10/31 – review

Directors: Justin M. Seaman & Zane Hershberger

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

So, I stumbled over this one on YouTube (the Kings of Horror channel) and as far as I knew it was just a Halloween themed horror anthology (there is a horror host but she appears at the beginning and end only).

It just so happened that segment 1 contained a ‘world’ vampire type and segment 2 had a vampire (and an unusually situated one at that). They also happened to be two of the better segments. So, what are we waiting for, let’s look at them…

Tyler and Kevin

Segment 1 was directed by Justin M. Seaman and is called Old Hag. Now the hag (Jedediah Giacchino) is definitely seen as a vampire type (often crossing into witch/vampire) in the Circum-Caribbean and African diaspora but also appears within European folklores (and gave her name to the psychic vampirism of being hagridden). In this, when eventually described, there is a portrayal of her sitting on her victim’s chest and strangling them – tying into the Nightmare and folkloric vampirism.

Cindy Maples as Kathy

The segment sees us at a bed and breakfast on Halloween. Tyler (Nickolaus Joshua) and Kevin (Mitchell Musolino) are aspiring filmmakers who have answered a Craigslist ad to make an advert for the guest house. As requested, they have brought a proposed script and their equipment. Owner Kathy (Cindy Maples) suggests they film straight away – they can always stay over. As things go on Tyler keeps seeing the Hag, at first thinking her a guest. Kevin, dismissive, takes up the offer of the bed for a night.

chest sit

Kathy keeps on yawning through and one might suspect that she has been drained of energy. She admits that she never sleeps properly (bar one night of the year) and it is not a stretch to believe that the activity that prevents her sleep can be described as an energy vampire attack – as though she is the year-round sustenance and the boys are due to be gorged on. We do get a proper chest sit and throttle…

Jeff and Stephanie

Segment 2 was Zane Hershberger’s Trespassers. It starts with a couple, Jeff (Chad Bruns) and Stephanie (Sable Griedel), who leave a Halloween night film early because it was rubbish. He is new to the town and she still wants to be scared so she takes him to the old Martin place. This place, she tells him, was the land belonging to some gypsy people who were run off and the land bought out by a Mr Martin (Dave Joseph). However, a scarecrow (Jedediah Giacchino) appeared and Mr Martin went mad and killed his family.

the scarecrow

The abandoned house is still there but Stephanie wants to see the scarecrow. More, she wants to answer the mystery of what that scarecrow was and so cuts it down. Under the sackcloth, however, is a rotten face – a face that awakens and bites her neck… It then reforms into a horrific vampire form. But, you may ask, is it a vampire… beyond the neck bite and the fact that it seems to produce mist and is called vampire in the credits, Jeff works out that it was attached to a cross and that Mr Martin killed his family because they had been turned… but… it is still there of course, and Stephanie has been bitten…

vampire

These were great fun little shorts (and probably the best in the whole anthology). I liked the putting the vampire as a scarecrow thing, it was really fun and the denouement is satisfying. The photography was well done and all in all this had a lot going for it if you like your anthologies. The score is for the two vampire segments, which are unusual and deserve 6 out of 10. As I write you can find the film here.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK