HALLOWEEN TRIPLE WHAMMY #1 -ALL HALLOWS EVE (2013) THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF ART THE CLOWN

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Damien Leone

STARRING  - Katie Maguire as Sarah,  Catherine Callahan as Caroline,  Marie Maser as Costume Designer,  Kayla Lian as Casey,  Mike Gianelli as Art the Clown,  Sydney Freihofer as Tia,  Cole Mathewson as Timmy,  Brandon DeSpain as the Alien,  Michael Chmiel as Gas station attendant,  Marissa Wolf as Kristen,  Mina Taylor as Sara,  Christine Evangelista as Scarecrow,  Eric Diez as Satan.

PLOT - It's Halloween night and Sarah is stuck babysitting two children  - Tia and Timmy. They have just got back from trick or treating when Sarah discovers that somebody has placed an unmarked VHS tape in Timmy's bag.

Timmy snatches the tape off her and against Sarah's wishes he begins to play the tape. On the tape are three stories, each more terrifying than the last and each one containing the sinister figure of a malevolent clown...

THE STORIES  -

STORY # 1 

A young woman named Casey is alone in a train station on Halloween night waiting for a train home. She notices Art the Clown sat opposite her. Art attacks Casey and injects her with a drug that knocks her unconscious. Coming round Casey finds that she is a prisoner in an underground lair with two other frightened girls - Kristen and Sara. The three are soon attacked by a bunch of hideous demons. Can the girls survive ?...

This first segment was originally a short film in its own right called ''9th Circle'' and features the first ever appearance of Art the Clown. In recent years Art has become something of a sensation due to the success of the Terrifier series of films and these days is a fully fledged horror icon in his own right - up there with the big boys -Freddy, Jason, Michael, Leatherface, Pinhead, Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man. That's quite an achievement when you think about it.

Art (Mike Gianelli) is a little different in this story. He's more human looking and isn't the main villain. Instead Art appears to be an errand boy for the demonic entities that menace the young women. Art is the one who captures the women and thats it, he was yet to graduate to being a slasher icon. All of Art's familiar quirks and mannerisms are present and correct though. As always Art never speaks, he communicates via exaggerated gestures and facial expressions, he's basically a demonic psychotic Marcel Marceau. Gianelli gives an unnerving, creepy performance and its easy to see how Art went on to become a modern day classic horror villain.

The rest of the story isn't that noteable. We get some underdeveloped female characters who are just there to up the body count and some cheesy looking demons (including a very camp looking Satan). There's some decent gore and the whole story has a sleazy vibe to it. It perfectly captures the atmosphere of those low budget straight to video VHS films we all used to rent back in the day and is a decent enough opener.

Fascinating if only for its historical value as Art's first appearance.

STORY # 2

Caroline has just moved into a new house in the countryside. One night a UFO crashes in a nearby field and a power cut occurs. Caroline finds herself stalked by the inhabitant of the spacecraft, a terrifying being from another world...

Not a lot to say about this segment. Its just not very good. The story is basic and unengaging and the alien looks cheap and nasty. It's clearly just a guy in a wetsuit wearing a plastic "grey alien" Halloween mask. He moves around like he's taking part in some kind of interpretive dance display, he just waves his arms around and doesn't do much at all.

If you're waiting for Art the Clown to turn up and liven things up a bit then you're going to be sorely disappointed. He only appears on a painting that we don't see until the end of the story. The implication is that Art is somehow overseeing this event but it just feels clumsy. The whole story is nothing more than filler to pad out the running time. Next...

STORY # 3

A young girl looking to get into movies as a costume designer is driving to a new job on Halloween night. She arrives at a gas station and sees the attendant throwing Art the Clown out of the station after finding that he's defecated all over the toilets. The girl goes to use the ladies and upon coming out finds that Art has returned and murdured the attendant. What follows is a fight for survival as the terrified girl flees from Art who begins to pursue her relentlessly...

This is it. The highlight of the entire movie. The best story by far. This segment was also originally released as a short called "Terrifier" (not to be confused with "Terrifier" the full length feature that also stars Art the Clown). This story was the basis for the full length movie, what we're seeing here is the basic skeleton that the later film added meat to.

It's shot in a grindhouse style complete with scratches and cigarette burns on the film and once more has a wonderfully sleazy atmosphere to it. If Art felt underused in the earlier segments then thats categorically NOT the case here. This is Art the Clown as a fully fledged slasher villain for the first time ever, ready to take his place alongside the big boys and he does not disappoint. Art is HORRIBLE in this story, he hacks, slashes, saws and even shoots his way into the horror villain pantheon and what he does to his helpless victim at the end of the story is disturbing beyond words. 

A small but perfectly formed slasher sleaze classic.

FRAMING STORY 

Sarah has put the kids to bed and continues to watch the mysterious VHS tape becoming increasingly disturbed by what she sees. Eventually the tape shows an image of Sarah's living room and Sarah herself with Art the Clown also present. It becomes obvious that Art is trying to break out of the movie and into the real world and Sarah and the kids look like being his first victims...

The framing story works really well. Katie Maguire gives a good performance as Sarah the grumpy babysitter and Art the Clown is at his menacing best. 

I do find it odd that this film is set in the present day and yet Sarah has a VCR player. Wouldn't it have made more sense for it to be a mysterious DVD instead ? I can understand why Leone chose to go this route though as the entire film is a love letter to the days of renting cheesy horror movies from the horror section of your local video store on a Friday night. It's a stylistic choice designed to evoke a specific mood and atmosphere and it works.

Most surprising of all is that Art doesn't even spare the kids. They actually get it WORSE than anyone else in the entire film. Not even Michael Myers at his most brutal would go that far. Art is a truly uncompromising and unsettling villain - he literally points and laughs at your corpse after he's decapitated you as if it's the funniest thing in the world. No wonder he's gained a massive following and this movie is where it all started.

SFX - Lots of practical effects and gore are on show here. It's all quite cheap looking but that only adds to the sleazy straight to video vibe that the director was going for.

Apart from Art himself we get some cheesy looking demons in the first story...

I particularly like the chap shown above, he looks like he's been rolling around in shit.

Then we get the gay Satan...

The bargain basement alien...

And Art the Clown himself in all his gory glory...

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Theres a strong implication of rape in the first story. The girls are clearly being impregnated by Satan. At one point we get to see a foetus being ripped out of a pregnant woman's stomach (it doesn't look very convincing to be fair - more like somebody pulled a plastic doll out of a bag of offal - but the imagery is disturbing enough). Kristen is murdered with a meat cleaver by the shit covered demon.

Caroline is dragged away by the alien to an unknown fate in the second story. Presumably she's going to get a probe stuffed up her arse...

In the third tale - Art decapitates the gas station attendant with a hacksaw...

We also get to see the ruined face of one of Art's earlier victims...

Art also shoots a motorist dead and when he captures the girl he's chasing he amputates her arms, legs and tits and carves words like "SLUT" and "BITCH" onto her body. Thankfully this happens off camera but we still see the truly disturbing end results.

Last of all Art decapitates the two kids that Sarah is babysitting...

JESUS HAROLD CHRIST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RATING  - All Hallows Eve is a truly nasty and disturbing anthology horror. Don't go into this expecting a cosy nostalgic Halloween fable, this is EXTREME stuff. It's not going to be to everyone's taste but if you've got a strong stomach and you're a fan of the Terrifier series then do give this a watch if only to see how Art the Clown got his start in horror cinema.

It's only let down by its flabby and pointless middle story, otherwise this a sleazy, cheesy, disturbing little gem. I'm giving it 4 psychotic clowns out of 5. Worth a look.

POSTER/VHS/DVD ART  -