 |
| Demented pumpkins are just a small sinister part of Tales of Halloween (2015) |
While I love Halloween (Samhain), I enjoy its symbolism and rituals more than actually celebrating the holiday the way most Americans do: doling out candy, crafting kitschy spooks, dressing in sexy cat costumes. Sometimes the holiday seems geared specifically for kids or adults suffering from severe arrested development. Like everything else, Halloween has become over-commercialized. I feel similarly about horror comedies in relation to horror films. Horror comedies seem to be tailor-made for 14 year boys, or guys that are still psychologically that age. A really good horror comedy like Gerard Johnstone's
Housebound (2014) even has to resort to toilet humor. Sigh. So you can imagine that
Tales of Halloween, the anthology film produced and co-directed by Axelle Carolyn (
Soulmate) would not be my favorite film screened at Fantasia this year. Nevertheless, the screening was quite fun, and the crowd was really, really into it. In fact, the film had its World Premiere at Fantasia, and some of the directors in attendance had not even seen the complete film--so that was damn exciting.
The film has some really great moments, on which I'll primarily focus. First off, the horror microcosm in this L.A. suburb is divine. The film makes clear that each and every event is going on in the same town on the same night, with characters intermingled throughout the different shorts and keeping to a consistent timeline. The town in which the film's events take place makes perfect sense, even amidst all the craziness. Adrienne Barbeau's DJ character (an homage, among so many, to
The Fog) holds everything together as she narrates over the shorts. There's some gore, some spookiness, but primarily a lot of humor--and frequently that humor is both sly and smart. All of the films are riddled with horror cameos from actors and directors alike (Lin Shaye, Barbara Crampton, Barry Bostwick, John Landis, Stuart Gordon, Mick Garris, Adam Green, and all the segment directors make notable appearances).
 |
| Axelle Carolyn's Grim Grinning Ghost was the most accomplished and atmospheric film of the bunch |
One of the scariest pieces is Axelle Carolyn's
Grim Grinning Ghost, which not only highlights smart, attractive female characters, but also is by far the most sophisticated and atmospheric of the shorts. Carolyn places her main character in believable peril. Lucy McKee's
Ding Dong is a pretty sly mashup of Hansel and Gretel meets a melodrama about a sexy witch desperate to have a child, and the negative thoughts and desires that Halloween, a night rife with little kids, provokes. Adam Gierasch's
Trick starts off with me thinking one thing (these kids are EVIL), and ends on another thought entirely (maybe these two couples deserved it). While Mike Mendez's
Friday the 31st is utterly over-the-top with too many cliches for my taste, his use of stop-motion animation to craft the most adorable alien elevates this short to a whole other level. Both cute and ICK. Finally, Neil Marshall's
Bad Seed ties the whole universe together, and is a wonderful homage to
Halloween 3, a tragically underrated film.
 |
| Tales of Halloween effectively captures the night's hijinks w/ teenage boy glee and mayhem |
The rest of the shorts, well...as I said before, teenage boys, and those teenage boys trapped in the body of an adult, are going to LOVE this film. The other shorts have enough gore (
Sweet Tooth, Friday the 31st, Trick), teenage girls in very short skirts (
Sweet Tooth,
The Night Billy Raised Hell, Friday the 31st) and a heady mixture of teen and pre-teen boys as protagonists (
Sweet Tooth, The Night Billy Raised Hell, The Weak and the Wicked). The film has something to offer for every kind of horror fan.
During the Q & A after the film, Carolyn explained that the project really came about because they all hang out at each other's houses in L.A. and watch horror together (and often share holidays, like Thanksgiving). My first thought was "I want to hang out with these people," and then my next was "where are all the women directors?" Axelle Carolyn definitely is "one of the boys," but I wish she had wrangled more women to direct, because maybe then the film wouldn't be so testosterone heavy, and her husband, Neil Marshall, wouldn't make such bone-headed comments as "she's the best looking director here." Really? Who says that about male directors? Isn't Darren Lynn Bousman pretty enough for you?? I'm pretty sure this film is going to be a hit, and I hope that Carolyn continues to make atmospheric films. Another feature from her would be awesome.
