One night. One town. Ten chilling stories.
Release Date: July 24, 2015
Director: Neil Marshall, Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Lucky McKee, Andrew Kasch, Paul Solet, John Skipp, Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Dave Parker
Starring: Grace Phipps, Booboo Stewart, Adrienne Barbeau, Lin Shaye, Barry Bostwick, Samuel Witwer, Greg Grunberg, John Landis, Joe Dante, Barbara Crampton, Pollyanna McIntosh, James Duval, Pat Healy, Adam Green, Alex Essoe, Stuart Gordon, Mick Garris, Marc Senter, Kristina Klebe, Keir Gilchrist, Clare Kramer, Jose Pablo Cantillo, John Savage, Caroline Williams
Favorite Quote: Do you know why we wear costumes on Halloween? It’s so the dead don’t know who is alive. – Lynn’s Mother
Horror anthology films are a guilty pleasure of mine. The last two anthology films I saw – Trick ‘r Treat and V/H/S – were well done in my opinion. Tales of Halloween was actually an interesting take for me. It continued the things I love about horror anthologies and added just enough cheese to make me happy.
Tales of Halloween consists of ten stories that take place in a suburban town somewhere in the United States. The towns are terrorized by ghouls, aliens, and killers. A DJ adds her commentary to the beginning of each story, similar to the DJ in The Warriors. Each story intertwines with the others in one way or another, but mostly through the DJ’s narration. Warning, there will be light spoilers for two of the ten stories.
There were a couple of stories in Tales of Halloween that I did enjoy. I won’t go into summarizing all ten stories because we might be here all day. But I can do two. “Sweet Tooth” (no, not the Twisted Metal character) is the first story of the movie. It tells a Halloween legend of a boy named Sweet Tooth. Another boy named Timothy comes home after Trick or Treating and does what every kid want to do: eat all the candy they got. Timmy’s sister’s boyfriend tells him to leave a candy for Sweet Tooth as part of a Halloween legend. The legend says that if you don’t leave him a candy, he will eat all the candy you ate from inside you.
“Trick” is a story that, at first, I was confused because it made no sense. It wasn’t until I got to the end of the story that it made sense. Some kids go to a house to Trick or Treat. But instead of saying anything, they go on a killing spree. What we don’t know that these kids are getting revenge for what happened to a friend of theirs in that house.
A lot of the kids in the anthology show up in multiple stories in one way or another. There are a lot of twists within the movie for each story, and oh, by the way, there’s a FREAKING UFO!!! There are a lot of practical effects, which is always a good thing. I don’t mind CGI, but practical effects in a movie it looks much better in my opinion. There are some cheesy moments, but they don’t take away from the horror experience. It does bring some humor into the stories, especially with the UFO. Some of the short stories can be made into their own movies if done correctly.
I never felt that the movie was boring at any point, but I was confused at some points. But the confusion only lasted until they show the reasoning at the end of each story. Some stories are over the top, but that’s the beauty of this movie. It’s almost like the original Creepshow in that regard. It brings many stylesof storytelling with all the different directors on board. Tales of Halloween is a fun movie and I do recommend for people to watch it.
