In spite of a potentially fun old-school 80’s teen horror-type premise (a la NIGHT OF THE DEMONS), this turns out to be a lame, tame would-be slasher that unfolds in darkness at a slow pace and fails to show us any of the sort of stuff we expect to see : yep, that means off-camera kills and the meekest of efforts at titillation (boob o lanterns!).
“You’re female and you have big boobs…you’re supposed to be a slut!”. There’s some of the most intelligent character interplay, right there. Hot blonde freshman Victoria Vande Vegte and a bunch of seniors comprised of one-note babes, buff / insensitive / farting jocks and, of course, one token geek, get together for a Halloween night dance. They take a detour to spent the night in a legendarily haunted house, at which the previous occupant went turned insanely over-protective, keeping his girlfriend captive and killing her family. Now there’s a fresh killer on the loose, duplicating that guy’s mayhem with his, ahem, unique weapon : said weapon results in the line of dialogue “he turned an ordinary fruit picker into a weapon of mass destruction”.
Vegte is exceptionally easy on the eye, but no one on screen is remotely sympathetic and it descends into a repetitive bunch of bloodless scenes in which disposable folk say things like “People are dyin’ and shit!” in a bid to sound terrified. JEEPERS CREEPERS monster Jonathan Breck has a pointless red herring role as a pervert limo driver, and Judd Nelson’s very brief appearance as an unnaturally over-protective soft-spoken father of the group’s pretty new girl is so obviously a set up for the big “twist” that they might as well have given him a t-shirt bearing the legend “Surprise Killer”.
Apart from featuring the only slasher with a fruit picker as his weapon of choice, this is also unbalanced by a typecast, wildly over-acting Jennifer Tilly as an over the top buxom teacher, the kind of woman who’s willing to screw the killer if it helps. Tilly is a marvelously self-deprecating actress and provides this movie with its only lively moments, though even her scenery chewing wears thin after a spell.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
