The Night before Halloween - DVD

Content: Ever since a tragic car accident killed her mother, Emily Watson (Noell Coet) has been unable to see anything. Even though her therapist (Ally Walker) is convinced that Emily's imagery is just emotional trauma and has no medical causes, the world around the young woman remains dark. Her father (Daniel Hugh Kelley) cares for her sacrificially, but has completely lost sight of his own happiness. So it's natural for Emily to stay home alone the night before Halloween while her father goes on his first date in nine years. But no sooner is her father out of the house than Emily hears strange noises. And it soon becomes clear: she is not alone...

For his latest film The Night before Halloween, director Richard Schenkman has quite obviously drawn on various representatives of the horror and thriller genres. The opening sequence, for example, is very reminiscent of Scream, there is a very clear allusion to Halloween, the story about blind Emily brings back memories of Wait Until Dark and the intruder(s) in her house could also come from home invasion thrillers like The Strangers. Schenkman doesn't really incorporate any ideas of his own. Nevertheless, the end result can really be seen with small deductions.

Because The Night before Halloween is in many moments a very effective old school slasher, which can always keep a pleasantly high tension level and has some decent goosebumps moments to offer. Only in two aspects points have to be deducted quite clearly. First, the film is not necessarily a revelation in terms of acting. While some actors deliver absolutely solid performances, others seem extremely wooden. Lead actress Noell Coet tries very hard not to belong to the second category. But especially towards the finale she succeeds more and more rarely.

But in the end slasher movies are rarely characterized by high acting. Much more important is the fact that the viewer isn't offered a real resolution. Without giving too much away at this point, it should be said that probably more than 90% of all viewers will comment the credits with a and what was that now? Surely, the fact that we don't know who sneaked into the Watsons' house and for what reason is absolutely conducive to the suspense for long stretches. But if there is no motivation discernible even at the end, then it is just no longer exciting, but simply frustrating.

But even if you have a little bit the feeling that Schenkman simply ran out of ideas at the end and the positive overall impression is noticeably diminished by the rather weak script, The Night before Halloween is, on balance, well worth seeing. Because atmospherically the whole thing works really well and over long stretches the film offers enough successful aspects to be able to entertain well despite its weaknesses. Still, in the end there is just the disappointment that good potential has been wasted here for no reason. But if you don't care about originality and can overlook the lack of a resolution, this DVD can be recommended to you. Worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The DVD's very clean picture is mostly kept in rather dark tones. The sharpness of the picture is on a good level, with the detail representation, however, there are here and there in the many dark scenes smaller recognizable weak points. The sound picks up a bit towards the end, otherwise the sound remains rather subdued. But since this corresponds to the atmosphere of the film, there is a decent bottom line for picture and sound: Good!

Extras: In addition to the trailer, the DVD has a decent Making of (about 11:20 min.) to offer, which begins with a commendable warning of the director that here for all who have not yet seen the film, a lot is spoiled. Good!

Conclusion:The Night before Halloween last recognizes many different influences, from Scream to Wait Until Dark to home invasion thrillers like The Strangers. The result is a fairly tense old school slasher that has some very effective moments of suspense, but also some dramaturgical flaws. If you can overlook the somewhat unsatisfying ending and are simply looking for classic genre entertainment, you can safely grab this technically well-executed DVD. Recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp