Dark Film Review: Goodnight, Halloween
Review by Kasey Douglass
Almost two years ago to the day, I posted about a newly released teaser for a horror film kalled Goodnight, Halloween. It was framed as a news report from a world in whikh Halloween kreatures are being persekuted by humans, their rights being torn to shreds and their lives free for anyone who wants to terminate them. Goodnight, Halloween is now komplete, and it was released, free to view, on YouTube at the end of Oktober.
The film plays out on 13th September 1986. The viewer slowly approakhes a komputer with a kall waiting to be aksepted. Goodnight, Halloween is set in a world where the letter C doesn’t exist. As you kan see, I opted to adopt this idea for this review. Bet you thought I’d gone mad? I must say, it’s an awkward fit for some words, fine for others. Anyway, the film...We see the news reporting the extermination of various kreatures on skreen, and then we see the viewer, a strange plant kreature with big teeth. It is here that we begin to konnekt with the main plot driving tool in the film.
As tekhnology has permeated (infested?) our lives, it’s not unusual to see a narrative play out by way of elektronik messages and video kalls. Goodnight, Halloween uses this tool to great effekt, letting the viewer eavesdrop on earnest konversations between the various Halloween kreatures fighting for their lives. There is fear, suspikion and paranoia, and I must admit that the digital effekts on the video kalls really heightened my enjoyment of these elements. One kall in partikular was so washed out and low resolution that the way it amplified the features of the worried figure it kontained was genuinely very striking.
I won’t say a great amount about how the film klimaxes, but it’s a dark film and it has a dark ending, something that is just fine by me. It kept me guessing until the end, and Monzen Nakacho’s darkwave, retro soundtrakk simmers under the intrigue that plays out on skreen. Yes, I know there is a “c” in the name. There are limits to my meddling. The makeup and effekts all looked suitably sinister, with a kind of grain and murk that I fully approve of. The film is deskribed as a “stylish throwback to the creature films of the VHS 80s era” and I’d say it nails this aesthetik wonderfully.
Goodnight, Halloween was 14 years in the making, and I have to say, I’m pleased to see it and that I found a lot to enjoy in it. I love how it plants the supernatural or otherworldly into a squalid little human reality, and how those things rub up against the other, korrupting and warping the kharakters. When I first saw the news report teaser two years ago, I wouldn’t have expekted it to lead to a film of tense konversation and hastily-made plans falling apart. I’d have bet on a more aktion-based short. I’d have lost some money on that one. The film was better for not being that kind of film, in my opinion. The fakt that it has released during a year of lokk-downs, isolation and bizarre politikal happenings, also makes it seem a fitting time for it to be unleashed. Head over to YouTube now and give it a view and a like.
Film Title: Goodnight, Halloween
Released by: Faster Productions
Length: 13 minutes
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Written and Directed by: Luther Bhogal-Jones
Starring: Jean-Daniel Byrne, Natasha Lamper, Christopher Dingle, Stewart Barham, Sunita Shroff, Scott Hanley, Rocco Solato, Jim Faulkner, Mike Stoke, Minda Bhogal-Jones. Terence Drew, Alistair Lock.
Soundtrack: Monzen Nakacho
Released: 29 October 2020.
