I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is the blind person terrorized by an intruder film. There has been nearly a dozen of these made and I thought this was one of the worse. Emily Walton (Noell Coet) who is psychologically blind from an automobile accident where her mother (Shannon Makhanian) died, must defend herself against an intruder on mischief night.There were only three characters introduced besides Emily. Two of them are victims and the third is doubtful, leaving you with a senseless meaningless film that is simply a break-in for the sake of a break-in. No twist.Emily is blind, but watches TV and turns the lights on. Had the feel of a made for TV drama. I didn't feel the intensity or horror.Parental Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

It's the night before Halloween. Lindsay (Kiana Madeira) invites her friends over. Their other friends Kyle (Jahmil French) and Adam (Justin Kelly) are not there. Wyatt (Alex Harrouch) is killed. It's actually a prank. Megan (Bailee Madison) is scared but Beth (Natalie Ganzhorn) is unconscious after hitting her head. Megan wants to call an ambulance but the others refuse. Kyle goes crazy secretly under The Curse of the Carver. They abandon Beth in the streets to be picked up by the ambulance. Kyle leaves a message explaining the curse and is later killed at midnight. Detective Burke (Anthony Lemke) investigates. One year later, Megan receives a call from Beth despite her being in a coma. The others return to town after similar calls.It's a convoluted curse and I'm not sure about the fine print. Abandoning Beth in the streets doesn't make sense for most of the characters. It's a lot of teenage stupidity to swallow. The plot is so swiss cheese that I'm not sure which is an actual plot hole. There are lots of conveniences and bad turns. This could have worked as a prank gone wrong or these teens getting cursed. The ongoing curse idea is tiresome which is worst than simply tired. Jumping a year ahead necessitates a lot of questionable plot. The fly monster is intriguing but also presents plenty of questionable logic. This is generally bad.

Some kids play a prank on a friend who ends up electrocuted in the process. So they do the logical thing--drop her off in front of the hospital and escape. Back at home they come up with a story. One of them borrows another's car and tries to escape from something chasing him. He crashes but manages to make a video before he dies.A year later all the kids start getting texts from the injured girl who is actually in a coma. They go the hospital. There we learn of a stain on the ceiling and flies. One of the kids who's gone missing reappears and shows them the video of the dead guy where things are explained. So it turns out that guy was cursed and the only way to pass on the curse is buy getting someone else killed. Because they were all part of the prank now they are cursed and have this night, the night before Halloween to make someone else die or they will die.The police are sort of after them and so is the curse--a bunch of flies that can take on the shape of a creature or of weapons. Of course the kids will have different ways of dealing with this, some will be fine with trying to get someone else killed others reject the idea and will try to figure out some other way out.The Night Before Halloween is a surprisingly good production for a Syfy movie. Unfortunately only the production is good. Everything else isn't. In particular the story, which would be more suited for a short. The problem is that all we focus on is these unremarkable kids we can't even care about. It's actually a relief to see some adults, in the form of the cops. It's also Anthony Lemke who in the role of the main detective gives the most convincing performance. Surprisingly, this movie is all business. There's not much of an attempt at romance, or comedy or anything else for that matter. The problem is that the business of this movie just doesn't convince. It would have helped if the curse didn't come in the utterly unscary form of flies. The idea itself of a curse that has to be resolved in 24 hours isn't a bad idea nor is it new. More should have been done with the idea if an additional writer would have been hired. Granted, this is a pretty bland movie for teens and about teens, I'm not sure though even teens would enjoy this.

Scyfy doesn't do horror very often and on the rare occasion they do they don't have the habit of producing anything even remotely watchable.Bailee Madison stars in this messy little tale which though has an explained concept (As terrible as it is) it doesn't explain itself beyond that and leaves it to the viewer to fill in the blanks.Poorly made, terribly paced, with forgettable characters and few redeeming features this paint by numbers effort isn't terrible it's just simply not very good either.A decent enough (Though inevitable) twist near the end saved it a point or two but even that should have been handled better.If they make a sequel (Which is teased though I doubt it'll ever happen) I just hope everyone packs bug spray and those annoying sticky yellow tape things that catch flies! That would make the movie at least comical.Move along, nothing to see here