Viva la Halloween! I'm a bit late with this one, but the time works out for the best really. Everybody loves double-features and they're great to play at 'spooky' parties. Any excuse to watch the Waxwork or Dr. Phibes films is good enough for me! Early this year, I came across two films with Halloween in the title that didn't feature Michael Meyers or robots made by Druids. Naturally, I kept them around in my Netflix Queue until the time came. That's not unusual, especially when you consider how long I held on to Peter Rottentail before I actually watched it! I figured that I'd watch them both and see which one worked. As it turns out, they both have some merits to speak of, so I'm doing them both. It was that or do Halloween 4- suck it, normal idea that everyone else is already doing! This film comes to us, as you probably guessed, from Mexico. If you've watched any of the major Spanish channels like Telemundo, you'll see some familiar stuff here. The film is a horror tale, although it's about 75% Telenovela, which is certainly odd. Hell's Trap avoided that cliche, so I guess I was due. It also stinks of 'TV movie,' which is almost always bad. To see how odd a Spanish Soap Opera and Slasher film mix, read on...
The film takes place on Halloween at a party. Did I say 'Halloween?' The film doesn't- save for one Subtitle- and the title sure doesn't. I mean, look at that title care above!
As I said, most of the film is Telenovela stuff. In this case, it's a love-triangle involving one of our heroines, this guy she's liked and a slut. What- that's what she's called the whole movie!
A long bit of the movie is just drawing out the characters. One five-minute section involves two of the women making a new costume! Get to killing, Random Guy in the Shadows!
As the party goes on, the group gets smaller and smaller. Do they seem aware of this? No- not really.
Finally, our heroes figure out that someone is killing them. This comes after they find some real blood and think that it's fake, covering one girl in it as part of a prank. Ew.
Who is the killer? What is his motivation? Do you really want to know?
In The End, they take out the killer, but feel bad about the deaths of their friends. This dramatic finale is Spoiled, mind you, but the film's opening Menu screen! The End.
Don't drink this water. Putting aside terrible cliches, the plot of this movie is not bad. The actual production of the movie, however, sucks. They draw the thing out longer than Hands Across America. This movie makes the production cycle of Duke Nukem Forever feel short. The film is just about 80 minutes long, but feels like 800. Do I care about the Soap Opera crap? No. Do I care about the stock characters? No. Does this movie make it all feel worthwhile? Again, no. The film is certainly interesting to look at in theory. The problem is that it has no budget, sub-par acting and moves slower than a one-legged fat guy in mud who is pulling a monster truck by this teeth. It's not really about Halloween either- at least, not really. If you ever wanted to see what it would be like if Telemundo remade The Prowler though, this is it. Take us away, fat guy who is always in this stuff...
Next up, Halloween goes back to America for an obscure horror film from the '90s. Who's afraid of the big, bad doll? Stay tuned...
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Okay, it's some guy who's mom was going to marry the father of two of our heroes. In a sepia-toned flashback, he reveals that the sister accidentally killed her. That's it. No build-up. Nothing.
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