Tales of Halloween : Movie Review


Tales of Halloween (2015) - Movie Poster
Ten ghoulish yarns dot the small-town landscape in "Tales of Halloween," an anthological labor of love for both its namesake holiday and the craft of short-form filmmaking. Enlisting the talents of eleven directors and a sprawling cast of recognizable genre faces, the picture is structurally closer in nature to 1982's story-by-story "Creepshow" than 2009's seminal, interwoven "Trick 'r Treat," though both clearly served as inspiration. The foreboding fun-yet-spooky heart of All Hallows' Eve is alive and well throughout the multiple narratives—the autumnally decorative production designs are impressive across the board—though, as is often the case, some are more involving and fully realized than others. By traversing ten separate plots in the span of an hour and a half, it is difficult to become properly acquainted enough with the many characters to care about them on a substantive level. The eerie atmosphere and behind-the-scenes giddiness clinging to each frame, however, is where "Tales of Halloween" knocks it out of the park. This project must have been produced on a shoestring budget, but one would never be able to guess such a thing based on its cumulative creative scope.

Kicking off the ghastly festivities is "Sweet Tooth," wherein the urban legend of candy-obsessed psychopath Timothy Blake (Cameron Easton) turns out to be frighteningly true for youngster Mikey (Daniel DiMaggio). Director Dave Parker (2009's "The Hills Run Red") ably crafts an aura of encroaching terror for his protagonists, while one key scare is an unmistakably welcome tribute to the infamous hospital hallway scene in 1990's "The Exorcist III" (even if the shot should have held longer during the lead-in). Next up is Darren Lynn Bousman's (2012's "Mother's Day") "The Night Billy Raised Hell," sending little Billy Thompson (Marcus Eckert) on a night of increasingly devious behavior alongside the devil-horned neighborhood man (Barry Bostwick) he made the wrong decision to prank. This story leads to a clever little twist, but the premise hails too closely to 2005's remarkably similar "Satan's Little Helper."

See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review

Author : Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com