Movie Madness: All Hallows’ Eve (2013)

(Available on Tubi)

WTF is with clowns, anyway? Does anyone really like them? Why are they a thing??

A Maura-Tierney-looking lady is babysitting two bratty kids on Halloween night. In the bratty boy’s trick-or-treat bag there is a mysterious video tape, and he has no idea where it came from. He pleads with the babysitter to watch it, which they do. It is about a clown and some horrible creature and some Satanists.

Finally, the babysitter wises up and turns it off and makes the kids go to bed (I once got in trouble because I let the kids I was babysitting rent Poltergeist…this seems much worse than that). She can’t help herself, though, and turns the tape on again once they are upstairs. There is more to the movie, including a lady’s encounter with an alien and another lady’s encounter with the clown, who seems to have some otherworldly powers….

She turns the tape off but then weird stuff starts happening around the house – well, maybe “weird” isn’t the right word. Depraved and horrifying, maybe?

This movie was a little too torture-porn-ey for my taste, although that clown was pretty damn scary and there were a couple of creepy moments, I have to admit. I am rather surprised I didn’t have clown-related nightmares.

Not sure what the alien thing had to do with anything, but I often have to have things explained to me.

Perfect together: The clown from this movie and Samara from The Ring, who both have supernatural powers, and both of them can transcend video. Oh, wait – she’s a ghost but I guess she’s still technically a kid, right? Never mind.

Gratuitous killing of a gas station attendant who seemed pretty nice.

Gratuitous starlight mints in the boy’s trick-or treat bag. Ick.

Gratuitous naughty/disturbing/horrible words carved into a woman (yeah, I told you it was torture porn).

No animals harmed, although if you are a fan of children you might want to skip this one.

I thought the acting was OK in this, rather surprisingly.

It was still better than Scream 6.