HAUNTEDWEEN - A few years before it all changed with the advent of 'Scream' and a new generation of sassy but lightweight teen slashers, the guy in the mask with the sharp implement was still knocking them off like it was 1982. 'Hauntedween', from 1990, gets a lot of love, though maybe the kind afforded to the evolutionary stragglers of a soon-to-be-extinct species. All the usual elements are present sans irony, including a bunch of rowdy college kids who just want to party in that deserted house with the f*cked up backstory - it's Halloween, that's why! It plays like someone's rounded up the cast-offs from a dozen frat house comedies and tacked on some gore at the end. That's OK, it doesn't lack period charm, but it misses the kind of inspired incompetence that lit up some other late party slashers such as 'Night Screams'.
STOPMOTION - Robert Morgan is known for his horror animation. His movie debut features 'The Nightingale's Aisling Franciosca as Ella, an animator who struggles with her controlling mum and boyfriend; when her mother's health crumbles, Ella's project takes on a macabre life of its own. Anyone familiar with the director will be unsurprised to find that he weaves in the kind of grotesque imagery more central to his previous work, but 'Stopmotion' doesn't want to be 'Mad God', opting instead for less clay and more character. If the 'Repulsion'-like scenario - isolated female protagonist withdraws from reality and passes into what seems like the hinterland of her own madness - is a horror mainstay, it works well here by virtue of 'Stopmotion's relentless claustrophobia; everyone's just a bit of an arsehole, even the lead, meaning there are no psychological footholds, no-one to root for, nothing to open up any room between the walls of toxicity. It adds up to quite a pungent atmosphere if you go along with it. The mix of model work and live action is deftly handled, and the whole thing looks the part, with a refined palette and visual style that makes the most of 'Stopmotion's dingy interiors and bursts of gore. I kind of wanted to be a bit more wowed than I was, but I thought it was solid.
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