SMELLS LIKE 'WEEN SPIRIT
HALLOWARRIOR (15)
Director: Ben Sottak
Screenplay: Ben Sottak
Starring: Milly Shapiro, Shannyn Sossamon, Ajani Russell
Running time: 78 minutes
Shudder
Review: RJ Bland
Like Christmas, Halloween is one of those occasions that has inspired countless genre films over the years. One is all about joy, celebration and goodwill (and Jesus, I guess), while the other is concerned with spooky shit, sweets and jack-o’-lanterns. Both, however, have proved fertile ground for filmmakers. There’s a delicious irony in turning the festive cheer of Christmas into something horrific, twisting a season traditionally associated with warmth, generosity and family into a nightmare. Setting a horror film against a Halloween backdrop, on the other hand, feels like a more natural fit; the darkness and macabre are already baked into the occasion.
If you're looking for some festive frights, there's no shortage of options. You've got classics like Black Christmas (1974) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), as well as the wonderfully chaotic Gremlins (1984). And if you're after something a little more contemporary, there's always Terrifier 3 (2024), which brings a particularly gruesome dose of Christmas cheer to the table. Thankfully, we've got the whole of December to indulge in all this and more. But until then, there are still a few days left before All Hallows' Eve, meaning there's just enough time to get into the Halloween spirit with a horror film set during the spookiest night of the year itself. The obvious place to start is John Carpenter's seminal Halloween (1978), although any number of its wildly varied sequels might also do the trick. Elsewhere, Trick 'r Treat (2007) is practically essential viewing for anyone who wants to soak up the atmosphere of the season, while Haunt (2019) offers a nasty little nightmare built around the pleasures and perils of a Halloween attraction. Then there's the criminally underseen Dark Harvest (2023), a strange, atmospheric slice of supernatural horror that deserves a place on more people's seasonal watchlists. And now, you can add another title to that annual Halloween rotation: Ben Sottak's debut feature, Hallowarrior...
Four years after an unspecified apocalyptic event appears to have wiped out humanity and decimated the world's food supply, a teenage girl named Pumpkin (Milly Shapiro) is doing her best to survive at her family's old farmhouse. She may well be the last person left on Earth, and she knows it. Life has become a monotonous, lonely slog, with little to look forward to beyond the bare necessities of staying alive. One thing that has helped her cope, however, is Halloween, a holiday she and her family once celebrated with almost religious devotion. Despite their absence, Pumpkin continues to observe the tradition, clinging to the familiar rituals as a way of keeping their memory alive. She puts out bowls of sweets for trick-or-treaters who never arrive, decorates the house with spooky paraphernalia and carves jack-o'-lanterns out of footballs, since actual pumpkins no longer seem to grow in this barren new world. She even broadcasts messages over the radio, holding out hope that somebody, somewhere, might be listening.
After four years of this seemingly endless isolation, though, Pumpkin has reached her breaking point. With nothing left to live for, she exhumes the remains of her family and brings them into the house, hoping to spend one final moment with them before ending her own life. But just as she's about to pull the trigger, her radio briefly crackles into life. There's no voice on the other end, just a burst of noise, but it's enough to make her hesitate. For now, at least, the prospect that she might not be entirely alone proves too much to ignore. Exhausted, she eventually drifts off to sleep on the living room floor, only to awaken to an unexpected sight: somebody appears to be helping themselves to the sweets she's left outside the front door. Naturally, Pumpkin attempts to make contact, but the mysterious visitor bolts into the night before she can get a proper look at them. With the possibility of another living person suddenly within reach, she sets off in hot pursuit. After years of solitude, could this finally be the companionship she's been desperately craving? Is there actually somebody else out there? If so, that's good news, right? Errr, not necessarily...
Where has Milly Shapiro been for the past eight years? Since her memorable turn in Hereditary (2018), she’s been largely absent from film and television. There’s no denying that Toni Collette was the film’s leading lady and undeniable powerhouse, but in Hallowarrior, Shapiro is very much the beating heart of the story and she’s bloody excellent, too. She navigates the space between intense vulnerability and fierce determination with remarkable ease. Her character is caught somewhere between childhood and adulthood, and there’s a delightful, sometimes tragic, naivety to her innocence. Her good intentions, as you might expect, invariably land her in trouble.
That trouble is skilfully teased out during the film’s first half. When Pumpkin discovers she isn’t alone, the revelation isn’t simply that there’s another person out there. There are, in fact, three. These post-apocalyptic scavengers, played by Shannyn Sossamon, genre regular A.J. Bowen and Ajani Russell, initially seem friendly enough - even if Pumpkin does catch them looting her house. She sees them as potential family, a chance to belong to something again. We, however, begin to suspect she may be in imminent danger long before she does. This slow, creeping revelation of an insidious threat is arguably Hallowarrior at its strongest. Sossamon, in particular, is wonderfully ambiguous. Beneath her surface-level maternal warmth, there’s an unsettling sense that something far more sinister might be lurking.
The tension that’s been simmering for the best part of an hour finally erupts in a savagely gory final act. There’s some properly gnarly stuff here to delight the gorehounds in the audience. Sure, there are a few bits of CGI (boo!), but for the most part, the effects are gloriously practical. These moments have an almost grindhouse sensibility, although the elegant cinematography by Steven Jacob Russell and ominous score elevate the film above standard exploitation fare. For all its tension and bloodshed, Hallowarrior is ultimately more entertaining than oppressive. It perfectly captures the look and vibe of Halloween and is the perfect film to stick on to get you in the mood when you're carving a pumpkin.
And clocking in at under 80 minutes, with almost all the action confined to a single location, Hallowarrior is a lean, mean affair that wastes little time getting down to business. It also marks first-time director Ben Sottak as one to watch. The climax might not deliver the neat resolution some viewers will be hoping for, but it leaves the door ajar for a sequel. Something we'd be definitely be up for.
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