The Night Before Halloween (2016 TV Movie) User Reviews

The Night Before Halloween: Terrible premise, terrible execution

[Platypuschow · 4/10 · 30 July 2017]

Scyfy doesn't do horror very often and on the rare occasion they do they don't have the habit of producing anything even remotely watchable.

Bailee Madison stars in this messy little tale which though has an explained concept (As terrible as it is) it doesn't explain itself beyond that and leaves it to the viewer to fill in the blanks.

Poorly made, terribly paced, with forgettable characters and few redeeming features this paint by numbers effort isn't terrible it's just simply not very good either.

A decent enough (Though inevitable) twist near the end saved it a point or two but even that should have been handled better.

If they make a sequel (Which is teased though I doubt it'll ever happen) I just hope everyone packs bug spray and those annoying sticky yellow tape things that catch flies! That would make the movie at least comical.

Move along, nothing to see here

Half-baked horror curse nonsense

[Wuchakk · 4/10 · 31 October 2017]

RELEASED TO TV IN 2016 and written & directed by Sheldon Wilson, "The Night before Halloween" concerns a group of teens who must deal with the ramifications of a Halloween prank gone wrong. It is eventually revealed that they are under the Curse of the Carver: a curse that slays you on the night before Halloween unless you can trick someone into killing someone else.

The overall filmmaking is professional and the cast takes the material seriously and perform proficiently with Bailee Madison & Justin Kelly emerging as the main protagonists. Anthony Lemke is particularly effective as the detective. There's an almost "Wow!" moment at the halfway point where Wyatt (Alex Harrouch) reveals what was really going on during the confusing opening act and I hoped the rest of the movie would change my "Meh" feelings, but it was not to be.

The perplexing curse and the baffling non-creature it unleashes (a bunch of flies that sometimes morph into a partial monster) are too befuddling. If the viewer can hardly understand what's happening how can the teens in the story comprehend their life-or-death situation with any certainty?

Note to emerging filmmakers: Work the kinks out of your premise BEFORE making the movie. The director, Sheldon Wilson, needs to improve his scriptwriting skills because the movies he writes tend to be problematic story-wise ("The Hollow," "Neverknock" and "Stickman") whereas his movies written by others can be quite good for TV-budgeted flicks ("Mothman," "Red, Werewolf Hunter" and "Scarecrow," which is excellent).

The female cast is decent, but not stellar, rounded out by Kiana Madeira as Lindsay and Dani Kind as the secondary detective. Natalie Ganzhorn has a small role as Beth.

THE MOVIE RUNS 90 minutes and was shot in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

GRADE: C-

convoluted curse business

[SnoopyStyle · 3/10 · 28 October 2017]

It's the night before Halloween. Lindsay (Kiana Madeira) invites her friends over. Their other friends Kyle (Jahmil French) and Adam (Justin Kelly) are not there. Wyatt (Alex Harrouch) is killed. It's actually a prank. Megan (Bailee Madison) is scared but Beth (Natalie Ganzhorn) is unconscious after hitting her head. Megan wants to call an ambulance but the others refuse. Kyle goes crazy secretly under The Curse of the Carver. They abandon Beth in the streets to be picked up by the ambulance. Kyle leaves a message explaining the curse and is later killed at midnight. Detective Burke (Anthony Lemke) investigates. One year later, Megan receives a call from Beth despite her being in a coma. The others return to town after similar calls.

It's a convoluted curse and I'm not sure about the fine print. Abandoning Beth in the streets doesn't make sense for most of the characters. It's a lot of teenage stupidity to swallow. The plot is so swiss cheese that I'm not sure which is an actual plot hole. There are lots of conveniences and bad turns. This could have worked as a prank gone wrong or these teens getting cursed. The ongoing curse idea is tiresome which is worst than simply tired. Jumping a year ahead necessitates a lot of questionable plot. The fly monster is intriguing but also presents plenty of questionable logic. This is generally bad.

Stupid poorly executed nonsense

[William_Henry_Pratt · 2/10 · 29 October 2016]

I don't know if executives bother to read scripts anymore. How could this film have gotten green-lit? The characters are half dimensional, the story doesn't make any sense, everything happens very conveniently for the plot to unfold in a tired, uninteresting, and convoluted way. No tension, no suspense, nothing of real interest at all. Lots of misplaced jump scares, yet the film has absolutely no atmosphere which is essential for a horror film. I give credit to the actors for doing what they could with an exceptionally poorly executed, amateurish script. The dialogue is ridiculously bad. The worst part is that there is no catalyst to invoke the villain, who as it turns out is not very scary at all. SyFy has got to pick up their game. This is garbage.

Junk like this plays better on some YouTube channel.

its alright

[plasssaskia · 4/10 · 25 May 2020]

Why did the cops take so long to apprehend Megan and her boyfriend? the flies was not scary, when Megan ran out the warehouse how was she able to do doge so many different cops? she is really lucky because those flies or whatever took forever to kill her

Spoilers ahead

[ms-53741-93586 · 2/10 · 19 May 2020]

WELL THE ENDING IS BAD FOR SURE DIDN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND IT THE HORROR KILLER CAN JUST BE KILLED BY AN FLY SPRAY AND THE KID AT THE END DO NOT EVEN LOOK TERIFIED FROM WHAT HE SAQ

It's ok

[trevorbumbarger · 5/10 · 16 November 2020]

It's ok, but slow and confusing kinda tbh. Wouldn't watch it again. Stupid ending too

Curse of the killer flies?

[TdSmth5 · 5/10 · 9 October 2017]

Some kids play a prank on a friend who ends up electrocuted in the process. So they do the logical thing--drop her off in front of the hospital and escape. Back at home they come up with a story. One of them borrows another's car and tries to escape from something chasing him. He crashes but manages to make a video before he dies.

A year later all the kids start getting texts from the injured girl who is actually in a coma. They go the hospital. There we learn of a stain on the ceiling and flies. One of the kids who's gone missing reappears and shows them the video of the dead guy where things are explained. So it turns out that guy was cursed and the only way to pass on the curse is buy getting someone else killed. Because they were all part of the prank now they are cursed and have this night, the night before Halloween to make someone else die or they will die.

The police are sort of after them and so is the curse--a bunch of flies that can take on the shape of a creature or of weapons. Of course the kids will have different ways of dealing with this, some will be fine with trying to get someone else killed others reject the idea and will try to figure out some other way out.

The Night Before Halloween is a surprisingly good production for a Syfy movie. Unfortunately only the production is good. Everything else isn't. In particular the story, which would be more suited for a short. The problem is that all we focus on is these unremarkable kids we can't even care about. It's actually a relief to see some adults, in the form of the cops. It's also Anthony Lemke who in the role of the main detective gives the most convincing performance. Surprisingly, this movie is all business. There's not much of an attempt at romance, or comedy or anything else for that matter. The problem is that the business of this movie just doesn't convince. It would have helped if the curse didn't come in the utterly unscary form of flies. The idea itself of a curse that has to be resolved in 24 hours isn't a bad idea nor is it new. More should have been done with the idea if an additional writer would have been hired. Granted, this is a pretty bland movie for teens and about teens, I'm not sure though even teens would enjoy this.

Rather problematic but still enjoyable

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 30 October 2016]

When a prank inadvertently kills someone, a group of friends attempting to get away with the crime find themselves stalked one year later by a strange being that's part of a curse against them and they must find a way to stop the deadly creature from taking them all out.

This here turned out to be quite a problematic offering. The vast majority of the problems with this one lies in the fact that there's just not a whole lot of work done here to make the main group likable enough to follow them. The concept of their initial prank is so ludicrous and stupid that it really boggles the mind what it was supposed to accomplish, and then to top it off the idea of them abandoning the whole affair in light of the accident the way they do so here by actually figuring on letting a friend die instead of trying to save her merely to save themselves makes them out as utterly despicable and deplorable so that they deserve the fate that befalls them. How easily they get coerced into going along with it isn't all that much better, and the fact that it almost lets them get away with the accident when a simple matter of innocent explanation all could've saved themselves the trouble and kept themselves from revealing what could've happened would have made the story hold together a lot stronger. There's also the fact that the film here presents itself as such an utter cliché in the manner of how the creature goes about being unleashed against the group which doesn't make any sense why they would need to carry out a dangerous action here in order to let the creature get involved. As well as some typically spotty CGI used in the concept of the flies, these here are what really hold this back even with a few rather decent elements. One of the stronger parts to this one is the actual attack scenes which are some of the most fun and enjoyable parts of this one with the opening prank resulting in a frantic chase down the streets trying to stop them, their first encounter in the hospital room where the creature assembles as flies to confront them in the vicinity of the bedridden-witness and the stellar scenes in the parking lot where they get arrested only to get confronted by the creature again and leads into the crazy encounter at the police station which is a strong highlight series of confrontations here. Even the fun scenes in the later half, detailing their battle in the warehouse that's quite detailed and much more action-packed than anything else in the film while managing to fill in the blanks of one of the biggest unresolved plot-points so far and becomes a spectacular twist ending as well. These here really manage to hold this one up although a vast majority of it's flaws do hold it back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Terrible ending.

[mlhare · 3/10 · 3 May 2020]

I liked the movie but the ending made no sense. If her brother was part of the prank why did we not find out about it until the end? He should have been just as much involved as the rest if them. Why did they have to ruin a decent movie with a terrible ending!?

A prank is just part of a curse.

[michaelRokeefe · 6/10 · 17 March 2017]

Sheldon Wilson writes/directs for the Syfy Channel this creepy bit of horror. The night before Halloween, a group of friends are trying to scare each other with what is thought to be a prank and Beth (Natalie Ganzhorn) ends up in a coma after being accidentally electrocuted. What is unknown among the group, is that newcomer Kyle (Jahmil French), is being secretive of the fact he is trying to rid himself of the Curse of The Carver. He has to trick someone into committing murder before midnight on Halloween Eve or he will be mutilated by a mysterious creature.

That's all I can say; all pranks aren't pranks. All accidents are not accidental. Detective Burk (Anthony Lemke) is finding it hard to believe what the friends have to say about the situation. No one should feel at ease. Fear is for real.

I personally feel that Bailee Madison steals the show. Also in the cast: Justin Kelly, Kiana Madiera, Elisa Moolecherry, Alex Harrouch, Jonah Wineberg and Dani Kind.

Boring af

[zuitsuit · 1/10 · 1 November 2020]

I'm watching this movie right now and the fact that I'm on my phone, writing this review, is enough to show you how bored I am.