A Halloween Scare… for the Movie of the Week

The Halloween Children moves with the grace of a zombie crawl. Like a found-footage horror movie from the 70s the book is a slow, tiresome read of nothing more than enlightened transcripts where the big boo doesn’t shock ya until deep in the third act. And that shock? Well, nothing long-time genre aficionados would need to check on their blood pressure meds over.

Co-authors Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss set the stage in a prime place for a haunting: a high-turnover apartment complex. Yet aside from a few groans and whispers and things going bump in the night, the primary focus of the tale is on the fantastically bad relationship of hellbound-parents-of-the-year Harris and Lynn. The couple so incredibly dysfunctional they are presented as cliché caricatures, whose lives are boring, miserable, and uneventful – until the event that occurs within the apartment complex that is supposed to bring the family together and rise up against the demonic invaders in great Spielberg-ian fashion. Except that never happens. Perhaps to groove to a modern audience, the authors present the third-hand details of the account by way of interviews and (prepare for a shock) emails.

Terrifying. Even more disturbing? No Twitter feed.

Interestingly, there is almost no development with the titular characters – the children themselves.

Freeman and Prentiss truly attempt to make a creepy Halloween tale. The slow pace and an unsatisfying build up make this one all tricks and no treat.

Fun-sized chocolate bars a go-go to both NetGalley and Hydra for the ghoulish opportunity of the advance copy.

As Always,

theJOE