By Melissa Antoinette Garza
My brother bought a DVD 2 pack which had the surprisingly great film All Hallows Eve (2013) and Mischief Night (2013) which I had never seen before.
The cover looked interesting enough and the movie began with a promising open sequence. A woman is in a bathtub together celebrating a romantic evening with her paramour. Someone enters the home, and the woman assumes it’s her husband returning, but instead it’s a man in a yellow rain coat and a mask that looks somewhat like make-up. The couple are murdered, and my assumption was that this scene would have some relevance to the plot and that perhaps we were in store for a whodunit. I was wrong on both counts.
The film shifts to following the story of Emily (Noell Coet) who witnessed the death of her mother years prior. Due to the trauma caused, she lost her vision and was never able to regain her sight. She sees a therapist who prescribes Lexapro which Emily isn’t happy about. She feels that despite the doctors advising there was no medical reason for her blindness, that they’re wrong.
She returns home, hangs out with her boyfriend Jimmy (Ian Bamberg) and her father David (Daniel Hugh Kelly). Soon, she is left in the house alone and an intruder appears. At first, some of the visuals are cool. The man in the yellow coat lingers in the background, watching Emily’s every move. She senses that someone is there but doesn’t know who and at times, thinks its her imagination.
Soon, it’s revealed that there are multiple people, and that sadly this is merely an invasion film. There are several confusing moments in the movie that end up never being explained. In one scene, Jimmy is talking on the phone with Emily and mouths to someone we don’t see on camera to wait. It isn’t quite a red herring, but instead a plot point that was obviously discarded and never explored further.
Emily has nothing to do with the individuals in the beginning of the movie. A motive of the intruders is never discovered. The identity matters not. It’s as if this movie wanted to be like The Strangers (2008),The Purge (2013), Them (2006), or Funny Games (1997) but refused to do the work to build up suspense, tension, or any real depth to the criminals or the victims. I love the film The Strangers, but it terrifies me every time I watch it. From the isolation of the couple, to their helplessness, the atmosphere, tension and brutality of those involved make the film and underrated gem. It doesn’t take much for me to enjoy a home invasion flick. Both versions of Funny Games are excellently cast and ensure the viewers despise the preppy killers in suburbia.
The first issue with Mischief Night is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be, or at the very least doesn’t let the audience in on the sub-genre until the final scene. Sure, we knew a menacing individual with bad intentions was in the house stalking and taunting our protagonist, but we didn’t know if it was someone she knew, someone the viewers were introduced to, if it had to do with her mother’s death, or the original crime that occurred in the beginning of the film. It wasn’t until the abrupt conclusion that the viewers were let in on the fact that it was a simple home invasion flick.
Another issue is our “protagonist.” A blind woman can make for a great lead character in a horror movie. Wait Until
Dark (1967) is probably the best example, but I realize it’s unfair to compare a movie of Mischief Night’s budget and the ability of Coett who has a fairly short acting resume to the legendary Audrey Hepburn, but it is far from just Coett’s believability as Emily that made this movie lacking in nearly every way.
Jennifer 8 (1992) is perhaps a better movie to compare this to. Admittedly, the plot of Wait Until Dark is closer in nature, but I certainly don’t expect any actress to emote or convey the type of self-doubt and fear that Hepburn brilliantly depicted as Susy.
The protagonist of Jennifer 8 was portrayed by Uma Thurman, whose resume was much shorter when the movie came out. Nonetheless, Thurman was able to show her acting chops because the script, direction, and tone of the film allowed her to. Thurman was given the time, dialogue, and situations to display the emotions of a blind woman who was being targeted by a madman. The film dedicated a lot of its running time to introducing the audience to the character and focusing in on her strengths and weaknesses prior to the real danger appearing.
Mischief Night doesn’t give Emily the attention she deserves considering she’s the protagonist. The filmmakers denied the viewers a chance to sympathize with her because the cause of her ailment isn’t revealed until the last act. Worse still, is that Emily is portrayed as someone who isn’t outwardly upset about her blindness. She tells her therapist she has learned to accept it and considers herself well-adjusted and for all intents and purposes she is. (spoilers) This makes the arc (if you can even call it that) when her eyesight returns, a non-event. Even the reveal of how her mother died, was unspectacular. Her mother was texting while driving. Without question, watching your parent die is going to be traumatic, but if the cause of death was pretty mundane considering the murders witnessed in the first act, why the secrecy? Were the filmmakers trying to make a statement about texting? My day job consists of working in insurance. I get angry when anyone uses a phone while driving, but I don’t see the correlation between texting and going blind. I understand Emily was unable to deal with the grief of her mother’s death. I can even understand temporary blindness because of it, but it doesn’t make sense that the filmmakers would hold this information until the end as if it was significant to the audience. It would have made zero difference if the cause of death was discussed during the therapy session within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Absolutely, nothing would have changed.
Why not pull a Tommy (1975) and make it that a young Emily caught her mother with a different man? Her mother and lover could swear Emily to secrecy which then made the young girl go blind. The mother could have felt so guilty she committed suicide without ever telling David. Emily’s guilt over never telling her father could have been the key to why she remained blind. This would have served multiple purposes come the conclusion.
The mother’s manner of dying would have been a surprise. It also would have had a connection to the original couple who were having an affair. Emily at the end could let her father know about the affair, thus ending her blindness. David then would forgive his daughter and probably admit he had known all along but wanted to spare her, not realizing she had seen the affair with her two eyes, thus bringing those two closer together.
The intruder could have been her mother’s ex-lover seeking revenge blaming Emily and David for the suicide. He could simply have been an insane control freak that was unable to let anything or anyone go. The filmmakers could have also drawn a connection to the first murders making him the jealous husband of the woman having the affair. The second person in the yellow jacket could be his new lover who he conned and forced into the crime. Her guilt and inability to actually murder someone would allow a second arc, where an emotionally abused woman finds strength and helps save the life of our equally strong lead character thus ending on a note of the celebration female unity and bravery rather than ending on nothingness.
Would this have made it a great movie? No, but in my defense I wrote this in 10 minutes and just thought of it as writing this review. That said, I stand by that it still would have been a far better ending than what we got. At least, there would have been a parallel between the initial scene and the rest of the movie. At least, the death of Emily’s mother would have meant something. At least, the intruders would have had some sort of motive rather than it being Mischief Night which typically entails throwing eggs and toilet papering houses.
Overall, this movie had promise but it failed to do anything with what it had going for it. Daniel Hugh Kelly is a great actor who always delivers and despite the material gave his best with what he had. The rest of the cast was fine yet the characters were empty. Even the relationship between Jimmy and Emily is empty and insignificant in nearly every way. Nothing happens.
The most irritating scenes were when the intruder for some reason pulled a Michael Myers while looking at Emily. It just didn’t fit and didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense why he just didn’t kill her. If he wanted to illicit fear, that’s fine, but he really didn’t do anything other than follow her to bring out any terror.
I almost wonder if the original plot was different and the studio forced it to be a home invasion film because of the current trend. Whatever the case, it fell flat.
Scared Stiff Rating: 2/10 All Hallows Eve is still worth the $10.00
