This Underrated Horror Gem Captures the Essence of Stephen King’s ‘Creepshow’ [Video]
Tyler Doupe'
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Welcome to The Overlooked Motel, a place where under-seen and unappreciated films are given their moment in the spotlight. I hope you enjoy your stay here and find the accommodations to be suitable. Now, please take a seat and make yourself comfortable. I have some misbehaving guests to ‘correct.’
I couldn’t be more pleased to be spotlighting an atmospheric seasonal favorite this week. I’m talking about the unsung anthology flick, Tales of Halloween. Though the film is affiliated with our DREAD distribution label, I am under no obligation to sing its praises and do so willingly.
I count Tales of Halloween as an underrated effort ready for discovery by a larger audience. The picture showcases a veritable who’s who of contemporary horror filmmakers and yet, for some reason, the picture has never really been given its due.
Tales of Halloween is the brainchild of journalist turned writer/director, Axelle Carolyn. She, along with a stable of other talented creators, each take the helm on a segment in this intertwined collection of shorts. The proceedings unfold in a suburban neighborhood on Halloween night.
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In a nod to John Carpenter’s atmospheric tale of malevolent mist, Adrienne Barbeau features as a disc jockey in the wraparound segment. Her sultry inflection is reminiscent of Stevie Wayne in The Fog. But her tone here has a hint of menace that separates the two and gives this anthology a sinister edge.
It’s clear that Carolyn and company were inspired by gold standard anthology film, Creepshow (in which Barbeau also features). Like that celebrated effort (and the EC Comics by which it was heavily influenced), many of the vignettes here have a morality play embedded within. Additionally, Tales of Halloween features moments of dark comedy that recall the macabre wit of Romero and King’s infamous collaboration.
Like Creepshow before it, Tales of Halloween succeeds at delivering a strong lineup of vignettes. Every twisted tale in this collection adds something to the equation. Some of the segments are scary, some are funny. Others are a little of both. The way the stories overlap lends a consistency to the greater narrative and makes this anthology feel like a cohesive whole, rather than a scattered collection of pieces that never quite fit together.
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As I mentioned before, there is something special about each vignette in the collection. So, please allow me a moment to briefly speak to each segment.
The first vignette is Dave Parker’s ‘Sweet Tooth’. It’s a dark tale about a young man who murders his parents for eating his Halloween candy. Not content to subsist on the sugary sweets they haven’t yet consumed, he cuts his mother and father open to liberate that which remains in their stomachs. In the years since that infamous event, the young man continues to haunt the neighborhood where the film is set, demanding an offering each Halloween night.
Parker’s vignette is equal parts imaginative and grotesque. It reads very much like an urban legend that you might hear recounted near a campfire. Parker makes use of creeping camerawork and an ominous score to set the stage for a blood-soaked conclusion that effectively prepares viewers for the horrors to come.
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The Darren Lynn Bousman segment, ‘The Night Billy Raised Hell’ follows Billy, a young man who is convinced to egg the home of a local curmudgeon who refuses to give candy to trick-or-treaters. The boy quickly learns that his crotchety neighbor is harboring a dark secret. The secret being that he is actually a vengeful demon.
‘The Night Billy Raised Hell’ has a biting sense of humor. Barry Bostwick, who plays the unpleasant neighbor, appears to be having a blast with the material. He’s hamming it up in the best way and there’s something undeniably comical about the violent escapade upon which he embarks. Additionally, the vignette delivers a clever twist ending that’s likely to upend viewer expectations.
Adam Gierasch’s ‘Trick’ sees a group of friends enjoying a quiet Halloween night at home when they are attacked by a gaggle of vicious children with deadly designs.
‘Trick’ is surprisingly brutal. The children featured within are absolute animals. They raise the intensity level of the proceedings with their ‘take no prisoners’ approach. The vignette makes effective use of the killer kid trope by way of a somewhat predictable, but nonetheless effective, twist.
The Paul Solet segment, ‘The Weak and the Wicked’ catches up with a group of teenage miscreants forced to atone for their wicked ways when The Demon of All Hallows Eve arrives on the scene.
The aforementioned miscreants are really quite wicked in this segment. That makes the eventual turning of the tables all the more enjoyable. Additionally, ‘The Weak and the Wicked’ makes impressive use of the intersection of aggressive rock music and horror. A harrowing chase sequence juxtaposed alongside a hardcore track invokes a similar sensation to the marriage of the two in Argento’s early work. Also impressive is the creature design of the demon. He’s gnarly looking. We only get a quick glimpse of him and that left me wanting more, in the best way.
In ‘Grim Grinning Ghost, Axelle Carolyn’s vignette, a young woman who was bullied for her physical appearance in life, returns as a ghost to claim her vengeance.
The final moments of this segment produce a jump scare leveraged for maximum effect. Carolyn lures the viewer in with a false sense of security and then pulls the rug out from underneath the audience. That buildup serves to make the reveal of the vengeful ghost all the more frightening.
In Lucky McKee’s ‘Ding Dong’ a woman harboring a dark secret sits at home and laments her lack of children, lashing out at those around her in a desperate attempt to fill the void.
This is my favorite vignette of the bunch. It’s plenty surreal and gets so dark, so quickly. Moreover, the segment features phenomenal creature design and a bitter ending that’s shocking and fitting to the narrative at the same time. The icing on the cake is Pollyanna McIntosh’s unhinged performance as Bobbie, the woman harboring the dark secret.
In ‘This Means War’, directors Andrew Kasch and John Skipp spin a tale of a rivalry between neighbors that turns deadly.
This vignette is lighter than most of the segments, making it a nice palette cleanser after some of the bleak tales by which it is preceded. The rivalry between neighbors is used effectively to deliver a few good chuckles. And the ending strikes the perfect balance between comical and downbeat.
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Mike Mendez’s segment, ‘Friday the 31st, sees a Jason Voorhees-esque killer stalking the neighborhood where all the action is unfolding. The hulking antagonist is chasing after a presumably innocent victim when the arrival of an unexpected visitor changes everything.
This vignette juxtaposes two unlikely genres and it works surprisingly well. Mendez manages to make the narrative pivot less jarring by making that pivot the least shocking aspect of the second half of this segment. The back end of this short is visceral, campy, comical, and unexpected. But coming from Mike Mendez, none of that is particularly surprising.
The Ryan Schifrin short, ‘The Ransom of Rusty Rex’ finds a pair of kidnappers getting more than they bargained for after abducting the child of a very wealthy man.
This vignette has a wicked sense of humor, going to unexpected places and delivering both dark comedy and quirky scares along the way. ‘The Ransom of Rusty Rex’ is an unpredictable romp with a storyline that managed to surprise me the first time I saw it.
The final segment, Neil Marshall’s ‘Bad Seed’ depicts the unlikely exploits of a pumpkin come to life. The sentient squash demonstrates an appetite for destruction and leaves a trail of carnage in its wake.
Under Marshall’s masterful eye, this segment manages to be properly frightening. Not many directors could pull of the tale of a killer pumpkin come to life and make it scary. But not many directors are Neil Marshall.
All in, Tales of Halloween serves up an impressive series of intertwined shorts that delve into a variety of genres, while coexisting as a cohesive whole. Though it never reaches the level of greatness that its inspiration, Creepshow, does, Tales of Halloween isn’t really trying to outdo the legendary anthology, more so than pay tribute. And the film does that remarkably well. If you’re keen to check Tales of Halloween out for yourself, you can find the film streaming on Prime Video, Tubi, and FreeVee, as of the drafting of this post.
That’s all for this installment of The Overlooked Motel. If you want to chat more about under-seen and underrated films, feel free to hit me up with your thoughts on Twitter, Threads, or Instagram.
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