Jag Mundhra's second stab at the slasher film (after 1987's snooze OPEN HOUSE) isn't an '80s Halloween-season classic like TRICK OR TREAT or NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, but schlocky horror fans will probably have a good time with it.Hy Pyke (what a name!) is delightfully over-the-top as the grandfather (who is described as 'kindly' in the IMDb summary, but you're never given the impression he's anything but a scumbag) hell-bent on getting his eldest grandson to devote himself to his Satanic cult, a lame-o group that flash gang signs to each other and wear flannels under their devil robes. Meanwhile, someone in the cult is randomly killing people, and it's up to the other grandson, a boyishly handsome cop, to figure out what the hell is going on.It's gorier than a lot of the slashers from this time period (though the body count is low), and just about every female cast member gets naked at some point (except, bafflingly, the most attractive one). Most of the leads have fun with their silly roles. It feels super padded, even at 90 minutes, what with random five-minute glam metal dream sequences and a head-scratching, unfunny stand-up comedy routine that grinds all the Satanic action to a halt.Watchable for sure, whether or not it's worth watching could go either way. Don't spend too long tracking it down, but you could watch way worse.

Young Tommy is given a pumpkin, a toy skeleton, and a pentagram necklace by his weirdly accented grandfather. When his mother learns where he got the pumpkin from, she smashes it. She complains to her husband about the man, and the way he singles out just their one son among all of them. He goes to complain, and gets killed upon observing a satanic ritual the grandfather presides over.Years later, the son is a satanist too, and one of his brothers is a cop. The grandfather doesn't want him to waste his energies on girlfriend, so one of the cultists dresses up in a devil mask and cloak, and she thinks it to be Tommy (this scene is stolen from Carpenter's Halloween). The satanists are fairly careless about whether the pentagram is one point up, or two points upThere are a few musical scenes of bands performing. To some extent this is an element of 80's horror movies, but it also serves to pad out a pretty bare movie. One of these scenes, of lead singer in afro and faux-tribal bikini shooting lasers from her eyes at the band members, who disappear, and pitchforking one of them in the neck is a music video in a dream (!). Several of the real deaths involve pitchforks too, though. We even get a swashbuckling swordfight at a Halloween party.Given the overall cheeziness, viewers might be surprised at the full-frontal nudity scenes that turn up. They will also be unpleasantly surprised at a scene in which the movie comes to a dead halt, while a guy performs his impersonation of a turkey in the wild surrounded by hunters before Thanksgiving. It's not funny in the remotest!The only other Mundhra movie I believe I've seen is the softcore thriller Tropical Heat. In that, he largely wasted nice places shot on location in India, Maryam D'Abo, and Asha Siewkumar. A shame. He's also did the horror movie Open House (1987), and he did the thriller Night Eyes (1990) which spawned three sequels.

Halloween Night is one of those movies that can be very confusing. Some parts are understandable, others leave you thinking. I think that is why I like it. I LOVE low budget 80's style horror movies. Even if you don't like horror, rent it just to see Tommy! He is HOT:) He is also a good actor. I recommend this movie to all.

The particular copy of this movie that I saw was under the moniker "Hack-O-Lantern". In terms of pure gore, the movie didn't exactly live up to the name. It was, however, charming in a typically 80's horror fashion, i.e., just about every chick in the movie gets naked. The plot is nothing new, but it is rendered fairly well. In one particular scene, the movieturns into a music video by the heavy metal band D.C. La Croix. If you like old-school metal like Wasp and Venom you will like the song they have in the movie.Bottom line, the movie needs more gore and a higher body count.