In my never-ending hunt for holiday themed horror flicks, I took advantage of all that Amazon Prime has to offer with this double feature – a good reminder that you really shouldn’t take advantage of all that Amazon Prime has to offer…
ALL HALLOWS’ EVE (2007)
Before a half-dozen or so “All Hallows’ Eve movies hit the horror market in the past few years, most of them Halloween anthology films, there was All Hallows’ Eve 2007. In this low budget film’s wraparound, a bunch of friends gets together to tell scary stories at a Halloween party.
Unfortunately, the wraparound and the festive end credits are the only tastes we get of the holiday – none of the stories is Halloween related. Not to mention, the guy narrating the wraparound reveals immediately that he isn’t at the Halloween party! Weird.
This short indie (about 73 minutes long) has 3 stories, and they all rely on a surprise twist ending, which isn’t enough to save a story if the content leading up to it isn’t engaging enough. The stories in All Hallows’ Eve don’t exactly deliver the horror thrills I crave, so I’ll just note some of the highlights of each in my breakdown.
1st story – A cute guy (highlight) gets his lady a rifle for their anniversary. After a tantalizing sex scene, instead of rolling over and going to sleep…he goes hunting! Turns out there’s a sniper serial killer on the loose, so there’s some no frills shooting and chasing through the woods before the twist.
2nd story – A woman becomes convinced her man is cheating on her, so she begins to follow him. Eventually, she tracks down his side piece and goes after her. I must say, there’s a vicious knife kill in this story that captures the vibe of brutal murder scenes in early 1970s horror, and the twist is pretty satisfying.
3rd story – This one is about a cute guy bitten by a she-vamp. While he’s busy having daydreams of the sexy – and naked – vampire, his girlfriend figures out what’s going on, so she devises a plan to lure and kill the she-vamp. This story actually does an okay job of capturing the feel of cheesy late-80s erotic horror, with the added bonus of the twist ending.
If you’re a horror anthology junkie, you’ll probably want to check this out, but if you’re looking for a good Halloween anthology, stick with the ones you already know.
CHRISTMAS WITH COOKIE (2016)
Running 52 minutes long, this is as low budget as they come. In fact, the only part that looks high quality is the narrative by Cookie, the demonic looking Christmas elf.
He’s charismatic, entertaining, and even performs a rap song during the closing credits.
Other than that, this is just a messy, goofball series of scenes about Santa—mutated by the sun almost 2000 years from now, when the North Pole has turned to desert—wearing a mask and wielding an axe to fight aliens, the abominable snowman, and a couple that time travels to kill him for not giving them the presents they wanted in the past.
It is just complete absurdity, with skeleton puppets on strings, alien masks, bad green screen sequences…the kind of film project that should only be posted on YouTube so that family and friends can say it’s hilarious in the comments while anonymous users call for the filmmaker’s head on a platter.
