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LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Hack-O-Lantern (1988) in Movies

Nov 11, 2020

Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

1988 | Horror

6.0

(1 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Hack-O-Lantern is a ride. It boasts a simple plot about a Satanic cult grooming a young boy all the way through adult hood to join their ranks, whilst his siblings just try to enjoy teenage life, and a maniac in a devil mask runs about town killing folk with a pitchfork, all on Halloween night. Standard slasher stuff, but with randomly thrown in music videos, strip teases, and belly dancing. The film even stops dead for a few minutes to show us a stand up comedy routine. It's really really odd.

The whole experience is ball achingly 80s, complete with questionable acting, awkward dialogue, passable gore effects, and an absolutely raging music score. All of the music just sounds like Final Fantasy battle music. It's incredible.

Hack-O-Lantern was aired as part of Joe Bob Briggs 2020 Halloween Special, and is worth a watch to gain some insight into why this films is so weird and disjointed, such as director Jag Mundhra speaking very little English accounting for some of the bizarre dialogue, and his Indian background explaining the out of place Bollywood elements sprinkled throughout. It's a pretty fascinating and quirky horror all in all.

If you're looking for a cheap, ridiculous, and absurd 80s horror, then this ticks all the right boxes.

Kudos

Frank Black recommended Atrium Musicae De Madrid Gregorio Paniagua by Musique De La Grece Antique in Music (curated)

"I didn’t want to have a theme in the records I picked. It’s a record I’ve listened to a lot lately. One of my children is 7 years old and he’s been learning a lot about Greek history recently and picking up tidbits of information. He was saying to me that he really wanted to hear some Greek music. This is not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear some folk music, not some weird shit. He wanted: ‘Ops la! Da da da da!’ Some cheery Greek dance music. I stumbled onto this. I asked him if he wanted Greek or ancient Greek and he said ‘ancient’ because it sounded cool. But this is incredibly trippy. It feels like a play. You don’t know where the down beat is for most of the songs. I have never figured out what about it is actually Greek. It was recorded by Spaniards in the 70s. Whether it's real or impressionistic, I don’t care. I just really like it. There’s a lot of haunting stuff in it. I’ll have the record on late at night when everyone else has gone to bed. It’ll be playing and you’ll hear the voice speaking Greek and squeals. I’ve really grown to love it and know certain pieces. I know they have made other records and I want to get them"

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