The worst part of reviewing these movies is describing them.
As I've said many times before, the goal of the A-List is to spread awareness of trash movies with the hopes that people will check 'em out and, ideally, reconstruct their notions of "good" and "bad" movies. Because these movies subvert and play with all of the cinematic conventions we've grown comfortable on (being sheltered since childhood in a Plato's Cave of exclusively good movies...usually), putting them in precisely-defined terms is the most important part of "selling" their value. (More a spiritual and emotional value than a capitalist one, to be sure.) While it is easy for me to simply proclaim the greatness of these films, that method is not effective. And there's always an unsteady balance between revealing the fun and spoiling it. But what complicates the issue further is that there is always an indescribable aura of good in them. An intrinsic sweet substance that flows richly from them, that touch the heart and destabilize the mind. Maybe it's masochistic guilt, or sadistic schadenfreude against the poor souls who tore their chests open to the world and fell so hard. Or soared so high.
Today's movie, fortunately, is one that presents that magic, invisible "trash feeling," while also being easily comparable to "bad movies" that people have a high chance of having already seen. I've heard people compare it to Troll 2. Both are distinctly products of the late '80s/early '90s. Both had foreign directors directing American casts (Indian and Italian, respectively). Both are fucking incredible. Good news, at this point in history statistically you probably either have seen Troll 2 or know someone who can show it to you! That will lead easily in Hack-o-Lantern. Following Hack-o-Lantern may have to be James Bryan's Don't Go in the Woods, or maybe Furious. The goal is to get you to like Manos: The Hands of Fate, and then send you down into Ax 'Em, and finally Hip Hop Locos. It's nearly impossible to get any sort of enjoyment out of what waits on deeper levels, like After Last Season, Where the Dead Go to Die, and Alien Beasts. Love is not applicable to them. They are not even movies. They are Creatures.
This movie gets off to a great start--we have a relatively innocent setup where a young boy named Tommy meets with his grandfather, who is very sweet, if overdramatic and possessed of a voice that sounds like Beetlejuice after six packs of Red Apple cigarettes. Of course, he is a Satanist, who teaches Tommy that blood tastes good and drinking it makes you healthy. Also, he kills Tommy's father by burning him alive. But this is just the beginning. If you think that this movie holds back its weird twists and somehow becomes normal after this intro, you are dead wrong. It's revealed that Tommy's grandpa is incredibly open about being a Satanist, and apparently happily revealed to his daughter that he killed her husband. He even keeps one of his bones on a necklace, which he shows off to her while groping her. It is a scene that is gross by default, true, but the whiplash pacing, poorly-chosen soundtrack, absurd line delivery, and unsettling stylistic changes (rustic thriller to Hammer Horror to POV '80s slasher depending on the scene) make nothing in the film come across as truly fucked-up. It's laughs all the way through, even with some occasional slow bits. Where will Tommy's dark destiny lead him? To heavy metal? To a cool-looking demon mask and burying people alive? Or even to the horrid depths of branding someone's buttcheek with a pentagram...?!
This is one of those films where you can let it play in the background, and 90% of the time when you turn back to it, something crazy is going on. Ass-branding aside, this movie is full of nonsense. The grandpa's mouth is always of both scenery and an ever-worsening Southern accent. People have sex in a graveyard on top of one of the graves. And even dedicated fans of soap operas will be shocked and intrigued by how many times people have the same repetitive conversations about relationships. In all of this, there is perpetually a sense that everyone involved had great fun and they wanted you to have great fun as well.
The issue is, they had to get it to feature length, and thus there are a lot of shots that are just plain uninteresting. Some of them are too dark to see, and others are visually dull next to vibrant shots lit by mood lighting (such as at the Halloween party, which, like everything else in the movie, is full of EIGHTIES). So again, feel free to zone out--just expect to be dragged back in rather hurriedly when the dull shit is over!
I'm always impressed by how this movie, via having the garnishes of poor acting and all the other stuff I mentioned, manages to thrive despite being incredibly generic for an occult thriller. The scenes of Satanic rituals--and indeed, Satan himself is the evil here, because it's not like he's overdone or anything--consist of people in black robes dancing around candlelit pentagrams and drinking from chalices. That's it. It is the original, generic, archetypical "Black Mass" scene. Even the movie's tenuous link to heavy metal had been beaten to death by the '80s by the time this movie came out. Do not come here looking for an original story. The presentation of the story is what matters, because they did indeed manage to fumble literally everything. Everything except showing off lots of boobs.
That combination--failure and simplicity--make Hack-o-Lantern simultaneously charming and spooky. It's great on Halloween, as if you couldn't tell. While it will not frighten you, it may potentially give you goosebumps, which if you're like me will give your life more meaning. I live for spooky shit. I die for spooky shit. And I like laughing at this nonsense.
And sharing it with you, of course.
Hack-o-Lantern is a syzygy, a fusion of two opposites. It is both entirely relatable and entirely alien. It's something that you can jump on no matter what of stage of life you're in, as well as a gateway to something greater. Hack-o-Lantern doles out perspective, and through perspective, we have understanding. And understanding leads to a better world.
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