¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #2

THE HALLOW

(January 2015)

Hallow be their name,
And blessed be their claim.

If you who trespass put down roots,

Then Hallow be your name.

A couple, their baby, and faithful family dog Iggy find themselves in the desolate wilds of the Irish woods, where they inadvertently run afoul of the Hallow, described by Garda Davey (Michael Smiley) as “… The good people. Fairies, banshees, baby stealers,” “… a conquered people, forever in hiding, driven from their sacred lands by man with iron and fire.”

The love and respect director/co-writer Corin Hardy has for the creature effects wizardry of FX icons Ray Harryhausen, Dick Smith, and Stan Winston is apparent from the practical manner in which Hardy brings the Hallow to the screen; dis da old school!

And if that’s not enough of a recommendation, there are also appearances from familiar genre faces like Smiley and Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton, yo!), as a scowly, broody, vaguely threatening local.

Parting Shot: Before Hardy brought us his impressive feature debut in The Hallow, he also directed a number of short films and a whole slew of music videos, including one for The Horrors’ “She is the New Thing,” and another for Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know,” which features what could very well be cutesy, music-friendly versions of the Hallow.

Incidentally, Hardy is currently attached to The Crow reboot, so I’m all sorts of excited to see what he can bring to that.

(The Hallow OS courtesy of aintitcool.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 10

“We All Scream For Ice Cream”
Teleplay by David J. Schow; based on “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream” by John Farris; directed by Tom Holland

Layne Bannister (Lee Tergesen, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and a handful of Desperate Housewives episodes) has just moved back to his old home town, in time to watch the members of his childhood gang, the “West End Bunch,” start dropping like flies (apparently getting turned into melting puddles of ice cream, as we see in the episode’s opening sequence).
Playing like an ultimately ineffective variation on Stephen King’s It, this one was a particular disappointment, given the heavy hitters behind it.

John Farris.
I may not have been able to read the original short story on which this episode is based, but I do think Farris’ All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By is an excellent horror novel that really should be read by any self-respecting horror hound. (I wasn’t too thrilled by his Son of the Endless Night, though.)

David J. Schow.
Not only did he write the screenplay for Alex Proyas’ The Crow, but Schow is another kick-a$$ horror writer as well. (Though he did write the scripts for Critters 3 and 4, so take that as you will. He also provided the story for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, where episode lead Tergesen appeared.)

And Tom Holland.
He may have been low-key recently, but he gave us Fright Night and Child’s Play, so he knows his horror films.

So we’ve got three proven names, and what do we get?
Another sub-par MoH hour that feels like an excruciating two.

To begin with, this feels too much like zombiefied Stephen King material: childhood friends as adults, with a secret from their youth that has returned to haunt them.
Not only have we seen this all before, but due to the story’s premise, we are treated to flashbacks, as we see the main characters in their youth, and the secret which plagues them all.
Nothing inherently wrong with that, granted, but when we are asked to endure patently bad performances by child actors (Samuel Patrick Chu, take note), then this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. I kid you not, the flashbacks are agonizing.

And though as I pointed out above, I’m a firm believer in Schow, there are a bunch of lines of dialogue that may sound fine on paper, but rolling off the tongue, they just don’t make the grade. Or perhaps, the performances are again to blame. It gets difficult to tell in this one, particularly when you’re too busy rolling your eyes in incredulity.
All in all, this one gets chalked up as a loss, a particularly painful one, considering the talent behind it.

(We All Scream For Ice Cream DVD cover art courtesy of fangoria.com.)