If you could only watch one Halloween Night movie on Halloween Night

That’s right. TWO slashers called Halloween Night. Sort of. October 31^st is really the best date on which to set a slasher movie, but it’s rarely done right. So how did these two films handle it?

HALLOWEEN NIGHT (2006)

Halloween Night is the ultimate movie for those who want sex and slashing—and occasional effective suspense even if there are no popcorn-spilling scares. And, BTW, it says it’s based on actual events. But from what I could uncover, “the actual events” part is just the fact that the film’s creators threw a Halloween party involving a prank on a night some dude escaped from a mental institution.

At the beginning of Halloween Night, a little kid witnesses something horrible, he winds up deformed and in a loony bin, and he gets out on Halloween years later! He also looks very much like one of the zombies from the classic film Zombie. But who cares? He looks damn creepy.

Meanwhile, a bunch of kids is planning a Halloween party! No one loves crashing a Halloween party more than a crazed killer, especially considering his hot mess of a face blends right in with all the gruesome masks. Also, a college prank helps masquerade the fact that people are really dying. Only a person who’s been watching slashers for four decades would pause to consider if the dead bodies all over the place on Halloween might be actual dead bodies—which is why I can often be seen fondling cheap Walmart ghouls on neighbors’ lawns in October.

In a fairly unique way, the prank goes horribly wrong and the killer begins going to town on partygoers who think they’re about to be fake stabbed by an obnoxious friend who doesn’t know when to cut it out. Luckily, all my friends are smart enough to never try such pranks on me because they know damn well I’d defend myself against a masked murderer first and then ask, “Buddy, was that you?” later…

The body count in Halloween Night might be approximately the same as the body count in every Friday the 13^th movie combined, and the kills are grisly and gory. If you show this one at your Halloween party, it will definitely have everyone barking happily as victims are slaughtered to the harsh metallic sound of super sharp weapons slicing through the air (a sound that only exists in movies).

There’s also a high boob count and a hot lipstick lesbian couple. These chick lickers are so lipstick you can’t figure out which one is the butch until the killer interrupts snatch snack time. The girly girl runs screaming while the tough one goes Xena on the killer’s ass—with her bare boobs bouncing all over the place.

I personally love the lead dude. I think much of his dialogue was improvised, because it sounds very natural and almost blasé. There’s something adorable about that.

There are a couple of cops who are very easy on the eyes as well….

There are a few plot holes, most of them concerning the killer’s ability to always be in the right place at the right time. Also, in the final cut of the film, you wonder what’s so significant to him about Halloween. You only find out if you watch the deleted scenes on the DVD, which include a more complex extension of the opening scene that is even weirder than the already bizarre edit used in the film. And finally, while the second half of Halloween Night succeeds as a typical slasher, the very ending will give you a bit of a giggle….

HALLOWEENIGHT (2010)

Not to be confused with Halloween Night, this movie by Mark Polonia of Polonia Bros. Entertainment is called HalloweeNight. This one’s about a killer scarecrow, which means I also have to add it to my blog on scarecrow horror movies!

HalloweeNight is wickedly low budget. In fact, the DVD is actually a DVD-R, and while it says “widescreen” on the front of the case, it’s letterboxed all the way around with the “widescreen” picture as a smaller window in the center of the screen. Sigh….

So some weird dude gets pissed after some jerks destroy his Halloween scarecrow, pushing him to do a satanic ritual to bring it back to life…then bring it as his date to their Halloween party.

HalloweeNight is probably the most Halloweenish Halloween themed horror movie ever—even if the grass and trees are all totally green in the background and there isn’t an autumn leaf in sight. In a seeming effort to mimic the original Halloween, we get a scene of two chicks walking home from school talking, and another scene of one chick getting a prank call followed by a real call from her friend.

While the movie is loaded with fart humor and laughable dialogue, the funniest thing about it has to be that these are supposed to be college kids and a majority of them look like they’re at least 40. The bald guy with the goatee is kind of cute and later appears in only Jack O’ lantern boxer shorts, showing off his hairy chest.

A sloppy slasher plays out at the party, with some fun low-budget gore and a few jump scares! Plus, characters mock big budget horror (wink-wink). Amazingly, the scarecrow killer (a dude in flannel, jeans, and a potato sack) transforms at the end into a skeleton with a Jack ‘O Lantern head. While much of the footage is some sort of stop-motion animation, this is how the killer should have looked through the whole movie because he’s pretty damn freaky! His arrival leads to a nicely morbid ending.

Okay. So I’d go with Halloween Night for the gore and HalloweeNight for the Halloween spirit and the cute baldy. Or you could pick from loads of other Halloween-themed horror films on the complete holiday horror page.