Director: Jem Garrard
Year: 2025
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Arriving at their new home, a woman and her sons try to make friends with the others around town as they prepare for a special Halloween celebration, but when they inadvertently steal a specific pumpkin, which proves that a series of rumors about the town being under a strange curse are true.
Review:
For the most part, this was an intriguing enough genre effort. Among the better elements of this one is the way it manages to build up a genuinely intriguing and somewhat chilling mystery while keeping things relatively kid-friendly. The central premise involving the family arriving in a new town on the eve of a special anniversary celebration held by the residents, and must try to figure out what’s going on when they stumble upon a strange conspiracy in the town, works incredibly well, as it’s entirely possible to not even be aware of this being a kid-friendly tale. Once it switches into their perspective with the kids hanging out together, learning about the traditions in the town, and the various aspects of the holiday that are part of the towns’ celebrations, everything starts to come together, involving the kids being at the center of everything and knowing they’re right about what’s happening, which makes for a fun enough time.
What gets revealed here is another solid enough aspect where the idea about the whole town being under the influence of a special black magic spell that causes them to forget the children sacrificed in a barn to a specific demon offers up some fun elements. With the concept introduced rather quickly when the older brother is taken and kidnapped, that serves to set the film in motion when he becomes the only one who remembers his brother. This becomes set up for a solid mystery angle about what the town is undergoing, such a bizarre idea as forgetting who everyone is, that comes from the plantation where everything takes place. The series of exploits here involving their series of investigations into the strange behavior at the farm, where they reveal the full context of the ritual and focus here on the different effects of that being put into play, makes for a fun time as we try to follow everything along to get a rather fun amount of positives here.
There isn’t a whole lot to lower this one, but it does have some issues. The main feature here is the film’s lack of purpose over the killer scarecrow as a villain, which is a factor that’s barely featured in the film or has much context behind it. With this one dropping so much of the explanation for the ritual, what he’s doing at the farm, and how that relates to the curse affecting the town, there’s so little of the scarecrow present that it doesn’t have any source of information about what it is for. That leads to it being so light on action, especially with the kid-friendly rating, that it can really make it all a struggle to stay invested, as nothing comes together with any sense of urgency or fear for long stretches, which can lose some interest in what’s happening, which is a major issue. Given that the ending is a bit of a confusing mess with piles of reveals, twists in identities, and shocking outcomes for an extremely large amount of new information in a short amount of time, it can be a bit daunting trying to keep it all straight, as all of these end up lowering this somewhat.
Overview: ***.5/5
An effective if slightly flawed kid-friendly genre effort, this one has some worthwhile elements that can overlook the few big drawbacks on display that keep this down. Those with an appreciation for this style, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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