PLOT: Desperate for companionship on a post apocalyptic Halloween night, the Last Girl on Earth gets more than she bargained for, when something far more sinister arrives on her doorstep.
REVIEW: Post-Apocalyptic stories can often feel much like the same thing over and over again. So I was excited to see Hallowarrior take the concept, and do something a bit different with it by focusing on the holiday of Halloween. It follows Pumpkin (Shapiro), who holds out hope that she’s not the only person left in the world and puts out radio messages with her exact location. She’s so lonely that she doesn’t even think about how that could possibly go wrong. So when a mysterious group shows up, she’s none the wiser until it’s almost too late, and now she has to fight to survive. Oh, and she really likes to decorate for Halloween.
Milly Shapiro does well in the role of Pumpkin, and you can really feel her loneliness. I’m also not sure if anyone has a better scream in horror, as it’s utterly guttural. Unfortunately, the character is a bit underdeveloped, and everything feels half-baked. They don’t really take advantage of some of her weird tendencies (like digging up her parents to hang out on Halloween), and she doesn’t take charge soon enough. I was really hoping for more of a Becky, who would be able to kick ass, but Pumpkin doesn’t have much fighting spirit. She always has to be coerced by Wendy, the girl who takes a liking to her from the group of strangers.
Things pick up once Shannyn Sossaman and AJ Bowen arrive, but they are so plainly evil that it just makes Pumpkin look dumb for not noticing. I get that she’s very lonely and isn’t thinking straight, but they may as well have nametags that say “Hello, I’m a bad guy.” There’s not much subtlety there. While the group that they’re with is interesting in theory, they’re all wasted, without enough time to even establish them as proper threats. And can we please stop doing the cannibal thing in a post-apocalypse? At least this one makes a good excuse for it, but I immediately stop caring when that element is introduced in these kinds of films.
Also, I’m not sure if it’s just because I was traumatized by Return of the King as a kid, but I hate extended wrap-ups and this one is pretty egregious for how little actually happens within the story. I zoned out and realized it was still going, despite nothing really advancing forward. Maybe they were just trying to get it across a certain runtime threshold, but it feels like it’s never-ending.
Hallowarrior is ambitious with its ideas but never quite manages to execute them fully. I kept waiting for it to enter a higher gear, but it always just sort of stays in first. While the synopsis makes it seem like we’d be getting horror Home Alone, that’s not really what this is. The intruders mostly just walk into Pumpkin’s Halloween décor. I really wanted traps that would mess these guys up, so that was disappointing. There are a few moments of violence but it’s always pretty brief.
I could absolutely seeing Hallowarrior connecting with others, but it just didn’t land for me. I can appreciate the production design and the good performances, but I wasn’t invested in these characters or this world. The more time I spent in it, the less unique it felt, and the decision-making just further cements that. I also wish films would focus on creating just one story rather than trying to set up for sequels. But I’m glad Shudder is still doing movies like this, even if this one didn’t work for me.
Hallowarrior is now streaming Shudder and AMC+.
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