A couple of years back, not long into this Blog, I did a review of what was called The Ultimate Haunted Box Set, which was comprised of three horror films (review here). To be brief I was not impressed. But, like then, when you go into stores, you find rows and rows of films, horror films in my case, that you have often never heard of. In a lot of cases, the film title on the front of is not the one on the credits on the back, or even in the credits on the film when playing! I recall this happening many years before and it surprises me when it happens now.
But, to get back to the point here. Are these horror films actually worth watching? Certainly the ones in the so-called Ultimate Haunted Box Set were not worth watching. But that was a couple of years ago. Have things changed at all?
Well, with regards to the film titles, not really. Theatre Of Fear is known (if you look on the IMDB website) as The Midnight Horror Show, Carnival Of Fear is known as Closed For The Season. All Hallow's Eve at least keeps its title.
The films have no links apart from the a plot point or setting. Theatre Of Fear is set around a fair of sorts, Carnival Of Fear is a carnival and All Hallow's Eve is linked together by a sinister clown. I'm guessing that tenuous link was the reason these three films were brought together.
But consider; this is three films for less than £10. Going to a cinema can cost you that or more, so
it does seem like a bargain. But the question is; are the films worth buying, even at such a low price?
Theatre Of Fear
The Moreau family travel, hosting a late night variety show, but something darker is going on...
I was intrigued by the idea of the film, but now having seen it, I really didn't like it. It wants to be a British film like, for example Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects in having a family that travel and kill for various reasons. It starts with the murder of an audience member, which has nothing to do with the ending, where another victim's family want revenge. In fact, nothing is done at all with the first murder, story-wise for the rest of the film. The other plot strands; the ventriloquist and his dummy who try to get a break out of the family and a disfigured man who falls for an abused woman, are never fully developed enough to make you care what happens. Even when the revenge happens at the end, you really don't care what happens to the family members.
The acting isn't great and Andrew Jones the writer and director makes the fatal mistake of making his characters uninteresting. A film doesn't always need likeable characters, so long as the characters are interesting enough to make the audience invest in what happens to them. Without that, as I said, you don't care.
Rating - 1/5
Carnival Of Fear
Carnival Of Fear (or Closed For The Season as the trailer calls it) has a different problem. The story of a woman trapped in an amusement park, now abandoned and haunted by the ghosts that park holds has a protagonist that is likeable, but writer and director Jay Woelfel ties his story up in knots that it can't unravel to have a satisfactory ending. Woelfel fares better as director, but this is another film that is where the writing lets it down quite badly. I have to say too that the acting isn't the best either.
Rating - 1/5
All Hallow's Eve
All Hallow's Eve is the best of the three in this set. Damien Leone who writes and directs the film is a director with potential. However, again the writing is at fault as are some of the performances. This anthology film, of a babysitter watching a videotape, that features disturbing tales all linked by a sinister clown has a good, if cliched linking story, with an ending that works. However, the stories that we see via the videotape all have the same problem, they have no ending, although the second one, of a woman terrorised by aliens at least attempts one. The other two, a woman abducted and literally taken to hell and a woman terrorised by the murderous clown lack effective endings. But while his writing may let him down at times, Leone does understand the horror genre well, infusing his film with some subtle and not so subtle references to classic horrors. And he does stage a couple of effective moments.
It's not terrible, just disappointing.
Rating - 2/5
On my page at Letterboxd here there longer reviews of each film in this set.
As a collection of horror films it's not a good one. This is the second set of this time I've bought. Based on this one and the other, I doubt there will be another.
Low budget horror can often through up some unexpected, welcome surprises. This collection is sadly just a waste of time.
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