Salem Horror Fest has it all. You have your slashers, new school Horror, throwback Horror, Queer Horror, Art Horror, Foreign Horror, and even pint-size Horror with their abundance of short films in the “Wicked Shorts” category that are grouped by locale and all play over both weekends of the festival. Next year we’ll try and get in early but for this year, we focused on That Halloween which was written and directed by Mike Hickey.
We’ll be honest, we couldn’t resist the little kid dressed up as Bela Lugosi’s version of Dracula in the SHF synopsis of the short film and it looks like going with our gut paid off because the 13 minutes of fun-filled Horror that Hickey gave us here will last far beyond its’ abbreviated length! And isn’t that what it’s all about? Leaving a mark??? Like the villain of our story: The Willow Woods Wolfman (Such a great name, btw)! Who left such a mark that the heroes of our story (Cleverly listed by their costumes only: “Dracula”, “Cat”, “Hobo”, and “Grim Reaper”) have holed up in a haunted house on the anniversary of where his last crime occurred when he murdered June and Frank Marsters… which, of course, happens to be on Halloween.
Like most legends, though, who knows what’s real and what’s not? Our kids certainly have some theories like one where June (Mallory Fisher) did Frank (Michael Peers) in herself! What??? Lucky for us, but maybe not so lucky for them, they’re in for one Spoooooky night after a strange occurrence and are about to get an education on what really happened. Firsthand.
An encore of That Halloween drops as part of the “Wicked Shorts-North” program on Sunday, April 30th at Cinema Salem during Weekend 2 of the 2023 Salem Horror Fest. For tickets and more info head here and for the rest of the Salem Horror Fest lineup head here.
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