Review: Hallows Eve: Slaughter on 2nd Street By Brian Kirst
www.hallowseve.com
Director and co-writer PJ Starks wisely begins his Hallows Eve: Slaughter on 2nd Street with plenty of gore strewn bloodshed in the film’s opening and doesn’t let it up for the film’s entirety. Starks also presents all the twisted back stories and beloved clichés that slasher film fans appreciate within the walls of the troubled haunted house where the majority of his film takes place.
Upon having his cash cow closed due to a series of fatal accidents, a business owner invites a group of struggling parapsychologists to investigate his deserted haunted house. Of course, he has a secret history and several surprises up his sleeve. Unbeknownst to him, though, there is something even more malicious at play between the boards of his creaking, ghastly pen of horrors and soon the body count has risen to algebraic equations.
Stark’s giddily bleak world (where the red stuff is always flowing) contains some awesome death scenes including an axe to the crotch of one feisty worker and an amazingly agonizing death by squishing door.
Despite all these positives, Stark is undone somewhat by his unseasoned cast. In fact, the bland un-magnetic performers make this fun, fairly accomplished film a chore to slog through at points.
Thankfully, Kevin Mundy as a pot smoking joker, Marty Moorman as a sarcastic guard and Robert Zambrano as the mysterious caretaker pick up a lot of the slack with their personality filled antics.
Starks is full of talent and an obvious love for the genre. Here’s hoping in his next outing that his cast can reach out for the limb strewn stars along with him.
