It’s not unusual for me to start plotting and planning new additions to my Halloween décor at this time of year, and the hubby and I have already done some shopping at the Halloween shop near us. So I was psyched to stumble upon three Halloween themed horror flicks on Tubi that I hadn’t yet seen, which are all getting added to the complete holiday horror page.
SPRINGSVILLE (2024)
This one is set up sort of like a horror anthology, but when you add all the segments together, it’s actually just a Halloween slasher that takes place in a town over a period of Halloweens.
Our host appears on color film to tell us about the downfall of the town following the disappearance of a young boy. He interjects with some commentary in between segments…all of which are shot in black and white with occasional red camera glare.
Essentially, every segment is simply a clip of the killer in a creepy mask getting another victim, always on Halloween.
The first segment takes place on Halloween 2009. A young boy alone at night is abducted. The segment quickly turns into a weird and moody reflection on the missing child. It definitely sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Most segments are pretty generic. The grieving father of the missing boy is killed. Two boys looking for their father in the woods are chased and killed. A police agent is killed in a hotel room. Another guy is killed when he finds a body in the woods.
The standouts are the last two segments. One feels like a mini-slasher in a record store, with multiple victims. The other is the finale, in which the killer chases and brutally kills trick or treaters. Awesome.
Like I said, it’s really just a basic slasher, with each kill sequence broken into its own segment. However, it does have a distinct tone and atmosphere, making it a good one to have on while decorating your house for Halloween. Especially due to the choice to film it predominantly in black and white. It’s definitely a vibe.
THE STALKING (2024)
Several years ago, I decided I needed to finally start avoiding most Mark Polonia horror flicks unless they featured some of my favorite content—like gay stuff, or, as in this case, a holiday theme. More specifically, Halloween, which made it perfect for this post. It is so rich with fall and Halloween spirit that it’s really the kind of comfort horror I need during this bummer of a summer I’m having.
And for a Polonia movie, it’s surprisingly hokey fun. The whimsical “scary” music even makes it feel like a family-friendly Halloween movie. Actually, there’s not much in the way of gore, the blood and kills we see are tame, campy, and often CGI, and there’s no nudity.
So what exactly is it about? Well…a killer sunflower. Sort of. There’s a whole lot going on in this festive, 73-minute movie.
The opening totally sets the Halloween tone, with rich fall colors and a witchy woman doing a ritual in the woods. However, her monologue in a witchy voice is way too long. The witches from Macbeth would be jealous.
It seems like her goal is to bring a vengeance scarecrow to life, but that doesn’t quite pan out. There’s also a “spooky” house that everyone is warned to stay away from, but the house never plays any significant role in the film, although I think it’s where the sunflower is growing.
We have a variety of random characters, and most of them end up by the sunflower at some point to be killed off by branches and roots. However, it’s not until there are only 20 minutes left that the sunflower takes on a kind of significant triffid form, and then only briefly.
If I had to pin down main characters, it would be a geeky dude and his friends, as well as a group of thugs that torments the geek.
As random people get killed off, we finally arrive at a big Halloween night bash the thugs are throwing. One thug that went missing comes back in a freaky mask, and she starts killing people. Then the sunflower takes over in its big triffid plant form, but only briefly before it seems to finally possess the scarecrow so he can do some killing. Don’t try to make sense of any of it.
The biggest let down is the grand finale. The geek doesn’t get to be a hero or anything like that. Instead, we hear the clock strike twelve (outside), and the whole spell is broken as a result. What a cop out!
HARLOW’S HAUNT (2022)
This was the dud of the trio for me. The 104-minute runtime did it no favors, especially since most of it is padded with dialogue drowned out by music due to a poor audio mixing job.
It starts with a 26-minute-long opener in black and white, which takes place in the 1800s to establish a barely fleshed out backstory. It’s literally all talk, and even Tubi got bored and tossed in a commercial break in the middle of the scene.
Next, there’s a looooong montage of the main girl just doing…nothing in the outdoors. Eventually, she meets up with two female friends and two male friends, and they talk until they finally arrive at a haunted attraction 62 minutes into the movie. Then it’s 6 more minutes of talk before they enter the attraction.
Shortly after, everyone gets split up and basically all the main characters are killed by a big creep with a sharp weapon in a matter of minutes. The minimal shots of the interior of the haunted attraction aren’t enough to add any atmosphere to this Halloween film, which offers absolutely no sign of the holiday beyond one of the girls donning flashing devil horns as her costume.
It really feels like a movie in which the writer came up with the twist ending first and then just filled time in order to get to it rather than make a substantial horror experience leading up to it. The meta “twist” is sort of clever, but even that falls flat and doesn’t deliver anything juicy.
