All Hallows' Eve (2013)

Welp, with another Halloween behind us and the year fast wrapping up, it’s time to really buckle down and start covering some of the great horror films from this year that are just now being released to home video. One such film, really the toast of the ’22 Halloween season, was Terrifier 2, an infamously graphic and spooky creepy clown film created by up-and-comer Damien Leone, writer, director, and makeup effects artist by trade. His creation, Art the Clown, has been really blowing up since its release, and for good reason: he’s an instantly iconic villain who takes the creepy clown trope in a new and unsettling direction, all thanks to his reliance on mime and violent dismemberment. Well, that and the passionate performances of the actors who have portrayed him over the years. The thing is though, it’s been a long journey for ole’ Art from his birth in a few low-budget short films to his current status as the newest addition to the slasher canon, so I thought it’d be fun to go back and look at where it all started with All Hallows' Eve, an unassuming little film that lays the groundwork for later entries; the better-made and more popular Terrifier films. Oh, sorry, did I just say that out loud?

Anyway, this anthology film begins with the world’s least imaginative and least interesting wraparound segment that has ever before been seen. On Halloween night, a babysitter discovers that one of the kid’s she’s watching brought home more than just candy in their trick 'r' treat bag. In fact, someone slipped the little shit an unmarked tape that contains violent, hellish images unfit for the eyes of any youngster, all featuring a homicidal clown from Hell. Who the hell would have done something like that? Thing is, the little brats actually love it, and even once they’ve gone to bed, the babysitter just can’t help but keep on watching herself. As one segment after another unfolds, the atmosphere in the quiet house seems to become gradually more disquieting until the babysitter could swear that someone or something was messing with her… 

So, you’ve got the premise, and if you’ll just imagine all the possibilities of how this scenario could play out in your head, whichever possibility is the least surprising and most obvious is probably the correct one. Sure, the wraparound doesn't exactly take up very much of the film, but it infects the other segments with reaction shots and other desperate attempts to make this feel like a coherent work and not the random smattering of ideas, images, and cliches it is. And besides its limited scope and lack of original ideas, there's the awful dialogue, even worse performances, cheap, claustrophobic lensing, and clumsy, erratic editing. Leone has since said that all of the new stuff shot specifically for All Hallows' Eve was more or less an obligation; all he really cared about was getting the Terrifier short on home video, and in order to do that, he incorporated his first Art the Clown short film alongside new footage comprising the wraparound and the second segment and called it a day. Needless to say, it really shows. I also wish the Blu-ray had the original short films as special features so that if I felt like revisiting the film, I could just skip everything else and get right to the good stuff, but alas.

It’s quite a relief when the film finally gets going with its first segment and the debut of Art the Clown, entitled "The Ninth Circle." At first, it’s a bit of a lurch when the video quality drops so abruptly for this segment (audio sounds nice though,) but you don't have long to think about it before the man of the hour makes his debut and you find yourself feeling very suddenly and distinctly unsettled. Yes, Art’s first appearance is probably his strongest in the whole film, at least for me. From the moment he appears with zero fanfare, sitting across from his latest victim in a deserted subway tunnel, I was chilled to the very core. The entire first scene of this segment is pure Lynchian brilliance crossed with an almost trashy dedication to pure horror that doesn’t worry itself about being high art or telling an interesting story: it just wants to give you nightmares, and in that sense, it succeeds completely. Taking the trash out after watching is something of a heart-pounding affair, let me tell you.

But immediately after this strange, dreamlike first scene, "The Ninth Circle" abruptly changes gears. We quickly leave the subway behind, Art the Clown disappears for good, and we find ourselves following our heroine on a journey through none other than Dante Alighieri’s vision of Hell. We glimpse disfigured humanoid monsters with a penchant for dismemberment, torture dungeons, demons disguised as hobos pushing shopping carts, a coven sacrificing a newborn baby, and even Satan himself in a frenzy of mysterious encounters, each more worrying than the next. The best thing I can say about it is that it feels like you’re getting lots of smaller glimpses of a larger world, starting with Art the Clown’s short-but-sweet cameo at the very beginning. The worst thing I can say about it is that it feels like it was made by an edgy teenager with nothing but a passing knowledge of Dante’s Inferno and occult sacrifice. I could also confidently state that there’s little if any sense in the film’s pacing and plotting. It’s never outright boring, and it’s certainly not what I was expecting, but if it weren’t for its opening scene, this would be nothing short of a dud. Imagine if that infamous Agony game was made into a low-budget short film, just with less of a fixation on human anatomy, and that's basically what "The Ninth Circle" boils down to. And speaking of human anatomy, fans coming from the Terrifier films will likely be shocked by the cheap, homespun gore effects that seem to belong in a film made by bored high schoolers moreso than something professionally released to Blu-ray by RLJE; I must admit though that I find them more than a little charming, if far from convincing. Oh, and as always, liberal use of stock sound effects makes a few moments that might have otherwise been chilling more than a little silly. 

Long story short, while I enjoy aspects of it, this comes across more like an unintentional parody of low-budget horror films than something capable of sweeping the nation like Terrifier 2, which only becomes more noticeable in the second segment of the film. In fact, I daresay this is one of the worst segments in any anthology film I have ever seen. It feels like something shot in one weekend with just two actors (or even the same actor playing dual roles,) one location, and a script full of exposition relegated to a telephone conversation. Oh, and a rubber suit, because if "The Ninth Circle" felt like a parody of overambitious student art/horror films, this feels more like a goof on sci-fi horror from the forties and fifties, only it somehow looks worse than they ever did. I’m not going to spoil the identity of the monster here, but suffice to say, it ain’t the clown that we’re all here to watch, and the way he’s presented onscreen is nothing short of embarrassing. It would be hilarious if the whole segment wasn’t so boring and drawn out. And that exposition I mentioned: isn’t exposition supposed to clarify things or tell us something important? Here, it serves as nothing more than a cheap bandaid to attempt to connect this low-effort piffle to the other shorts, shorts that weren’t exactly bowling me over to begin with. There is at least one moment where the camerawork impressed me, and for the sake of fairness, I'll clarify: while our heroine is on the phone, something behind her, totally out of focus, stands up just as the camera pans around, obscuring it once more from view. Then, when it pans back a moment later, the thing in the background is gone. Oooh, spoooky! Too bad everything else is so shockingly bad.

But the good news is that all of this tripe leads to the strongest segment of the film, and the most effectively disturbing by far: "Terrifier." This is Art the Clown’s time to shine, and all the elements that he would become known for are present here. He’s completely silent, and often quite funny, but when he gives a look of anger or disappointment, it’s enough to chill you to the core. His presence almost seems to warp reality, as whenever he’s on screen, the music suddenly incorporates cheap calliope organ and crashing cymbals ala a toy monkey, and the speed of the film seems to become choppy in a way that suggests the old silent films that inspired Mike Giannelli’s wonderful performance. While the story is still nothing groundbreaking or even all that good, its simple construction and effective use of sturdy horror tropes results in something that’s as upsetting and haunting as it is darkly comedic and surreal. And when something actually works as a piece of genuine horror like that, where I’m often watching through my hands with a knot in my stomach, I find myself ignoring all the little touches that betray the segment’s origins as an indie short film made for no money, even the use of bad CG to disfigure an actor where practical effects were just too darn expensive. Overall, this one short film is the highlight of the film, and if it weren’t for the genuinely unsettling first five minutes of "The Ninth Circle" segment, I’d say you could probably safely skip everything else here and just watch that.

Unfortunately, the film isn’t over until its low-effort wraparound finishes us out with an ending that couldn’t be any less creative or shocking if it tried. This simply reinforces that while there are many things that I really like about All Hallows' Eve, especially anything involving Art, the rest of the film is downright atrocious. Can I really commend any film where two-thirds of it are nothing but throwaway material? Well, I probably shouldn't, but I would say that anyone who’s interested, like me, in the newest Terrifier film should probably start here. I mean, I feel like I really ‘get’ the character of Art now, and am beyond ready to see him loose on a grander stage in Terrifier, which I’ll be covering right here in the next little bit. Stay tuned!