It’s a trio of new Halloween horror slashers to add to the complete holiday horror page, and it was a good marathon to set the tone for October.
NIGHT OF THE HARVEST (2023)
I’ll give this one credit—it’s a little different than your usual Halloween slasher. It definitely has an indie feel, and along with that comes some of the common pitfalls of indies, including the fact that it runs too long at 107 minutes.
However, I was happy to see the movie open with plenty of holiday décor as a dude comes to a girl’s house for a first date. I even appreciated the appearance of an ominous masked killer with an axe.
Next we meet our cast of friends planning to go to a cabin in the woods to celebrate Halloween. This is where things get weird. One girl is at the cabin setting up for the party, and there are some creepy shots of the killer watching her before attacking her. Unfortunately, the “choreography” of the kill feels amateurish.
Meanwhile, after plenty of scenes of the other kids discussing who they want to hook up with, they all end up…at a warehouse instead of the cabin! Huh?
This is where the big twist in the film plays out…way too early. There’s really no mystery left after the reveal, and we then just watch people getting hacked up before more people arrive to serve as more bodies for the brutality.
From there the movie starts to go in circles with very few characters walking around the empty warehouse, filling the excessive run time with little action. If it’s any consolation, there’s one more twist in the final act, but I definitely felt the Halloween vibe waning to nothing by the end.
Gotta confess, I blind bought this one on Blu-ray, but I wouldn’t have purchased it if I’d seen it first.
HAUNT SEASON (2024)
This would have been the better blind buy, but unfortunately, it’s not on disc yet. I love me a good haunted Halloween attraction slasher, and while this one does have some pacing issues early on, it brings refreshing twists and has a kick ass final act and smartly runs only 80 minutes long.
It begins with a major kill in a red-drenched room at the haunt, which leads to a vacancy on the haunt team.
A new girl comes in to fill the inexplicably open position, and she slowly gets to know all her fellow employees. It’s a pretty likable cast, and includes a pretty boy who enjoys walking around naked. Yum.
What’s established rather quickly is that the killer, having a whole haunted attraction at their disposal, wears a different horror mask for every kill. Awesome.
There are some violent and bloody kills, including one chase scene, in between the group hanging out and getting to know the new girl. The vibe of some of the early kills feels a little cheap because the sound effects are mixed down too much with an 80s style throbbing synth score filling the void, but the problem is remedied later on.
The big turn in the kills getting way cool is one involving a laser light effect. From then on there’s some really creative camerawork, and the kills start to rock. We’re also treated to a fun montage of the girls on the team getting into the Halloween spirit.
The movie really takes off when the killer’s identity is revealed…surprisingly early. You’d think the film would nose-dive after that, but it totally ramps up and turns into a haunted attraction massacre. Not to mention, two of the main girls shift into fantastic final girls you find yourself rooting for. I so want this one on disc.
CREEPING DEATH (2023)
Load your Halloween horror film with seasonal visuals and you’ve already got me halfway in your corner, and this indie does just that, starting with an awesome trick or treating opening kill. And it cuts right from that to a pumpkin patch! Perfect.
The rest of the film isn’t quite as perfect, but it does have a fun supernatural folklore legend as the basic premise. Director Matt Sampere is also the lead in the film, playing a son who is dealing with caring for his dying mother.
At the same time, something sinister is taking place in town. Pets have gone missing, houses are being vandalized, people have seemingly abandoned their houses, and occult symbols are being left on doors in what looks like blood.
Matt’s friends, who all look like they’re in their late 20s and way too old to be playing Halloween pranks, steal a bag from a crotchety old man’s steps on Halloween night and bring it back to Matt’s house to see what’s inside.
Little do they know it was an offering left there to keep an evil entity from coming out to kill on Halloween night.
In a throwback to all the supernatural specter movies of the early 2000s, the group has to figure out what they’ve unleashed and how to stop it, right down to the annoying aspect of the subgenre, which sees them running all over town instead of keeping the action set in one location.
The film is a little chaotic and rough around the edges, but the evil entity is pretty darn awesome, there’s some good gore, and there’s a devilish twist as to how they can kill the entity. I could definitely see adding this simple little indie slasher to my collection of Halloween horror movies for an annual watch.
