Director: Josh Hasty
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural Slasher
Plot:
Agreeing to go on a traditional Halloween prank, a group of friends accidentally beat a person to death and leave the scene to the local authorities, and as they go about trying to forget the incident they are beset by a series of gruesome murders that forces them to confront what happened.
Review:
This one wasn't all that bad at points. One of the strongest factors here is how this one sets out to build a wholly enjoyable and worthwhile revenge subplot for what the group does. The central factor of the freakshow experience that's seen here when they visit the carnival and attack the guy is a wholly cliched setup but works here due to the clever tie-in with the Halloween candy that sets up each kill. None of this is all that original but instead comes off in a more serviceable realm with the now revived killer using the method of what killed him to exact revenge which is really what this one boils down to. That the rampage which comes about here is a series of enjoyable short-ended confrontations with the killer featuring ambushes on the group at the dinner or at their houses around town, making for a nice series of rather fun graphic scenes here which are again nothing original but provide enough of what works overall. Combined with a strong look for the main killer with the mask and connection with the candy, there's a lot to like and enjoy here.
That said, there are some problems here. One of the film's biggest issues is the utterly underwhelming and nonsensical reasoning for setting everything in motion, employing the kind of traditional prank on the village handicapped person for no reason. The entire idea of doing so just for tradition because they've been doing it for a while now and are still doing so manages to imbue the film with a far more outdated sense of understanding towards the main group of friends. That is especially prominent when they continually question why and the response every time out was tradition despite several continued and rational pleas to do something else. The other real factor to this one is that aforementioned sense of familiarity that rings throughout the film here, with very little originality in hardly anything that happens. From the friends bullying the handicapped kid and taking it too far resulting in him coming back to kill them one-by-one in revenge for what happened, this setup has rung true in countless genre efforts without any deviation here.
The flaw with this one is the fact that the technical merits here are flawed or outright troublesome. No one here delivers any kind of worthwhile or endearing performance, with the main group of kids being utterly despicable jerks with no sympathy at all being that they purposefully set out to torture and prank a handicapped person for the sheer pleasure of being able to do so. Despite the girl being far more open to having sympathy for him, it's not enough to overcome how embarrassing the rest of the performances here are. Most of the characters here are just plain awful and the performances are even worse, appearing as cringe-inducing at times with none of the featured performers given anything of note beyond glorified cameos. Likewise, the instances of utilizing so many slow-motion sequences where everything slows down to a crawl and drops out the audio to underline the dramatic weight of what happened is so haphazardly handled that it’s out-of-place and entirely questionable why those sequences were filmed as such. These elements manage to lower this one somewhat.
Overview: **/5
While there are some rather enjoyable aspects to be had here, the fact that there are too many issues with its underwhelming cliches and overall technical issues are enough to lower this one somewhat. It's worth a look if you're into this kind of generic, no-frills revenge slasher or enjoy indie genre work while those looking for a more substantial and immersive film should heed caution.
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