Advance Review: Halloweed (2016)

This movie is terrible… and that’s why I loved it.

Let’s just go ahead and clear the air because I don’t want anyone jumping into this thinking it’s ever going to be more than a Millennial cult classic or a late night, stoned out of your mind Redbox rental. The title is literally Halloweed, a play on John Carpenter’s Halloween as the movie is about the son of a serial killer living in a small town where another notorious serial killer is on the loose. But knowing this as soon as you hit play allows you to sit back, relax, and enjoy what could easily become an October tradition for you and your friends. Grab your munchies cause we’re about to enjoy some Halloweed.

Halloweed is the story of Trent Modine (Shannon Brown), son of the infamous Bridgeport Butcher, and his closeted, idiot stoner half-brother Joe (Simon Rex). The movie opens up with an animated music video of the duo driving through a landscape littered with the main cast of characters on a highway towards the state penitentiary. They’re on their way to say “goodbye” to Trent’s father before faces the electric chair. After his father’s execution Trent makes possibly the laziest -and seemingly accidental- suicide attempt ever by swallowing a bottle of his ex-girlfriend’s estrogen medication and chasing them with a handle of whisky before passing out on the DVR remote, pausing the television on a tourist commercial for a desolate little town in the middle-of-nowhere. The next morning he wakes up and decides he needs a change. He decides he needs a fresh start.

He decides that he’s moving to Mooseheart!

And viewers decide to start blazing it right about here.

Trent and Joe end up having to hitchhike, which leads us to about a five-minute long gag about Joe offering a trucker a hand job for a ride reminiscent of a couple of scenes from costar Jason Mewes’ 2001 stoner classic Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The trucker politely declines but Joe insists on repaying him for his kindness and before long the entire cab of the truck is hot boxed in a semi-pointless montage of the trio getting high along the freeway.

Mooseheart is a town that thrives on its reputation as America’s most haunted city thanks to its low employment rate, high suicide rate, and the looming specter of the Candy Corn Killer who hasn’t actually committed a murder since his spree in 1984. Oh yeah, as if that wasn’t scary enough, it’s election season and the incumbent, incompetent Mayor Price is running against the equally delusional and out of touch Judge Pilmington. To make matters worse, the most useless police duo since the remake of Starsky and Hutch is on a mission to harass, abuse, and cavity search everyone they meet. Even so, Trent hopes to find a fresh start and soon has a job with the local suicide prevention center where he meets Madison, the girl of his dreams. Meanwhile, Joe has found a lucrative career usurping Patch, the town’s one-eyed, jack-of-all-trades drug kingpin. The brothers move in with Lloyd, a colorful, degenerate, borderline pedophilic junk peddling lunatic and life is good.

Well, until the killings begin.

Judge Pilmington is the first to die at the hands of the onesie-wearing, baby face masked knife-wielding maniac and, when the mayor’s son reveals Trent’s unfortunate heritage, all eyes turn to him as the most likely suspect. Bodies get stacked, accusations fly, and oh so much marijuana burns. Eventually, Trent and Madison are able to track down and confront the killer before riding off into the smoky sunset of happily ever after. And don’t worry about Joe. He finds love -or at least a one-night stand- and some happiness as Mooseheart’s new drug kingpin because, as we’ve all learned over the course of the movie, he who has the weed, has the power.

Okay, now we’ve got to look at the facts. This movie was clearly made to be an absurd parody and some of the scenes, especially the execution at the very beginning of the film, are just over the top ridiculous. I mean, they’re putting on the Bridgeport Butcher’s death like a viewing party complete with paper hats, popcorn, and groupies. To be honest, the whole thing felt like an episode of Adam Green’s short-lived horror/comedy Holliston. The deadpan, almost uncomfortable delivery of lines, far-fetched segues, occasional 4th-wall-breaking nods to the audience and the jokes that felt like inside jokes that maybe you weren’t supposed to get gave it that unique touch. You knew you weren’t seeing the cast and crew at their best and they knew it too. It was part of the joke all along. Shannon Brown, who played Trent, was fantastic for the lead and gave off that exasperated, “let’s just do this already” undertone to the character that only enhanced the film’s unusual self-awareness.

And since we’re talking about the cast let’s take a look at the B-list extravaganza that graced the screen. Simon Rex, Danny Trejo, Jason Mewes, Lester Speight, Ray Wise, Deja Dee, Tom Sizemore and Robert Craighead brought an ensemble of bit players to life for this movie. In fact, Danny Trejo, in particular, is one of the biggest reasons I watched this movie. I love him in just about every role he plays and I’ve got to say that, despite not having a hell of a lot of screen time, I thoroughly enjoyed the gruff, quirky humor he brought to the one-eyed drug dealer Patch.  And, as usual, Ray Wise brought his own brand of mentally scattered lunacy to Judge Pilmington. There’s the standard-issue crudeness that a movie like this normally brings, most of it from the drug-dealing Joe and lunatic perv Lloyd but it’s nothing over the top. Deja Dee’s Officer Johnson and her anal cavity searching fetish also provided more than a few cheap laughs along the way.

I’ve seen plenty of bad movies but I can tell you that this isn’t one of them. Nah, it’s not going to win any awards but the cinematography is solid, the acting on point with the writing and direction, and the effects were decent, save for a single knife near the very end that was clearly rubber. But with an estimated (and sort of surprising) budget of about $450, 000 dollars it was clearly a labor of love for the cast, crew, and producers to bring about. And besides, it’s still a million times better than most of the SYFY channel originals we’ve seen in the last five years. So this Halloween, grab you some candy corn, fire up a bowl, and enjoy some Halloweed.

Halloweed will be available on VOD on October 18th and on DVD on November 8th.