I was a bit hesitant about watching Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night, and that was due to it being a sequel to a film I hadn't watched, 2015's Harvest of the Dead. Both were co-directed with Peter Goddard, with him joined by Terence Elliott for the sequel, with them both also writing the story for this (and Elliott playing the part of the killer). This may be a low budget indie horror, but I was actually surprised by how much more I enjoyed the film than I had expected to. Likely some spoilers for Harvest of the Dead to follow.
It is the day after Halloween and Sally Burns (Dani Thompson - Devil in the Woods) and her friends are joining up at her house for her birthday party. Meanwhile, Detective Faust (Kevin Hallett - Kill Keith, Season of the Witch) is investigating a gruesome murder, with it feared a serial killer is loose in the area. Unfortunately for Sally, it appears the masked killer (Elliott) has chosen her party for his new killing ground.
It is always good when films on the lower end of the budget scale are well aware of the restrictions they may face. With Halloween Night, the emphasis was put on the protagonists, with the antagonist duo of the masked killer and his master barely really making an appearance. The film is instead split between two plots of equal length. Half the film takes place at Sally's house in the lead up to, and then the party she is hosting. This introduces a bunch of disposable young adults, with the usual drama of cheating partners, drunken sex and unwanted advances. It was a bit jarring to have the masked killer first appear here in the upstairs bathroom, with no explanation of how he came to be there. The killer is silent, and being the only 'guest' wearing a mask (or really in costume for that matter), it seemed odd his presence hadn't been noticed. To be fair, there were a couple of other characters who also successfully infiltrated the party.
The other storyline happening concurrently is the police investigation into the murder of a middle aged woman, who got killed by the masked man in the prologue, who had been trying to kill a young woman. Having not seen the first movie, I assume that young woman was the sole survivor of the first film. The Detective doesn't do much more than walk and talk with his partner, but I found the conversations bizarrely interesting. There was a natural way of speaking that made the stories being told entertaining to listen to.
There are a bunch of scenes of murder, many of them including various type of blood substitutes, but none that looked particularly amazing on screen. There was a nice eye gouge scene that looked fun, stood out from some of the others. For the third act the film changes from a slasher film into a different genre of horror. I won't spoil that surprise, but for me it was unexpected, and also pretty cool. The make-up effects for that part were varied and inconsistent, but for that horror genre that is exactly what I wanted. It all culminates quite open ended, but despite only being seventy two minutes in length, the film had too many endings, with three different end scenes placed one after the other.
I admit, going into Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night I had low expectations. Not only due to it being a sequel to a film I hadn't seen, but also due to being an indie slasher. By focusing on the characters more than the killer this actually benefited, while the late genre shift was something I was never going to complain about. Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night came to Blu-ray on 28th February from VIPCO and Bayview Entertainment.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment