2006’s “Halloween Night” While clearly tying itself via marketing to the “Halloween” franchise, is arguably probably the closest we’ve seen in this run to a movie that actually kind of sort of has some reference points to the Halloween franchise. And! Its a mega early release from “The Asylum” AND it’s the first Asylum film we’ve ever covered on the channel!

Honestly; I’ve never been too “into” asylum films…Im a firm believer that “truely” entertainingly awful films have to come from the (somewhat deluded) belief that your film is going to be a masterpiece, even if the filmmaker is totally devoid of talent. Self awareness kills these kinds of films. So a studio thats entire operation is PURPOSELY to shovel out half arsed low budget films where the aim is not to make something good, but rather something that’ll shift copies through sensationalism while strangling TRUELY weird and wonderful experimentation in the crib…yeah. Thats not really my happening. Not to slam anyone who digs those movies, They’re just generally not for me. It would appear that Asylum *gradually* shifted to that sensationalist model though, as a brief look at their early work from 1999 to 2005 shows that to begin with, they were actually pretty grounded.

The plot of “Halloween Night” is *allegedly* based on real life events, in the DVD extras they clarify that the plot for this film was based on an event that happened to one of the crew. Now…unfortunately this film right out of the gate has one massive problem and thats that they bring in approximately 2 million characters in the opening and then don’t introduce them properly, meaning that their names are all scattered across the whole films run time and due to audio issues on my DVD release of this combined with some characters only getting name checked once it’s been difficult to keep track of things. So, rather than have to rewatch the film multiple times and then PAINSTAKINGLY link actors based on headshots alone on IMDB to their character names. Im running with pseudonyms on this one because…why the hell not? If the film didnt care that much about naming the characters up front I don’t think anyone should care if I give them made up names for this.

The only name I DO know is the killer in this movie, Christopher Vale. The movie opens with a flashback to Christopher as a child witnessing his mother getting sexually assaulted and murdered, followed immediatley by his fathers suicide. Chris witnesses the whole thing and then emerges from his hiding place to release some kind of chemical into the air which kills the intruders but horribly burns him in the process. The film then jumps forward ten years and it’s revealed that Christopher’s been in an asylum ever since. While doing their rounds he manages to viciously murder an orderly before escaping the asylum. Its here that we’re introduced to a WAVE of teenagers who’ve rented a house in the woods. Each year a chap I’m choosing to call “King Rollo” puts on a lavish halloween party and this year, they’ve rented a space to do a mediaeval themed gathering. Along for the ride is “King Rollos” missus “Roselina”, “Shaggy”, “Shaggys top babe”, “Lewis from Revenge of the nerds”, and a secret lesbian couple.

They’ve turned up to help set things up, but unbeknownst to them, King Rollo has ulterior motives. He’s invited a character im going to call “Arsehole” to the party without telling anyone else with the plan being to have him break into the party, threaten everyone with a gun before abducting “Shaggy”. With the big gag being that while the party goers “THINK” the halloween theme is “Ren fair” it’s actually “Psychological Horror”. Things start to go wrong quite quickly however, as a police blockade is set up just down the road from the house meaning getting in and out of the party is awkward due to mandatory police searches and helicopters buzzing all over the place. Shaggy and his missus get stopped by the police and they panic because Shaggy is going to the party as an “Executioner” and because he obsessed with getting a VERY accurate costume, he went so far as to illegally import ACTUAL weapons from out of state that are in the back of his car. Luckily the police just want to know if the pair have seen Christopher and after showing them a picture they head on their way, but not before pulling up just after the blockade as a petrol station to fill up.

The pair find the petrol stations abandoned and Shaggy decides to use the opportunity to change into his costume. Unbeknownst to him though, Christopher’s hiding in the petrol station toilets and using some kind of weird ritualistic carving knife he takes shaggy out and steals his costume. Now vaguely disguised, he heads back to the car…fails to drive because…y’know…he’s never done it before, and butchers Shaggys missus. Before barely spluttering off in their car and heading up to the teens party house. After some rather dramatic introductions, the party gets formally opened and drunken revellers pile in. After a while, King Rollo and the arsehole put their plan in motion. The arsehole enters the party, awkwardly mingles with some of the partygoers including a very awkward sequence where he tries to aggressively hit on one half of the lesbian couple, both of whome tell him, quite rightly to fuck off and keep fucking off until his not fucking there anymore.

At which point, Christopher enters the party and King Rollo and Arsehole have a “play fight”, Arsehole pulls out the gun and eventually takes Christopher who he THINKS is Shaggy hostage before fleeing the house just as a fake police officer whos in with King Rollo turns up to try and “assess” the situation. With people in literal tears, King Rollo decides that this “prank” probably wasnt his best move and comes clean with the best line in the entire film “The REAL theme was Psychological horror! NAAAT mediaeval Decadence!”. EVERYONE kicks off at King Rollo and the whole party falls apart, the real police turn up, find out they’ve had their time wasted and threaten to arrest everyone there if they don’t all clear out asap.

While this is going on however, we then cut back to Arsehole, who pulls up and chats with Christopher about how cool the prank went, Christopher kills Arseole AND the fake cop before heading back to the house to start murdering again leading into our 3rd act, an explosive finale where, yes, they do that scene where one of the last survivors wanders around the house and finds all their dead friends one by one to kill time. In a film that just about tries, Will we ever get to the bottom of Christophers past? Will the cops find him in time and will the teens make it through to the end…of “Halloween Night”.

From a script perspective. What we have here…is; well actually not too bad. Don’t get me wrong, this thing isnt defining the slasher genre for the mid 2000’s by any stretch of the imagination. But what we have here at its core is just a quite reasonably executed if not fairly generic slasher flick. it’s professionally paced. Theres a clean 3 act structure here with nice clean transition shifts between the acts to get you from plot point to plot point. the first act is particularly nice and nippy, moving at a more than reasonable pace and keeping things nice and interesting from the opening roll right through to when the party is set to start. It’s not perfect mind, as mentioned earlier, they have a real problem with overstuffing on characters. There’s WAY too many, which makes it hard to really get a read on them, and because they don’t really bother to name the characters consistently and up front (preferring instead to name drop across the first and second acts) it makes it SUPER difficult to really get invested in these people when you don’t really even know who they are for the first 45-65 minutes.

Because theres so many characters, it does mean that some disappear for a decent chunk of the opening act, or are relegated to doing very minor menial tasks in the background because, the film just doesn’t really have a lot for them to do and it’s WAY too preoccupied trying to set up the main thrust of the story to deal with characters who really don’t need to be in the film until the end of the 2nd act. I feel like they were kind of caught between a rock and a hard place honestly; if they’d had less characters, it’d make the script tighter, but the party itself would be SUPER unattended which would have had a knock on effect in the 2nd and 3rd acts making it look sparse and quite cheap due to the lack of extras. It’d also make the final act “Slasher ramp up” a bit of a non event. But including the additional cast has led to a whole lot of not really knowing what to do with them…So, While I’m not entirely happy with the situation, I can at least appreciate that it was something of a lose lose situation.

While the first act is pretty solid and REALLY gets the job done, the 2nd act unfortunately bloats to a BEYOND uncomfortable level as we spend WAY too much time just kind of mooching about at the party, and I know its supposed to be scene and tone setting. But here it gets painful. The key events of the second act realistically could have been handled in 10-15 minutes here. But instead its nearly double that…meaning we have to spend an ungodly amount of time just watching people dance about, weird small talk between the guy playing the stair troll and people wanting to get into the party and shots of Christopher mooching about the party, but not really doing anything. I genuinely started to think that the film was a lost cause at one point BECAUSE it had slowed down so much, I cant exactly say it’s padded because it IS busy trying to tie all it’s elements together, but I just feel like it could have done this much quicker and more concisely.

When the film finally made it to the third act, I had low expectations, but! While it didnt manage to get back to the speedy highs achieved in the opening act, it DID manage to pick up the pace and end things pretty concisely. Again; it wasn’t PERFECT, but given that some of the movies i’ve covered this month barely bothered with act changes and tonal shifts. It’s surprisingly nice to deal with a film thats pretty much just a decent stab at making an okay and somewhat solid slasher film.

What I will say is this film borrows a LOT from other horror movies. For a starters you have elements of the original “Halloween”, “Halloween 2”, “Halloween 4” and “Halloween Resurrection” (no…seriously) alongside nods to “Black Christmas”, “Friday the 13th” and “I know what you did last summer”. In a frankly BIZARRE turn of events, they also appear to have paid a scene forward back into the Halloween franchise, with the scene where Christopher kills Shaggy in the gas station and then suits up eerily mirroring a scene in Halloween (2018) where literally the exact same thing happens. (I appreciate that it could be argued that the gas station scene here is most likely an homage to the gas station scene from Halloween 4…but I think it’s SO much more entertaining to think that the producers of Halloween (2018) just watched a load of Halloween knock offs and cherry picked the best bits into their movie.) While these “Liberations” are expected, they do somewhat lower my opinions on this thing a bit because, it’s not great to just steal random good scenes from other movies and put them in your movie. Even if, quite often, they’re some of the best bits of the film altogether.

Outside of it’s theiving, the film pretty much hits every slasher trope going, you get the “I’ll be right back” the scene where one of the guests mistakes the killer for someone else, the scene where the cops turn up and don’t take the kids seriously, its a free for all honestly. Some horror fans like the tropes, I can take or leave them personally but the fact that this film tries to cram SO MANY of them into the hour and 25 runtime does get a little tiresome by the 3rd act. The dialogues probably the weakest element of the scripting here, they’ve gone for that, slightly snarky Gen X style fast paced chatter type dialogue that was probably best utilised in scream, just long, almost monologuey lines that have to be read really fast and sharp because if they don’t get read that way they make literally no sense and don’t sound anywhere near as charismatic. The dialogue feels like an imitation of an imitation of the scream style of writing. Throw in some VERY dated language (early/mid 2000’s homophobia and mild racism ahoy!) and the result is a movie that swings wildly from being just about tolerable to pretty insufferable and almost inaudible in places.

The script was written by Michael Gingold and David Michael Latt. David has 15 writing credits, his last in 2020 and I’d say this was probably his best known writing credit. But really; he’s more of a producer and in a move that may well make Roger Corman shit his pants, David has nearly 290 production credits at the time of writing. Which is just…wild. I mean to put it into perspective as of 2022 Latt is 56 years old and has 287 production credits. By the time Roger Corman was 56 years old he’d only managed 195. Which is just…wild. And he’s still going! With several projects still in active development and no signs of slowing down, I fully expect him to potentially catch up to, if not blow clean past Cormans production credits fairly soon!

The film was also written by Michael Gingold, he has 5 writing credits and he’s more of a director than a writer, with 30 credits under his belt. This was his last writing credit, and i’d be inclined to say I think this is probably his most recognised work. On directing duties with have Mark Atkins, Mark has 24 directing credits and this was only his 3rd ever directing gig. His works include “Six headed Shark attack” and “Android Cop”. While his last directing credit was in 2019, he’s a keen cinematographer with 56 credits under his belt.

On the direction front, we have a good solid attempt here. Atkins has delivered a film that, while probably not the most original piece visually, does have a level of distinction about it that, for the time would have just about set it above its low budget slasher peers. This is one of those Halloween movies that utilises warm colours throughout to help almost subconsciously remind the audience that this movie IS taking place at halloween, with plenty of oranges and reds on display throughout and a grade that eases slightly towards the warmer end of the spectrum. These choices contrast nicely against the flashback sequences which are instead manipulated to have a cooler look and feel (presumably to emphasise the passage of time) which I thought looked quite nice.

While there are key moments that have strong visual definition in the opening act, around the time we get into that bloated 2nd act, the direction also kind of settles into things a bit, as we end up with more traditional sequences that frequently feel like a “Gun for hire” going through the motions. Which is a shame after so much effort went into the first half an hour. I’d say with Atkins at the helm, this does have some potential, even if it does skirt mediocrity from time to time. Direction of the cast is perfectly serviceable too. No complaints from me. I feel like Mark was able to work with the cast to deliver something reasonable. Though I think he maybe struggled a bit in places to pull the right kind of emotion and feelings from the cast. Their physical presence was good! And it’s clear to see a lot of time went into the choreography of some of the scenes, but while the physicality is nicely handled, emotionally? I’d say it was a swing and a miss.

From a cine perspective, we do alright as well, there’s a not unreasonable amount of experimentation on display, which I always like to see in my Horror movies, But I do rather feel that in places they’ve over egged things a bit. Composition of shots (for the most part) is pretty solid and helps convey the plot of the film in a more than decent manner and, for the most part, sequences are passably constructed. My big isuse with these sequences is that, they’ve tried to cram WAY too much into these sequences shot wise and at times it can be a bit disorienting and distracting rather than the what the actual aim of fast cine should be, which is panic inducing and claustrophobic.

For years now i’ve said that good horror sequences work on a slow boil principle, you start with longer slower cuts in your early sequences establishing the set up to your audience. Then; as things start to get a bit uneasy and spooky, you cut more frequently and begin to ramp up, introducing more experimentation, before finally, when the horror of whatever is the big spooky is on screen, your cuts need to go into overdrive while keeping consistent and purposful. It’s NO good just throwing everything and the kitchen sink at a sequence and hoping the disorientation will carry the horror. The best sequences craft what the audience see and choose their cuts carefully. Halloween night unfortunately goes for the “Everything and the kitchen sink” approach resulting in break neck sequences that really don’t give the audience time to breath or even process what they’re seeing. It can make some scenes confusing and I actually kind of began to dislike just how scattershot it was. Even in the bloated sections the cine is just, all over the place and it really pulls you out of the story. Given that the editing of this was also done by David Michael Latt, I think either editing isnt his strongest suit, or he just didnt care and wanted it out the door. From the looks of things.

Performance wise…we have our weakest overall element, the cast arnt *objectively* bad. There physical performances are great in places here! But theres just something going on with their actual line delivery thats just awkward and weird. Most of the cast mumble their way through their lines, some to the point of incoherence, and they all really just feel like they wernt confident in their delivery. for low budget horror this is positively passable in context. But I didnt get on with it personally; I just found it way too stilted and, in a move that actually surprised me, The film does dally a little bit into comedy horror. there was more than decent scope for them to lean into that with the performances to deliver something maybe a little next level. But they totally miss the ball and just blast through those scenes completely flat. Which, to my broken brain, almost makes it funnier. But to a broader audience would most likely come across as a cast just not giving a crap about the gig they’ve signed up to.

While a lot of these performances do feel a bit like they’re only their for the paycheck. I will give a notable mention to Scott Nery as the killer Christopher Vale. while he gives an almost entirely mute performance, his physical acting in this is above and beyond the rest of the cast. Giving a genuinely animated performance that works a more than decent range, he gives the character an intimidating edge, but is aware enough in his performance to give the character a decent emotional undercurrent and even the odd bit of physical comedy. I think he does a really solid job and I have to commend him for bringing the character (no matter how generic) to life quite effectively.

And finally; the soundtrack. Its not too bad! Again we’re not talking award winning, it borders on the stock side of things in places. But they use effective sound cues throughout the film to really emphasise the horror elements while also giving life to the party scenes and the more thriller driven moments. It’s a decent enough score that takes a step above the standard cheap midi fodder that a lot of these movies seemed to pool from. What I will flag up is the on set audio, which was far from ideal. The cast are already giving mumbly performances and there were at least half a dozen scenes I saw where they either didnt quite get the mic placement right, or had to do some off site ADR work, but when the audio is bad, it’s almost inaudible. Which was quite the disappointment.

Halloween Night was released on DVD in 2006 by Lighthouse DVD Distribution, which surprised me as, given this is an ‘Asylum’ film, I had figured they’d maybe handle their own distribution on this one as they’ve done in the states. Rather oxymoronically; the version released in the UK is touted as the “Unrated Directors cut” while also having a great big ‘18’ certificate in multiple places across the box. Good lot of extras on this release too! Not only do you get an audio commentary and a handful of trailers for other movies Lighthouse distribute, but you also get deleted scenes, bloopers, a brief interview with David Michael Latt AND the option to watch the movie in both a 2.0 and 5.1 surround mix. Which blows most of the movies I’ve covered this month clean out of the water.

Other than that this movie hasnt had a bluray release and is currently out of print, but it’s dirt cheap to pick up online. And; honestly? I think giving this film a bluray release and a proper making of documentary might just give it enough of a facelift to make it actually worth picking up. The DVD version is watchable, but it’s got heavy compression on it that doesnt let you see the detail that the picture really has. If they could present it in widescreen, re-encode it and clean up the extras, even better. So here’s hoping for an upgrade in the near future!

Halloween Night is probably the only example i’ve found during this run of “knock off” movies where the film was created from the ground up to be a cash in BEFORE the release of a movie tied to the franchise, a short time after this film was released the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween would hit the screens, and it cant be ignored that it feels like the Asylum wanted to get in early to try and nab a piece of that pie. While I cant say i’m absolutely in love with this film, I did come away from it feeling better about it than when I went in. With a script that left mixed to positive feelings combined with reasonable enough direction and a passable score I think theres almost certainly something for slasher fans to enjoy with this one. More broad horror fans may be put off by the unfocused cine and editing, the WAY less than stellar performances and the fact this thing is starting to show its age. But i’d say if you want a hit of that sweet sweet low budget mid 2000’s horror and you’ve seen the main hitters, Give this a shot, it’s not perfect…but then, thats the asylum all over…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/halloween-night/