Movie Review - Mr. Halloween

Mr. Halloween

Should I really call this a movie, or just categorize it under "high school tech project?" It's a question I'm still dealing with as I write this. I picked some real winners for my Netflix Halloween viewing, that's for sure. First Halloween Night, and now Mr. Halloween - I thought it couldn't get any worse! Alas, I was wrong, and Mr. Halloween has proven to me that Netflix is populated with really good movies, some big-budget and some low, but when a rating has one and a half stars, it's for a reason.

I mentioned that this seemed like a high school film project. I wasn't joking. Mr. Halloween is shot with the lowest of low budgets: mainly with a rented camera that gives everything a nice "hey-Mom-I-made-a-home-movie" feel, and when I say nice, I mean absolute shit. One feels like director Andrew Wolf was trying to be artsy with his choice of camera shots; he films ashtrays when a character is getting killed, strategically positions cameras behind a tree so we get a very limited shot of what's supposed to be happening, and generally just shoots things from positions that aren't used in big-budget movie-making for a reason. Yes, even though the shot of the ash tray might have been effective in a different context, in Mr. Halloween we are forced to watch smoke waft from a lit cigarette in the ashtray for five minutes while a number of off-screen events happen, and based on the unflinching way the camera presents violence to us during other death scenes, there's absolutely no reason for looking away.

The script ain't much better, either. The characters are probably the dumbest, most asinine people on the planet, and it's no wonder that a) the killer has targeted this town in small-town America because the citizens can't solve a widespread kidnapping spree and b) all of the teenagers are being killed off because of their absolute lack of skill in both common sense, knowledge, or even public affairs. That's right - the main characters, though it may not seem like it in the film, are the awkwardest kids ever: we've got who I've termed "doofy mustache guy," who can't break his way out of a boarded up shack with a bunch of tools in it; a proclaimed "hot" girl who needs Captain Obvious as a sidekick since she has to ask questions about things that are painfully observable; and a kid who has been chained in a basement for a year and yet has still managed to grow his bangs out to the side without them being cut, and who has also turned into a pervert who would rather discuss love lives than find a way out. Suffice to say, none of these characters will ever be Homecoming king or queen, and they sure as hell don't carry the movie.

So we've sat through bad camera work and even worse characters, but how is the plot, dialogue, and violence, you ask? Equally as terrible. Dialogue is limited to awkward conversations exploring obvious facets of the film, mostly dealing with irrelevant subjects. The plot is never really explained, other than the fact that Mr. Halloween is a dude who kills teens for their bodies in his haunted house and for some type of sustenance (?questionable?). Plus, the movie runs for an egregious hour and fifty minutes, so unnecessary for the amount of drama and action in the film that the filmmakers should be thanking me for putting up with their movie for that long. Most of film is dedicated to Mr. Halloween, an Edgar Allen Poe look-alike, killing helpless teens and growling like a man with Tourrete's. By the halfway point, it feels like the film should be over because it's just not going anywhere.

Unfortunately, it's not, and after suffering through the last half, I came to the worst conclusion in the history of conclusions, with a "highly" climactic fight scene with Mr. Halloween where he just will. not. die. He gets up from fatal blows at least three times, and one gets one's hopes up that this will be the end of the film until Mr. Halloween keeps coming back for "thrills!" It's a total joy-killer.

To sum this atrocity up into one concise statement, my favorite scene was the credits. Stay far, far, far away from this film. And remember: low-budget does not mean the script has to seem like it was written by two six-year-olds collaborating at the elementary school cafeteria.

PS: I should also mention that the cover art is highly misleading - there's no evil-looking clown or little girl in this film.