Four guys and a girl from Ohio get into an RV during the last week of October and head south in search of the most extreme Halloween haunted house attractions in out-of-the-way, rural areas. Apparently, that’s where you find the best ones. Our road trippers have wisecracks, lots of beer and at least fifty-two video cameras for documenting it all, which means that YES, this is another found-footage horror film. True to form, the shaky cameras are annoying and so are the characters. This one isn’t all THAT bad, though. Right away, first-time feature director Bobby Roe (who also co-wrote and appears as one of the main cast) lays out a bunch of eerie reasons to distrust the haunted house business. Sometimes real people die in them and the crowd thinks that it’s merely a part of the entertainment. Also, fly-by-night businesses like this don’t do background checks, which means that they sometimes hire on real psychos and rapists and nutjobs to play a part in the scare show.
Sounds like a movie, to me.
Bobby Roe jumps on it and comes up with some nicely fucked-up scenarios as masked crazies from past haunted houses seem to follow our heroes across Texas and into Lousiana. They show up in the road in the middle of the night or they bang on the windows of their vehicle. Sometimes they accost them in bars or out in the woods where they’ve wandered out to take a private piss.
It’s a crazy idea that deserves a little craft behind it. This would be a better movie without the Amateur Hour presentation. That’s a criticism and a compliment at the same time.