One of the biggest thrills a person can experience during the Halloween season is visiting a local haunt. The anticipation of something jumping out at you, sending you flying back or screaming in the opposite direction is often unmatched. You are literally experiencing a horror movie as if you are in it, but without the fear of being actually hurt or killed.
Well, maybe.
What if there was a haunt that actually took it that extra step and provided you with the real deal life threatening experience to heighten the fear? What if there was an experience that would make you run as if your life truly depended on it rather than knowing once you leave the room – you’re safe? Would you dare to take part in such a thing? Or would you rather play it safe, stick to what you know is going to be an experience that will leave itself at the door?
Some folks are brave enough to try to find the “extreme haunts” that push the envelope that will have you wondering if your life is truly in danger or if you can easily back out with no repercussions. When a group of friends go on a road trip looking for one of these “extreme haunts”, they stop along the way to ones that are supposedly vicious and uncompromising. With each haunt, a new clue is revealed to find that ever elusive group that will provide them with the scare of their lives. Unfortunately, what they found may end up costing them more than they expected when the “extreme haunt” finds them.
The film based off a documentary follows a lot of the found genre troupes, night vision, shakey cam, the ever so popular line “We need to film this because…” and so on. It’s all here and in abundance. In that aspect it offers absolutely nothing new.
Actually it a lot of aspects it doesn’t offer much new sans some creepy characters and unnerving moments that are spent inside the haunts our cast encounters. Throughout the film, each haunt gets progressively more “extreme” as the character actors push themselves a little too far into their crazed creations. These scenes are probably the best the film has to offer as when the cast is left to their own devices, well, they’re rather uninspiring.
We have the typical group of friends going on a road trip group here, the party animal, the health nut, the “big guy”, the all-around guy and of course, the scared girl. I mean really, they never excel much past their stereotypes and end up being actually more inept than most casts have fared.
For example, let’s say figuratively speaking, you hop online and find a video of you – along with your friends – being filmed while you were sleeping in your camper, filmed by someone who’s not in your circle. Now let’s push that even a little further and you decide you show one of your group said video. Your reaction would be…what?
Well, speaking as a normal, everyday person with half a brain – most of the time anyway – I’d say, it’d be time to wrap it up and go home. Not, “Hey, we can’t tell anyone about this cause they’ll wanna turn around!”, yeah, thanks Dick Tracy – where’d you park the squad car? Insult to injury, the rest of the cast eventually finds out and guess what their reaction mostly is? “We should go home…”, says guy A – “No we can’t do that, it’s part of the experience!”, says guy B – “Okay” says guy A. Um…what? Did that just happen? You wanna know what’s even worse? The guy who suggests not telling anyone isn’t even the guy planning the trip – it’s his FRIEND! So we can’t even run with the whole, “He’s so obsessed at this point he doesn’t care” angle because it’s not even the guy who put the trip together!
Let’s also not forget a rather disturbing moment when the only girl in your group is nearly gang raped by a trio of men dressed up as zombies in a local dive’s bathroom. Actually, let’s forget that because that’s exactly what the cast – including the victim – does. Yep. Seriously, I can’t make this kind of stupidity up.
I’d like to say that eventually the characters smarten up and at the very least become a group you want to root for, but ultimately – they end up sticking to their guns and remain being rather stupid characters that you can’t help but groan at. If one person in the entire cast had one moment where their intelligence didn’t match that of an amoeba, I could run with that, but that never happens. They just all seem so accepting of the whole situation they end up forgetting all common sense favoring idiocy. At the beginning of the trip, it’s just about one guy and his friends looking for this thing. The insult to injury is he’s the only one who basically pushes the group on which makes zero sense because, well, those who are uncomfortable outnumber him and he’s not even the guy driving. So it’s not like, “Hey we’re doing this whether you like it or not”, it’s “Hey, we’re doing this. You don’t like it? Well I do so NAH!”
I mean I can accept dumb casts; I really can, as long as there’s at least one person that takes the high road and does/says something I can agree with. This entire film seems like it has NONE of that. You’re essentially watching the offspring of Harry and Lloyd trek across the south to be scared senseless to realize; they had no sense to begin with. What could have been a very satisfying and potentially grueling experience turns into groan inducing tripe that is only salvaged by some very, very unnerving scenes along with some genuine scares.
The haunted houses the characters visit are very elaborate, and they feature a variety of disturbing characters that provide some vicious scenes of carnage along the way. These are the only instances in which the film is elevated and saves it from being a total waste of time. If you can get through the squabbling of the cast, the rest of the film is worth it for a sit down. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing this one as I feel like most folks would be satisfied with a rental. It’s not a complete waste of time – but it’s too close to suggest dropping down dollars for a copy. Then again, it may be worth someone’s while, however for me, I’d rather revisit more effective films such as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or GRAVE ENCOUNTERS for my found footage fill.
Directed by: Bobby Roe
Starring: Brandy Schaefer, Zack Andrews, Bobby Roe, Mikey Roe, Jeff Larson
THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT is currently available to purchase via VOD, iTunes and Amazon.
