This time around, my complete holiday horror page scores both a St. Patrick’s Day and Halloween slasher, so let’s get right into them.
ST. PATRICK’S DAY MASSACRE (2024)
I was excited for another slasher to add to the small list of St. Patrick’s Day horror flicks that are out there, so I blind bought this one, which is only available on DVD.
The killing kicks off in Dublin, Ireland in 1825. An enraged man wielding a scythe busts into a tavern on St. Paddy’s Day and takes an extreme approach to stopping sexual sin before being shot to death by the patrons. There’s even a bit of humor in the reveal of the sin, so I was anticipating a movie with a touch of humor, but that isn’t the case. This is a straight-up slasher.
In the present, four female college friends are at a bar celebrating the holiday. They meet a man who invites them to his tavern to party. This is a moment that could have set us up for more kills, which is what this movie needed. There is one bartender who chats with the girls and eventually seeks them out at the tavern. Why not make it a group of guys that hit on the girls and then follow them to the tavern, especially since there are so few possible victims and the first half of this movie has no kills?
The rundown old tavern is aglow with mood-setting, dim green light. The girls explore, there’s some promise of a lesbian hookup, and the guy who invited them recounts the story of the crazed killer from the beginning of the movie.
It’s not until 45 minutes into this 80-minute movie that the killer rises from the dead to kill again. There’s killer POV and undead groans, but unfortunately, the star of the film is his scythe. We don’t see him until 70 minutes in! It seems pretty pointless to keep his appearance hidden, especially since that would just add to the horror and make him more memorable.
When he finally does come into view, he has a bit of a zombie-like appearance, as you would expect. He deserved more screen time. Instead, the scythe hogs the camera.
There are only a few kills, and they are simple and basic. I just so wish there had been more victims and more killer, both of which would have beefed up the horror, helped with the pacing, and maybe offered up an opportunity for some old school slasher sex scenes, because this one had loads of potential as a holiday slasher.
CHEATER, CHEATER (2024)
This little Halloween slasher indie has a lot of heart and does its best to set a melancholy tone with seasonal atmosphere, character development, and a murder mystery angle. Just know that it definitely feels like an indie and is a bit heavy-handed, so the pacing suffers a bit and the slasher elements never really move to the forefront of the action—or lack of action, in this case.
The genuine outside fall footage of kids trick or treating in the opener definitely captures the tone. We pretty much meet all the main characters, and a killer in a pumpkin mask and hoodie comes knocking, but there is no hardcore death scene to start us off. Even so, it turns out that like five people were apparently killed that night.
5 years later, one of the main characters announces to his peers in an AA meeting that he’s heading home, which he does by driving there to the beat of dance music. He begins reconnecting with the other main characters, and plenty of exposition lays out all of their relations to one another.
It’s once again Halloween time, so there is Halloween décor galore, but it isn’t until 42 minutes in that the killer first strikes. It’s 55 minutes in before the next kill. And that’s about it before the final confrontation between the main guy and the killer.
There is a twist that highlights the whodunit aspect of the movie, but it still seems like the killer motivation monologue doesn’t quite answer that question, perhaps setting us up for a sequel?
