Hack-O-Lantern

Get ready for plenty of tricks and treats during HALLOWEEN IN HELL Month at Mondo Mondays, featuring a flurry of freaky films set on everyone’s favorite spooky holiday!

“The power is in the blood!” A kindly old grandpa is actually the leader of murderous satanic cult that likes to give trick or treaters a hell of a good time every Halloween in this looney, direct-to-video ‘80s “slash-terpiece” of holiday horror. When Tommy was a little boy, he saw his grandpa (Hy Pyke, Blade Runner), the wildly over-acting leader of a vicious rural satanic cult, murder his father in a brutal ritual on Halloween night.  Now Tommy is 18 (or rather, a 37-year-old actor playing an 18-year-old) and grandpa is ready to indoctrinate him into all the fun and frivolity of the black arts. But as Halloween night approaches, someone dressed like a member of the cult, whose face is hidden behind a devilish mask (one that has clearly come straight from a nearby Spirit Halloween store), starts murdering people connected to Tommy. Could it be grandpa, Tommy himself, or someone even more sinister behind the increasingly stupefying murders? Supernatural horror, pitchfork slashing and gnarly heavy metal dream sequences (complete with laser eyes and shrunken heads) ensue. A distinctly sleazy combo of bizarre twists, truly weird performances and hilariously shoddy production values makes Hack-O-Lantern a strangely compelling Z-grade Halloween anti-classic from the VHS-era that will trick you AND treat you right! From the director of The Jigsaw Murders. (Dir. by Jag Mundhra, 1988, USA, 87 mins., Rated R)