It is Halloween night. If horror fans think they know what that means, they
are probably right. A masked serial killer will murder Moira Cole’s husband
Dillon and leave her grown sons scarred for life (in one case, literally). Perhaps
the worst part is the axe-killing comes from inside the family in Ante Novakovic’s
Bloodline Killer (a.k.a. The Skulleton), which starts streaming today
on Tubi.
Frankly,
it would have been worse if Cole had not come out of the house with her firearm
loaded and ready. She put several shots in the so-called “Skulleton” killer. It
was enough to blast him off her son Conor, but he still manages to get away. Yet,
it is not exactly a clean getaway. It turns out the nurse attending the Coles
recognizes their description of the masked killer as her brother. Instinctively
knowing where he might flee, she finds him, drugs him, and securely chains him
up in her basement. He would probably be happier in that mental hospital
Michael Meyers kept escaping from.
Years
later, the lack of closure torments the Coles. They are also disgusted by the
exploitative Skulleton movie franchise, much like the Stab movies
in Scream. The Cole Brothers barely contain their mutual hostility,
which is awkward, since they both still live with mom. Understandably, she remains
reluctant to confess she probably knows the Skulleton and might have witnessed
his first murder at an early age. She has suppressed the details, but
eventually her ancient-hippy-looking shrink, played by Bruce Dern (a two-time
Oscar nominee), will drag it out of her—probably around the time Skulleton
escapes for another Halloween killing spree.
Clearly,
Novakovic and screenwriters Anthony & James Gaudioso, who play Det. Trusten
James and Conor Cole, were inspired by the old school Halloween franchise,
including the maligned sequels that made Michael Meyers and Laurie Stode long lost
siblings. The early Haddon-esque vibe is quite nice, but the contrivances are
annoying and the entire mid-section moves slower than molasses.
Snark and boredom were never murder weapons in Clue, but maybe at this
homicidal dinner party. The victim will probably be the lucky one, because she
can escape the tiresome conversation and not so thinly disguised contempt.
Everyone will have a bad night in K. Asher Levin’s Helen’s Dead, which
releases today in theaters and on VOD.
Addie’s
loser boyfriend Adam thinks he has been cheating on her with her cousin Helen,
but the soon to be murder victim just considers him an awful one-time mistake.
Addie is expected at a dinner party hosted by Helen’s sister, Leila, a
disgraced influencer trying to mount a comeback, and her snotty husband George.
However, cousin Addie launches on a drunken bender instead when Adam
accidentally sends her a sext intended for Helen. Instead of Addie, Helen shows
up, hoping to escape her dodgy underworld creditor, Henry.
Of
course, Adam then arrives looking for Helen and eventually Addie drunkenly rolls
in, hoping to avoid both of them. Garrett also crashes, because Helen
inexplicably invited him, but since Leila’s hipster financier guest canceled,
she hires the struggling thesp to impersonate him (badly, of course). She wants
to impress Molly, a Vanity Fair-esque “journalist,” who intends to
publish a hit piece on Leila. The party takes a downer turn when Helen’s dead
body is discovered, an apparent poisoning victim. That makes Henry upset when crashes
the party, expecting her to help him hold-up and shake-down the party.
Helen’s
Dead is
billed as mystery-comedy but it is about as funny as a case of dry-rot. Maybe a
sharper ensemble cast might have sold it better, but it still would have been a
struggle. Regardless, Emile Hirsch is spectacularly cringey as the obnoxiously abrasive
Adam. Brian Huskey’s George is also a bargain-basement Frasier Crane, who is
often as off-putting as fingernails on a blackboard.
