly peaceful Halloween night, friends Nelson (Trent Haaga), Maria (Tiffany Shepis), James (John F. Beach) and Caitlyn (Casey Ruggieri) are lounging around Nelson's house, smoking pot. As Nelson goes to greet a girl trick-or-treating, the group is alarmed when the girl stabs Nelson multiple times in the abdomen, gravely injuring him. Panicked, Maria goes to her car to drive Nelson to the hospital, only to be attacked by four kids in costumes. Maria flees, but the injury causes her to drop dead on the house's pool. By this time, Nelson has succumbed to his injury and dies as well. James tries to find help, only to have his face burned by yet another trick-or-treater, and she completes her attack by stuffing his mouth with rat poison, killing him. Caitlyn, the only adult left, flees to the backyard, where she hides in a shack. It is then revealed that Caitlyn, Nelson, Maria and James are all psychopaths and have been kidnapping kids and gouging their eyes out for their amusement. The group of kids finds the shack, which turns out to be the place they tortured the previous kids, and cornered Maria. A girl, whose one eye has been gouged by the adults, executes Caitlyn with an axe on her head.

The Weak and the Wicked

Written by Molly Millions, directed by Paul Solet.

Three bullies, Alice (Grace Phipps), Isaac (Booboo Stewart) and Bart (Noah Segan) proceed to torture a kid after trick-or-treating (Jack Dylan Grazer), but are interrupted by a teenager of their age in a devil costume (Keir Gilchrist). The teenager hands Alice a drawing of Devil and utters that the Devil will come to aid the weak if they're wearing his costume. Alice dismisses the picture and begins to chase the teenager away with the other bullies to the other side of the city, where the teenager stops by a burnt-down trailer car. In a flashback when Alice, Bart and Isaac were kids, they had set the house on fire, which belonged to the teenager, complete with his parents in it. As the bullies beat the teenager up and prepares to lit him on fire, Bart and Isaac are attacked by an unseen force. When Alice turns around, the devil himself has showed up, looking exactly like how the teenager wearing his costume. As Alice is killed by the devil, blood violently splashes to the teenager's face, who smiles in satisfaction.

Grim Grinning Ghost

Written and directed by Axelle Carolyn.

As Lynn (Alex Essoe) prepares to leave her mother's (Lin Shaye) Halloween party, she encounters strange occurrences on her way home. First her car uncharacteristically breaks down in the middle of the road, forcing her to finish her trip by foot. While walking, she senses that a shadowy figure is following her. Terrified, she runs into the safety of her house, and believes the figure has not followed her to her house. As Lynn settles to a couch to watch a film, her dog suddenly gets nervous and leaves the room. Lynn smiles and leans back to the couch, only to find out that the ghost is sitting beside her.

Ding Dong

Written and directed by Lucky McKee.

A year prior, Jack (Marc Senter) and his wife Bobbie (Pollyanna McIntosh) is playing a role play on Halloween night, which leads things to be heated and ending up with Bobbie clawing Jack's face with her long, devilish nails. Present time, this time Jack and Bobbie have prepared to greet trick-or-treaters, but even though everything goes normally something felt uneasy between the couples every time there's children on their front porch. Finally, when a boy is visiting the couple's house alone, Bobbie prepares to lead him inside, but Jack, aware of his wife's intent, alert the boy's mother, who's looking for him. A disheartened Bobbie goes back inside, and Jack persuades her to stop what they're doing. It is then revealed that Bobbie is a witch and enjoys eating children, and now she's furious that Jack has thwarted her plans. She drags Jack into the house's oven, which resembles more like hell, but Bobbie ends up melting herself, possibly because she couldn't get any child this year.

This Means War

Written and directed by Andrew Kasch and John Skipp.

Boris (Dana Gould) has proudly finished his Halloween-decorated house. But when children are about to greet his house, they are lured away because of his neighbor, Dante (James Duval) has set-up a rock and gore-oriented Halloween decorations on his house, complete with loud rock music blasting from the speakers. Boris walks up to Dante's yard to ask him to turn the volume lower, but Dante and his colleagues just laughs at him and tells him he should loosen up more. Enraged, Boris wrecks the sound system and halts the music, but Dante exacts revenge by planning to throw a huge bucket of blood to Boris' slick Halloween decorations. As Boris runs up to stop Dante, the latter splashes the blood on the former instead, and declares that this is war. Spectators begin to crowd as the two rumbles as Boris charges at Dante towards a sharp piece of standing wood, killing both of them instantly, shocking the crowd.

Friday the 31st

Written by Mike Mendez and Dave Parker, directed by Mike Mendez.

A deformed serial killer (Nick Principe) who looks suspiciously like Jason Voorhees, hunts a girl dressed as Dorothy for Halloween (Amanda Moyer). The girl runs up to a barn where she sees a bunch of corpses courtesy to the killer, and even notices one of them as her acquaintance named Casey, but the killer finds her and they resumed chase. He throws a spear at the running teen, killing her. As the killer is overjoyed by his recent killing, an extraterrestrial suddenly appears, with the intention of trick-or-treating. The killer proceeds to stomp over the tiny alien, seemingly crushing him, but the alien instead inserted itself into the girl's corpse, this time making the deformed serial killer run away.

The Ransom of Rusty Rex

Written and directed by Ryan Schifrin.

When they spot millionaire Jebediah Rex (John Landis) letting his son Rusty (Ben Woolf) out for trick-or-treating, former bank robbers Hank (Sam Witwer) and Dutch (Jose Pablo Cantillo) set out their plan to kidnap the millionaire's son. After succeeding doing so, the kidnappers tied up a still-masked Rusty into a chair and calls up his father. However, the father seems overjoyed that his son has been kidnapped and promptly hangs up the phone. Hank calls him one more time to discuss about ransom, but the father coldly tells them they can have his son. Exasperated, the kidnappers find out that the son is actually a deformed monster that clings to the people near him. They tried to sink him down the river, but he came back to their lair. Hank calls Jebediah once more, only to be told that Rusty has been holding Jebediah and his wife hostage for five years as he would not leave them, and thanked the kidnappers for taking him away from them. Hank and Dutch once again tied Rusty and sets him on fire, but as Hank comes back from buying food, Rusty, who has gotten hungry, has eaten Dutch up to his head. Hank ends up screaming.

Bad Seed

Written and directed by Neil Marshall.

A detective (Kristina Klebe) tries to put a stop to a genetically-engineered man-eating pumpkin which terrorizes the town.

Maps Tales of Halloween

Cast

Wraparound:

• Adrienne Barbeau - DJ

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Release

The film had its premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal on July 24, 2015. It was also selected as the opening-night film at Wizard World Chicago as well as London FrightFest Film Festival, where it closed the annual event on August 31, 2015, tying with its European premiere. The film was released in a limited release and through video on demand on October 16, 2015.

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Reception

Reception for Tales of Halloween has been positive, with Rotten Tomatoes certifying it "fresh" with a 79% rating.

Michael Gingold, writing for Fangoria, called it "Well-produced on its modest budget" and gave it three and a half out of four skulls. Kalyn Corrigan of Bloody Disgusting called it "a fun, exuberant addition to the subgenre of horror anthology films." Katie Rife of The A.V. Club gave it a "B" saying the film "might make it a new annual tradition in horror-loving households." Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects wrote "Tales of Halloween is good fun, but it's difficult not to wish that more of the stories had aimed for darker, more terrifying and affecting goals. Still, the EC Comics attitude finds a new home with Carolyn and her crew, and with any luck the film will spawn a new Halloween tradition of fun, gory, spooky anthology films highlighted by short, messy bursts of genre talent."

Dennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a mixed review, calling the segments "polished enough but utterly routine" and saying "Even the best of these, however, are held back by brevity from developing silly ideas into anything truly memorable."

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References

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External links

• Tales of Halloween on IMDb

Source of the article : Wikipedia