The Trick, Not the Treat
There’s a unique kind of pain reserved for watching All Hallows’ Eve 2 — the cinematic equivalent of finding a full-sized Snickers bar in your Halloween bag, unwrapping it, and discovering it’s filled with toothpaste. This 2015 anthology sequel to All Hallows’ Eve tries to resurrect the format of short, scary vignettes tied together by a creepy framing device, but instead ends up as a bag of discount candy corn — stale, oddly textured, and vaguely insulting.
If you liked Trick ’r Treat but thought, “What if this was cheaper, dumber, and emotionally void?” congratulations — you’re the target demographic for All Hallows’ Eve 2. The film opens with a woman finding a VHS tape on her doorstep and ends with the viewer questioning all their life choices.
The Setup: VHS and Regret
The wraparound story is straightforward: a woman is being stalked by a man wearing a Jack-o’-lantern mask — which sounds scary until you realize he looks like a rejected Spirit Halloween employee on his smoke break. She finds a mysterious VHS tape on her doorstep, because apparently this movie thinks it’s still 1998, and decides to watch it alone in the dark, as one does when poor decision-making is your primary character trait.
She pops it into her VCR (conveniently still hooked up in 2015), and the nightmares begin — not for her, but for us.
Segment One: “Jack Attack” — Seeds of Stupidity
We open with a babysitter, a kid, and a pumpkin. What could go wrong? Well, everything. They carve a pumpkin, bake the seeds, and then — in a bold narrative twist — the seeds start growing inside their bodies. The boy chokes, the babysitter panics, and soon everyone is spewing gourds like they swallowed the produce aisle.
It’s gross, yes, but also deeply funny — not intentionally, mind you. By the time the babysitter’s stomach bursts into a pile of mini-pumpkins, you’ll be laughing so hard you’ll forget this was supposed to be horror. Somewhere, The Thing is watching this segment and weeping for its legacy.
Segment Two: “The Last Halloween” — The End of Sanity
A husband and wife refuse candy to trick-or-treaters dressed as a witch, devil, ghost, and grim reaper — the Mount Rushmore of Halloween clichés. The wife, apparently the only person in this movie with a functioning moral compass, lets the kids in. Big mistake. They transform into literal demons, blow up the house, and trigger a hellish apocalypse.
It’s unclear what moral we’re meant to glean here. Be kind to trick-or-treaters? Don’t marry men who hate holidays? Either way, this short manages to make the end of the world feel like a mild inconvenience. Even Satan himself would check his watch.
Segment Three: “The Offering” — Dad of the Year Award
A father and son drive into the woods to make an offering to some evil forest deity. The offering isn’t sufficient, so Dad decides the best solution is to throw Junior under the demonic bus. It’s a touching story about family values — if your values include child sacrifice and poor parenting.
The entity never appears, possibly because even supernatural evil has standards. The short ends abruptly, which is fitting, because the audience’s interest does too.
Segment Four: “Descent” — Elevator to Nowhere
A woman narrowly escapes a serial killer, only to run into him again six weeks later in an elevator. Cue slow-burn paranoia and whispery dialogue about trauma. She kills him with a pen (because corporate supplies are deadlier than any weapon in this film), only to realize she hallucinated the whole thing and just murdered a random guy.
It’s meant to be psychological horror, but it plays like a PSA for overcaffeinated office workers. The message seems to be: therapy works, elevators don’t.
Segment Five: “Masochist” — Circus of Stupidity
A carnival barker invites three teens to throw weapons at a man strapped to a wheel. Because nothing says fun fair like a little light torture. One of the teens realizes the victim is his abusive father, and in a moment of poetic justice, fires a nail gun into his face.
It’s gory, yes, but also weirdly hollow. The characters have all the emotional depth of a puddle, and the entire short feels like something your high school friend shot for a film class after reading Saw’s Wikipedia page.
Segment Six: “A Boy’s Life” — Monster Problems
A grieving boy and his mom bond over bedtime monsters. She assures him it’s all in his imagination — until something under the bed drags her screaming into the darkness.
It’s a classic setup, undone by sluggish pacing and a creature that looks like a melted Halloween mask found in a clearance bin. The final scare is so telegraphed you could see it coming from another dimension.
Segment Seven: “Mr. Tricker’s Treat” — Neighborhood Watchlist
Mr. Tricker is a disheveled psycho who decorates his yard with real corpses. You’d think that’d raise eyebrows in the neighborhood, but apparently his cul-de-sac is full of people too polite to call the police. One woman even compliments his decorations — so he knocks her out and adds her to the display.
It’s a grim little number that could’ve been fun if it had leaned into its absurdity. Instead, it just kind of sits there, like an expired jack-o’-lantern collapsing under its own weight.
Segment Eight: “Alexia” — Facebook, but Make It Fatal
In this Spanish-language entry, a teen mourns his dead ex-girlfriend online. Unfortunately, the ex isn’t done stalking his profile — she haunts his computer like a ghost with Wi-Fi. His new girlfriend gets pulled into the drama (and possibly the afterlife) after using his laptop, proving once again that nothing good ever comes from checking your partner’s browser history.
It’s actually one of the better segments, mainly because it ends before you lose the will to live.
The Finale: Pumpkin Spice Murder
After suffering through the cinematic equivalent of eight consecutive haunted house rides built by unpaid interns, we return to our VHS-watching protagonist. She ejects the tape, only to find the Jack-o’-lantern man standing behind her. He slits her throat, the credits roll, and we’re all released from our torment.
It’s supposed to be a chilling final note, but it feels like mercy.
The Real Horror: The Editing, the Acting, the Everything
The acting throughout All Hallows’ Eve 2 ranges from “community theater tryout” to “staring directly at the cue cards.” The cinematography is grainy, which could be an artistic nod to VHS aesthetics — or just a side effect of filming through a dirty lens.
Each short feels disconnected from the next, united only by their collective mediocrity. The anthology format is meant to celebrate variety, but here it’s just a parade of half-baked ideas that never reach the boiling point.
Even the score sounds like stock music from an online editing app labeled “generic spooky ambiance.”
Final Verdict: Straight to VOD, Straight to Hell
⭐☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 Pumpkin Seeds)
All Hallows’ Eve 2 isn’t so much a horror movie as it is a test of endurance. It’s proof that even the undead can phone it in. What could’ve been a wickedly fun Halloween anthology ends up as a graveyard of discarded ideas, stitched together with VHS tape and apathy.
You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, and you’ll check the runtime more than once. By the time the Jack-o’-lantern killer finally swings his blade, you’ll be cheering him on.
If you’re looking for genuine terror this Halloween, just open your energy bill instead. It’s scarier, shorter, and has better pacing.
