All Hallows’ Eve 2 (2015) (DVD Review)

All Hallows’ Eve 2 (2015) (DVD Review)
Directed By: Various
Starring: Landon Ackerman, April Adamson, Ali Adatia
Rated: UR/Region: 1/Widescreen/Number of disc: 1
Available From IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT

Alone on Halloween, a young woman finds a mysterious VHS tape on her doorstep—a tape that shows a series of gruesome and ghastly tales that appear to be all too real. But these terrifying glimpses of damned souls are not the only horrors that stalk her. A sinister, pumpkin-faced killer is using the videotape as a portal into our reality; and if he makes it through, this twisted trickster seeks only one “treat”: blood.

All Hallows’ Eve 2 keeps the same name as the underrated orignal, but it does make a lot of changes while still keeping basically the same concept. For starters, you might notice that the creepy Clown “Art” isn’t here. That’s because the solo director, Damien Leone, of the first film created the character and since the sequel seems to be out of his hands, I guess he got to keep the clown, which is a negative as he was much creepier than our pumpkin faced “Trickster” here. This one also offers us nine total directors and recycles a few shorts we’ve already seen online, or in some cases were made for something else all together. Still, All Hallows’ Eve 2 manages to entertain us and keep us watching with only a couple weak spots along the way. Our wrap-around story is what it is. It is predictable and you expect it to go where it goes. From there, Jack Attack opens things as pumpkins seem to want to get back at all those who wish to carve them. This one takes no prisoners and offers up a lot of gore. The Last Halloween shows us some door to door trick-or-treaters, it offers up some creepy stuff, but doesn’t blow us away by any means. A Boy’s Life might drag a bit, but the meaning of it and the results make-up for it in my opinion. This is where our anthology really gets a bit artsy and it is effective.

As I keep on going over the eight segments in no order, let me talk about perhaps the worse of the bunch, The Offering. This one seems to be just tossed in for time, because nobody is going to be talking about this rather pointless and quick segment when all is said and done. Descent is a goodie, as it follows the results of someone stuck in a closet during a murder. What follows is pretty clever and has a nice twist to it. I dug that one a lot. M Is for Masochist, was another short but bloody one. If you couldn’t guess by the title, this was meant for The ABC’s of Death, but didn’t make the cut there. Alexia is another segment we’ve seen before online that finds its way into the mix. It has been seen by some before, but it is still effective, as a guy tries to move one from a past love that might want to move on herself. The only segment left to talk about is Mr. Tricker’s Treat, which deals with a loon keeping people in cages, it is what it is there. Basically, after the success of All Hallows’ Eve they wanted to keep it going and did so with more of a collection of shorts not meant to be together that are attached together by a wrap-around. It isn’t as strong as the first, it isn’t as clever as something as Tales from Halloween, but it is still a fun watch anyway and worth a view if you dug the first one.

Extras

– None