★ 5 / 10
**_A bad 80’s Halloween flick, but at least
Wuchak
**_A bad 80’s Halloween flick, but at least it tries to entertain_** As Tommy grows up in rural SoCal, he’s negatively influenced by his dubious grandfather…
**_A bad 80’s Halloween flick, but at least it tries to entertain_**
As Tommy grows up in rural SoCal, he’s negatively influenced by his dubious grandfather (Hy Pyke). When he’s 21, the old man has a ritual scheduled for him on Halloween night. Naturally, his mother (Katina Garner), sister (Carla B.) and cop brother (Jeff Brown) oppose this. Everything culminates at the town’s Halloween party.
Shot in the second half of November, 1986, "Hack-O-Lantern" wasn’t released until late March, 1988, and then only in the UK, although it was eventually released to video. Alternative titles include “Halloween Night,” “Death Mask” and “The Damning.” Despite its low-budget vibe, it actually cost a whopping $5.5 million. I say ‘whopping’ because the hailed “Halloween” was shot just 8.5 years earlier and only cost $325,000.
Yet don’t expect the sense of artistry of that popular film. This is cartoonish and low-rent by comparison, characterized by the hammy acting of Hy Pyke as grandpa. Meanwhile Gregory Scott Cummins is a little too long in the tooth to portray 21 years-old Tommy (he was 30 during shooting), but that’s a minor cavil.
If you can roll with the cheesiness, there are several highlights. For instance, the soundtrack features the catchy song “Devil’s Son” by DC Lacroix from Seattle/Los Angeles, who released two albums in the mid-80s before disappearing. Their style is akin to WASP meets The Runaways, basically catchy hanging chord anthemic hair metal. Meanwhile the cut “Against the Law” is performed by no-name band The Mercenaries at the Halloween party. Both tracks resurface for the closing credits. The other songs and score were done competently enough by Greg Haggard.
Comedian Bill Tucker is thrown in for a surprise routine outside the party, which is amusing (“Gobble, gobble”).
Sharp blonde Carla B., aka Carla Baron, stands out on the feminine front as the protagonist. Jeanna Fine is also alluring as Nora, the one with the short wild hair; she’s unnecessarily shown fully nude, no doubt in an attempt to make up for subpar filmmaking. She unsurprisingly dabbled in porn before marrying a Hebrew and converting to Judaism. The rest of the exploitive nudity could be classified under what Seinfeld called “bad naked.”
It runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in the rural outskirts of Los Angeles.
GRADE: C
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★ 4 / 10
This is a below average addition to the genre you need to see once if you're a horror movie fan
kevin_robbins
Hack-O-Lantern (1988) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a creepy grandfather who lives in a town with a cult that sacrifices…
Hack-O-Lantern (1988) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a creepy grandfather who lives in a town with a cult that sacrifices people around Halloween. The grandson of the creepy grandfather becomes town sheriff and will need to hunt down the person responsible for all the recent murders while trying to get his creepy grandfather to layoff hitting on the towns children. This movie is directed by Jag Mundhra (The Jigsaw Murders) and stars Hy Pyke (Bladerunner), Gregory Scott Cummins (Cliffhanger), Carla B. (Terror Night) and Marya Gant (Cannibal Hookers). The best part of this movie is the creepy grandfather who is random and hard to watch at times. The acting in this is pretty bad and the horror elements are fairly weak. The music is okay and there's some solid 80s nudity splashed in here and there. There are also some good props and a great twist in the final scene. Overall this is a below average addition to the genre you need to see once if you're a horror movie fan. I'd score this a 4/10 and only recommend seeing it with the appropriate expectations.
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4.7/10
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