Halloweed is a Halloween stoner slasher…and it begins with a near 5-minute animated intro. Yes!
The raunchy, adolescent tone of Halloweed is set immediately when we witness Tom Sizemore as a death row inmate jerking off just before he’s to be electrocuted.
Shannon Brown (Arkham Sanitarium) is Sizemore’s son, and he decides to skip town with his barely closeted stepbrother (Simon Rex of the Scary Movie franchise) to escape his impending reputation as the son of a serial killer. Both boys are cuties, but I have to say, I kind of wish Brown had played the almost blatantly gay one, because I have such a crush on him. However, Rex is adorable and plays the gay role perfectly. He really blows for it…I mean, goes for it.
From the moment the boys score a ride because Rex promises the truck driver a handjob, the similarities to Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back are impossible to ignore.
Halloweed has plenty of weed, sex, and gay jokes.
While there’s tasteless humor, it’s played rather conservatively for my taste(lessness), and for way too long before the killings begin, so the slasher/comedy balance is off, leaving this as a comedy with some slasher elements later on.
However, those slasher elements are pretty dang awesome. The first death scene/killer sighting doesn’t come until 52 minutes into the film, but it delivers a killer wearing a onesie and a creepy as hell baby mask, plus a shitload of gushing CGI blood.
The death scenes definitely deliver, and the killer, known as the Candy Corn Killer, leaves the iconic Halloween candy on the victims’ bodies. Unfortunately, there are only 3 victims in total!
That’s the film’s shortcoming. The hour and 40-minute run time could have been trimmed to an hour and twenty minutes to consolidate all the scenes leading up to the murders and to take advantage of the effective killer we have terrorizing the community. There simply should have been more killings beginning sooner in the film, as well as more substantial encounters between the boys and the killer.
Their main motivation is to solve the murders to clear their names since they’re new in town, but they spend nearly an hour before that doing nothing much beyond interacting with locals. We also needed a bigger emphasis on the holiday.
Sure, the guys go to a pumpkin stand and pass through a Halloween party (Shannon is delicious in his Halloween costume with the tight purple pants), but based on the title, I expected way more Halloween atmosphere.
Aside from the charming main boys, Halloweed also has a great supporting cast, including Danny Trejo, Ray Wise, and even Jay himself, Jason Mewes.
All of them could have had some shining moments if the movie had been slightly more streamlined, because it tends to drift until it finally narrows down to its slasher plot. Having said that, I so want a sequel, because I adore Brown and Rex and the comic duo they’ve created.
