Review: “Tales of Halloween”

Ten spirited (and mean-spirited) stories set on Halloween night. This is the worst town to find yourself on the holiday… especially if you’re a kid.

Ah, now that’s what I was looking for when I made the misguided decision to watch Halloween Tales.  All the benefits of an anthology movie (brisk pace, tons of ideas, different points of view) are on display in what turns out to be a fun, gory, pull-no-punches series of shorts.  They aren’t all winners, of course, but with ten tales to spin through, you never have to spend too long on the ones that underwhelm.  The opening story, “Sweet Tooth”, sets the tone perfectly.  It contains a single idea, a creepy legend that turns out to be true, and executes it very well.  It’s not about bringing something new to the table, we know immediately when the pair of babysitters start their spooky yarn what the end game will be.  It’s about the flare by which the tale is told, and “Sweet Tooth” revels in the telling.  It introduces several traits that are in line with much of the rest of movie:  It’s over the top gory, it is immersed in Halloween tropes, and nobody is safe, regardless of their age.  Of the ten stories, I can only think of a few where children are not killed, under the threat of serious harm, or framed for atrocious crimes.  The filmmakers here are united in their nastiness.  In “Trick”, about murderous trick-or-treaters, there is a horrifically disturbing scene that explains why the costumed ragamuffins are on a rampage.  It’s the one story that really pushed my buttons, although it wasn’t my favorite.  That belongs to “Grim Grinning Ghost”.

“Grim Grinning Ghost” is not the best titled of the tales, nor is it the most intricate.  It is, similar to “Sweet Tooth”, a very simple idea.  We hear a scary legend about a ghost at a party, and we know the ghost is coming at some point to kill the woman who we follow home from said party.  That’s it.  Yet director Axelle Carolyn deploys every overdone horror movie plot device to drive us crazy in anticipation of that single scare that we know we are due at the end of the story.  The protagonist’s car breaks down, we see a shadowy figure following her as she walks home, she can’t make her keys work…  There is a medicine cabinet mirror fake-out as well as a pet scare fake-out.  By the time the jolt actually comes, it is ten times as effective because we’ve been toyed with for so long.  So far, it’s the most visceral scare I’ve gotten this season.

As I stated above, they can’t all be winners.  There is a revenge tale that seems to exist solely to justify a Go-Pro style chase sequence, and a horror-comedy short featuring John Landis that is a disappointment.  Regardless, I never stopped having fun while watching Tales of Halloween.  It’s not an instant classic like 2009’s Trick ‘R Treat (although Scott disagrees), but it is a movie I could see myself checking back with every couple of years, especially in a group setting.  The combination of monsters, humor, violence, and callousness would make for a delightful communal Halloween viewing experience.

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