It's amateur hour in this silly shot-on-video slasher, that attempts to remake HALLOWEEN on a non-existent budget. The film tells the story of the ridiculously-named Gilbert Gill, a deranged psychopath who bludgeons his stepmother to death in the (admittedly shocking) opening sequence. Afterwards he's confined to a lunatic asylum, which turns out to be a white-painted corridor with white bed sheets strewn across the floor (no, I didn't get it either). Surprisingly absolutely nobody watching, Gill manages to escape and proceeds to chop, beat, and slice his way through a variety of victims, utilising such weaponry as forks, knives, hammers and sometimes just his own bare hands in his mission to kill. Eventually it turns out that he's targeting a Halloween party attended by his sister, and the question is whether he'll manage to kill her, too.
For a no-budget movie, this isn't as bad as some. It actually has pacing and involvement for the most part, except for perhaps the last third, the "slumber party", where the movie just turns into a series of rather boring, rather repulsive drawn-out kills (the bit where Gill strangles college girl D. J. seems to go on for about ten minutes). Saying that, it's still a load of rubbish, so cheap that it's just filmed around the streets and in people's homes. There's no inspiration here, other than HALLOWEEN, with derivative music, our killer wandering around in a clown mask, and some threadbare attempts at inducing atmosphere. The acting is perhaps the worst aspect of the production: in a film of uniformly poor performances, I can single out a few for particular criticism. Perrine Moore is pretty but appallingly bad as the sister-in-peril, and Lee Webb's supposed psycho is often laughable rather than menacing. The less said about the blonde, surgically-enhanced bimbos, too, the better.
So, what are we left with? Knowing that his film is very poor indeed, director Joe Castro goes all-out with his gore effects. Unfortunately they're very bad too, usually consisting of rubber heads being pounded into oblivion or fake blood being poured over naked bodies. Occasionally somebody will die just by having their internal organs pulled out through their skin, which made me scratch my head more than anything else. The ending is perhaps the worst part of this "movie", with Moore's wince-inducing screaming reducing any viewers to the quivers, an amusing bathroom incident with drain cleaner, and then a protracted scene which tries to evoke sympathy for our killer's plight. Nice try, but it's not going to wash.
For a no-budget movie, this isn't as bad as some. It actually has pacing and involvement for the most part, except for perhaps the last third, the "slumber party", where the movie just turns into a series of rather boring, rather repulsive drawn-out kills (the bit where Gill strangles college girl D. J. seems to go on for about ten minutes). Saying that, it's still a load of rubbish, so cheap that it's just filmed around the streets and in people's homes. There's no inspiration here, other than HALLOWEEN, with derivative music, our killer wandering around in a clown mask, and some threadbare attempts at inducing atmosphere. The acting is perhaps the worst aspect of the production: in a film of uniformly poor performances, I can single out a few for particular criticism. Perrine Moore is pretty but appallingly bad as the sister-in-peril, and Lee Webb's supposed psycho is often laughable rather than menacing. The less said about the blonde, surgically-enhanced bimbos, too, the better.
So, what are we left with? Knowing that his film is very poor indeed, director Joe Castro goes all-out with his gore effects. Unfortunately they're very bad too, usually consisting of rubber heads being pounded into oblivion or fake blood being poured over naked bodies. Occasionally somebody will die just by having their internal organs pulled out through their skin, which made me scratch my head more than anything else. The ending is perhaps the worst part of this "movie", with Moore's wince-inducing screaming reducing any viewers to the quivers, an amusing bathroom incident with drain cleaner, and then a protracted scene which tries to evoke sympathy for our killer's plight. Nice try, but it's not going to wash.
