Mischief Night (2013) Reviews

• Mischief Night - Don't get too excited..

  homecoming82014-07-21

  The blu-ray cover tells us it's "An Old School slasher". I don't remember them being so boring. It also tells us it's "The Purge meets The Strangers". Or you could also say "Halloween meets You're Next". All of the above titles I love, this mix doesn't deliver in any way. In the opening sequence we're introduced to a couple of annoying characters but maybe that's deliberately done because they'll be dead before the credits roll. Unfortunately, it's not and the rest of the fairly unknown cast is mediocre at best. We have an aged Ally Walker (Universal Soldier, When the Bough Breaks) with too limited screen time, because she's the only convincing character. In the beginning of the movie when the blind girl is picked up by her father we have a shot from the front were his jacket is open. In the next frame from the side, his jacket is mysteriously closed. This contingency error is repeated not twice, but four times.. It's also hard to swallow the fact that the blind girl seems to know her way around the house perfectly when we've been told they only live there for 2 months. The biggest problem however is that the writers or director didn't know what to do with the story. We have vague flashbacks of the car accident which ended the life of the mother. Than we have our usual suspects like the Ally Walker character, the boyfriend or the father. But he turns up in the closet at the end, bounded by the killer ("Scream" anyone ?). This all had to have something to do with the identity and the motivation of the killer(s). Since none of the makers could possibly find an explanation, it's simply revealed by one of the killers that they did it because "it's Mischief Night". The body count isn't impressive and the special effects are very limited to gunshot wounds and a knife in the throat. (the highlight, but ruined by the fact that the blood comes from the elevated hand of the killer instead of the actual throat of the victim. Is there any good news here ? The masks are scary, certainly in combination with the yellow raincoat. Too bad the killers aren't, particularly when one of the follows the blind girl instead of just killing her. Can't recommend it. Watch the excellent "You're Next" instead. I have already seen that one three times in the last year. "Mischief Night" is certainly not worth another look - ever.

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• A Very Weak Endeavor at Being Scary With a Painfully Derivative Script

  DareDevilKid2013-11-06

  Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK) Rating: 1.5/5 stars A mediocre, run-of-the-mill horror film, with a done-to-death plot, flimsy back-story, and completely derivative scare elements, which we can now conjure up ourselves even in a state of slumber. This weak endeavor at chilling our senses might have encountered some moderate success 10 to 15 years ago, but now with the gargantuan influx of myriad horror films that have flooded our cinema halls and DVD shelves, such a derivative film must at least be treated uniquely and the characters need to be given some depth to make it enjoyable for the viewers.

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• Mischief night wishes it was as bad as The Purge.

  face-819-9337262013-11-20

  From the start this movie is just not serious enough not to be the complete joke that it is, and this is no comedy. The only mischief this movie gets up to is an over indulgence in add-libs, and a real lack of a good story. If you watched any of the "large number" of Gene Simmons wife's movies from the 90's or Halloween you have already seen this twice. A question asked by O'Connor in the movie is "what is mischief night?" No one ever gives a real answer, and we are just supposed to believe that it is a night that has always just been around. Don't waste any time with this movie, you want a good scare find a Rob Zombie movie with numbers in the title. You won't Enjoy this, I know I sure didn't.

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• Great Little Film

  innerboyka2013-11-01

  I went into this film with zero expectations and was *very* pleasantly surprised. Film is about a teenager, Emily, who becomes blind after being in a car accident that killed her mother. The actress playing Emily, Noell Coet, turns in a very strong performance. I can see her becoming a major star. The movie suggests Emily's blindness is psychosomatic. Anyhow, Emily and her father move into a house, where we see the previous occupants get slaughtered on "Mischief Night". Well, Mischief Night is back, and the miscreant who killed there before is back. Except this time, Emily's dad has left on a date and Emily is alone. The psycho killer enters the house and eventually a taut game of cat and mouse ensues between the killer and this blind girl. The killer is scary and there are some scenes that are very creepy. There are a few things in the film that are not explained (which I won't reveal), but in the end, they don't detract from the film. If you want a good suspenseful movie, check this one out!!

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• Above-average home invasion slasher

  kannibalcorpsegrinder2014-12-10

  Staying home the night before Halloween, a young woman learns that a group of masked intruders have broken into her home and must try to prevent her blindness from handicapping her struggle to protect herself. This was a surprisingly enjoyable and entertaining home-invasion effort that does manage to get a few things right. One of these is the rather ingenious use of the leads' blindness which is put to great effect here in several chilling moments. The fact that this allows for a break-in earlier than expected to play off the scenes of her being unable to see the guy standing in the house or following her up stairs that any rational person would be quite easily noticed during this time so that adds a rather dark, chilling tone to the proceedings. That also helps out in the later half when the intrusion is discovered as there's plenty of suspense to be wrought from whether or not she's capable of handling the threat and must fight them off in several rather creepy encounters. The growing sense of unease it builds up before the reveal makes for a wholly enjoyable tale as this one really manages to work in some fine slasher style theatrics as it goes around bumping off the few locals around her to make it worthwhile which manages to highlight the first of a few problems here. The low body-count certainly doesn't allow for a lot of actual slicing and dicing, forcing this one to spend a lot of time not really doing anything. It gets old after a while seeing her just wander around the house as the intruder stands blankly behind her not doing anything, and this makes for quite a troubling start to this one. As well, once it gets going there's no shortage of scenes meant simply to prolong the inevitable here as the scenes of everyone going around looking for trouble manages to put them into it and carry the film along when it really doesn't have to and common sense would tell a different story than how to proceed as opposed to how this one goes about it. Lastly, the concept for this whole film is based on such retarded and ridiculous reasoning that there's hardly anything about it that comes off logically and just holds up the film for being quite lame. Otherwise, this one here isn't really all that bad. Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

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