"For me, Halloween is the be-all end-all in the slasher series. I grew up with an appreciation for those movies – probably an unhealthy love for those movies. So I wanted to do my own slasher movie and establish a character that could be revisited time and time again. It’s gonna be a return to the golden age of horror, and an establishment of a character that they’ll want to see again and again."
-Tory Jones, Director
Tory Jones is a Kentucky movie director and founder of Jonestown Films. Jonestown began in 2011 with its debut original film KILLBILLIES. The Over the top, goofy, home invasion flick centered around a family reunion targeted by a gang of backwoods hillbillies. Not living up to Director Tory Jones' expectations, the film would not be released for several years after being completed and premiered. In 2016, the course of Jonestown Films changed with the production of THE WICKED ONE. The film premiered at Fright Night Film Fest 2016 to a sold-out crowd of nearly 600 people, securing several awards that same evening for Best Kentucky Film, Emerging Filmmaker Award, Best Kills, Best Score, Best Stunts, and the Audience Participation Award. Seems like one hell of a resume at first, but this movie was far from free of similar production issues.
In an interview Posted By Reverend Leviathan on June 1, 2016, he lays out some of those issues in greater detail.
"We shot the film in 2014 and everything went well at first, but there were some issues on set that I really don’t wanna get into. The people who were helping me do the film sort of dropped the ball, and when we went back to review the footage it was unusable. There were a lot of issues and I wasn’t pleased with it, and I’m not gonna put something out that I’m not pleased with. I’d rather just say fuck it. It wasn’t what I thought it should be especially with this character, and the story sounded more like a sequel; it wasn’t a good script to establish the character. So we decided to reshoot it and do it justice."
So, the question we are left with is this, dear reader. Was it all worth it? Did all the time spent in development hell give this movie a unique voice compared to other attempts at creating a JASON VOORHEES for the next generation?
In short, nope
As a whole, this movie feels like a made-for-TV amalgam of horror cliches and bad acting. There isn't a single well-acted or remotely interesting character in this whole movie, making this a long carousel ride of uninteresting meat bags getting slowly (So fucking slowly) killed off one by one in yawn-worthy kills. There isn't a single attempt to do anything original, and I can't say I'm shocked I ended up watching this movie through TUBI. It's almost like this whole movie is secretly 3 kids in a Micheal Myers trenchcoat attempting to pass themselves off as the real deal.
I cant believe I'm still going to watch the sequel...
3/10
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