I have been trying to save the more directly Halloween-themed movies on my list to watch closer to the holiday. Now that the month is more than half over, I rented All Hallows’ Eve. This poster caught my eye when I was looking for upcoming horror releases last year. That clown is probably the scariest clown I have ever seen! The synopsis read like a copycat of V/H/S, so I figured it would be a decent flick.

A babysitter is watching two children after their night of Halloween escapades. While counting candy, the one kid finds an unmarked video cassette (and immediately knows what it is, which I don’t believe a kid from this generation would) and begs his babysitter to let them watch it. There are three tales told on the video about demons capturing women in a train station, an alien home invasion, and a serial killer who just won’t quit. The short stories are all tied together by the malevolent clown, who seems to be the devil pulling the strings behind the scenes.

I felt that the over-arching babysitter storyline was more interesting than the meat of All Hallows’ Eve (the video tape vignettes), whereas in V/H/S the viewers of the tapes only served as a narrative paste to hold the featured tales together. The weakest of the stories was the alien attack. It was like a 6th grader’s class project. The costumes where poor looking and the plot stood still.

I think the best of the trio was the last one, predominantly highlighting Art the (silent) clown. This segment is actually a short film from back in 2011 called Terrifier. I also thought the ending of the babysitter’s night was well done and at times reminded me of The Ring. Despite how good I thought the babysitter hub plot was, I came to this movie for what was on the videotape, and that’s where All Hallows’ Eve falls short.

★★★☆☆

3 horn honks out of 5