Hellions (2015)

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

It's Halloween again and my thoughts about this film, which I saw at TIFF 2015, are as mixed as ever. Bruce McDonald's art-house take on Halloween horror is terrific until the frustrating non-ending. I was loving the eccentric direction, off-kilter cinematography, sympathetic performances, mysterious killer kids, end the whole dream-or-reality puzzle. But then...I suppose the short run time should be a hint this is an unfinished movie, but honestly what were the producers thinking, letting this be released? Why not sit down with the director, point out this glaring problem, and offer to scare up funds for some additional writing and shooting to finish a potentially worthy follow-up to his great Pontypool.All that said, I still can't recommend against watching it; you don't want to miss what there is, but be prepared to imagine a third act.

I just figured it out. I like watching terrible movies. Why else would I do it so often? I like them because they give me so much to rant about on IMDb.com. OK movies and good movies are too boring. Everything is so good and well done, who wants to write about that? Give me the unbearable, give me the laughable; I can write all day about that.This mutilated "Children of the Corn" knock off was about a Gothic, slutty, petulant teenager that gets pregnant and finds out about it on Halloween. While staying at home to sulk about her new, and seemingly baffling situation, she's attacked by (I guess) Hellions. Their name is such a misnomer because they looked like wee little ones in costumes. These annoying little cretins won't stop until they have the child in Dora's belly. For some reason we're supposed to care about little goth girl during her fight for her life. Maybe because she wore white? The entire time the hellions are staging their attack the soundtrack alternated from "Silent Night" to kids chanting and yelling in unison. What Silent Night has to do with Halloween is beyond me, but the kids "singing" wasn't scary it was annoying. This entire movie for that matter wasn't scary. They went for cheap cinematic triggers such as flashes of random images, sepia tones for about a third of the movie and exploding pumpkins. Yes... exploding pumpkins. Because what drums up fear from the depths of your soul more than exploding pumpkins.When I wasn't being assaulted by terrible acting and a worse script I was trying to figure out if she was dreaming or awake because they bounced back and forth between the two so often. Eventually I gave up and assumed I was the one dreaming. I had to be because why would I watch a movie like this? This must be a nightmare.

Hellions (2015) * (out of 4) Seventeen-year-old Dora Vogel (Chloe Rose) learns that she's pregnant on Halloween. After receiving the news she decides to skip a party and stay home where she's soon being terrorized by a group of trick or treaters.HELLIONS got quite a bit of pre-release buzz and the folks at IFC Midnight hyped the film up making people think they were finally going to get another classic that took place on Halloween. The buzz was pretty high for the movie but the end result is somewhat of a joke because I found the movie to be really, really bad on so many different levels. Were horror fans really this desperate for a film set on Halloween that some would praise this thing? There have been several movies based around the psychological issues of a woman who finds out that she is pregnant. That's obviously what this movie was going for but the biggest problem is the fact that the film never really gets inside this character's head and not for a second is there any sort of tension or mind games that scare you. In fact, the "world" created by the various visions here are all rather good looking but they're just flat and contain no energy or scares. THE WIZARD OF OZ these images are not.Another problem with the film is that it's simply deadly dull because there are just so many fake dream sequences that you really grow tired with what you're watching. When your lead character keeps going through a nine month pregnancy over the course of a night you pretty much know what's going on and the eventual twist means zero. I will say Rose was decent in the lead role and it's always nice seeing Robert Patrick but HELLIONS is just a really bad horror film that once again is all hype and nothing else.

This movie popped up in an email from Netflix as "something you may enjoy". Netflix, you couldn't have been more wrong. To be honest, I'm still not sure what the hell I just watched. I thought it started out decent. It felt like I was watching The Strangers, but with children; home invasion and children, two very creepy things in my opinion. The movie quickly turned into "demons from hell" type movie, which I could get on board, if it weren't for the quick turn it made into that direction. Some people say it's a pro-life propaganda movie, which I could kind of see, but that also may be reaching a little bit. I thought the acting was good in some spots; I thought the music was definitely creepy (Christmas sounding music with a child like tone); and I thought some of the visual effects and costumes were cool.What I didn't like were the lingering effects in scenes that looked choppy (the constant shot of her in the hanging sheets). I thought some of the dialogue was extremely lame. And, because the movie kind of goes by so quick, it's really hard to pin down what is actually happening. I felt like the film maker had a bunch of different good ideas in his head, and instead of picking one and running with it, he crammed everything into one movie. Overall I think the movie could have been so much better. There are definitely good elements there, they just need to be justly presented.