Director: Jeff Lieberman
Year: 2004
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Thinking he's following a real-life version of a favorite video game character, a young boy unwittingly aids a serial killer along a rampage of carnage on Halloween night, and when it finally dawns on him about his actions, tries to help his parents stop the madman.
Review:
This ended up being quite an enjoyable if really flawed effort. Most of this is due to the absolutely original notion of the connection between the killer and the game, which is quite a coincidence but really allows for a demented atmosphere throughout as there's the whole issue of a child being fascinated with violence and death and actively encouraging it to happen, granted unwittingly but still plays an active part in the process.
By making it so that he's so unable to realize the difference between real-life and fantasy allows this to really get dark with its humor by including the rampage home from the supermarket where they basically run wild through the town knocking off people left and right in the shopping as he joyfully cries out alongside the carnage which is simply fun all around simply by his presence there gleefully doing his thing during the whole sequence as he thinks it to be a game they're playing.
That as well gives the scenes in the house prior to the rampage a sense of eeriness as the killer interacts with the family who is unaware of the true nature of their companion as the cold, silent stare out from underneath the unimaginably creepy devil mask works wonders in generating a creepy villain and aides this as well during the other scenes out among the town as the rampage really picks up during the middle segments of the film.
While this tries to give off a comedic vibe from these efforts, it's really not all that funny as the entire joke, that he can't distinguish fantasy from reality because of the way the character's dressed, is pretty lame for a running joke to go through an entire film and doesn't really have much else in the way of jokes to make it work. It's all based on his inability to see that the figure is a killer as everyone else plays along for no reason and this ends up giving the film a really off vibe during the first hour.
Thankfully, once the ruse is found out that's dropped in favor of a serious effort to stop the madman which is far more interesting with the twist involving the identity switch, the race to stop him from getting back to the kid, and the rampage at the party offering some added fun due to the more serious tone offered. Overall, it's quite a fun ride but it's most certainly not as funny as people say it is, leading to its only real flaw.
Overview: ****/5
An entertaining enough if somewhat flawed and unfunny genre comedy, that it fails at one of the main things it's intended to do shouldn't deter those from checking out how much fun the rest of the film is. Those who are intrigued by the premise, don't mind the flaws too much, or are interested in a fun slasher effort should check this out but those turned off by the issues here might want to heed caution.
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