Tales of Halloween Movie Review – Anthology at its Best

Runtime: 92 minutes

Release Date: October 16,2015

Rating: R

Director: Lots!

Tales of Halloween is an anthology flick that weaves together 10 different stories that take place over the course of Halloween. Packed with cameos from writers, directors, and actors featured in other horror films, it's entertaining for those who love 70s and 80s slasher and horror films.

Adrienne Barbeau, who any horror fan will remember from films like The Fog, plays a DJ at the beginning of the film. She does a great job of introducing each segment and wrapping up the movie in the end. Her smooth and sultry voice definitely creates a setting that will make you feel like you're back in the glory days of the drive through watching all your favorites.

On first glance, Tales of Halloween seems like one of those movies that only has one or two good stories. When describing it to my roommate, it started telling him about my favorite anthology story, then remembered another one I liked, then another, and wound up telling him to just watch the damn thing. While some stories are definitely stronger than others, there really aren't a lot of bad stories.

The best might be The Ransom of Rusty Rex. Two men decide to kidnap the child of a rich man, one of who is played by Sam Witwer of Being Human, as he goes trick or treating by himself. When they call his father, played by the amazing John Landis, he laughs and tells them to keep the kid. They quickly learn that this little boy is actually a demon and that once he latches on, he never lets go.

Friday the 31^st is a close second. This story opens with a girl dressed as Dorothy running for her life through the woods with a deformed slasher, a la Jason, on her tails. After he catches and kills her though, a space ship appears in the sky, and drops an adorable little claymation alien on the ground. When he denies the alien's wish to trick or treat, the alien takes over the woman's body and chases the killer around. While it may not sound like much, it got the most laughs out of me, especially when the slasher wound up losing his arm and later his head because of his own tools of death.

Trick is probably the one that has the best ending, though it takes awhile to get going. Two couples kick back on Halloween night as they have a few drinks and smoke. A girl dressed up as a witch shows up to trick or treat and then brutally murders the man who answers the front door. Several other kids then show up and chase the adults through the house, killing them one by one. In the end, we learn that the adults had a little fun of their own mutilating and killing children.

I was also a fan of The Night Billy Raised Hell. Billy is stuck trick or treating with his slutty teenage sister and her boyfriend. The boyfriend convinces poor Billy to play a prank on a man living in one specific house. It turns out that the man is actually the Devil, played by the awesome Barry Bostwick, who promises to show Billy some new tricks. They then set out on a night of mischief filled with robbing convenience stores and murdering people. When the cops show up to arrest poor Billy though, it turns out that the Devil left him tied up and stole his costume for one of his minions, leaving Billy to take the wrap.

Keep your eyes peeled for cameos from Lin Shaye, Barbara Crampton, John Savage, and Joe Dante just to name a few. Tales of Halloween is currently streaming on Netflix and is more than a fun way to waste 93 minutes.