@lcfremont checks out Mischief Night and wishes she didn’t…
Amazon description: On the night before Halloween, young Kaylie is babysitting when she’s warned by a local night watchman not to answer the door because nothing good can happen on Mischief Night. Kaylie soon realizes someone is stalking her, but on Mischief Night, nothing is as it seems.
Kaylie (Brooke Anne Smith) is the usual cute, young thing who is stuck babysitting for rich people who live where there is poor cell reception. Like most teenagers these days, she has a snotty attitude and a super short attention span. In order to set the movie up, Mr. Malcolm McDowell knocks on the door and explains to Kaylie that on mischief night, people are up to no good and she should, under no circumstances, open the door. Except to him, of course. He asks her what her name is and if she’s home alone. Super genius Kaylie answers both of these questions truthfully to the stranger on her doorstep who leers at her not once, but twice after telling her how cute she is. At this point, I’m not entirely sure if this is a comedy or not. Well, seeing as how this was made before Ryan Murphy invented the horror comedy, I guess it’s not.So, this dumb B investigates every suspicious noise, walks out into the yard to look for the intruder and then decides to go for a swim in her skivvies when she doesn’t find him. I can’t make this shit up, kids. She sets her knife down, undresses and goes for a quick swim because that’s what you do when a masked man has made it abundantly clear that he is going to kill you.
Dude breaks into the house and Miss.Thing never once cals the police because she’s not “that tacky”, whatever that means. After some chasing, fighting, threatening and rope play, these two crazy kids bond. No joke. They play some pranks around the neighborhood, have a heart to heart, dance around while drinking booze and then they bang(!). As usual, the girl wants to talk about stuff and thangs after they do it and this leads to the usual depressing conversations about feelings. At this point, I would like to tell you that dude is a grown man with a wife and Kaylie is underage. This is o.k. though because he’s a sadist and she’s a masochist and it’s mischief night, so statutory rape is totally cool. From here, more ludicrous things happen, but the most ridiculous of all may just be the “special effects” used on one unfortunate young fellow. I don’t pretend to grasp even 5% of how much work special effects are, but holding a bunch of pig innards against your stomach does not equal awesome gore. If I can do it, it’s not special.
Initially, the generic slasher tropes were amusing and when it became clear that this movie was going to take a different turn, I was interested to see how it would pan out. After all, this is make believe and every girl wants to find that cute guy who understands her morbid tendencies, but this turned out to be more of an inappropriate male fantasy made real. Boring. Just in case you are still interested in this dopey excuse for a love story/horror film, I won’t ruin the tiny twist that pops up at the end. The only mischief that this film is up to is stealing my three dollars.
Hot tip; Malcolm McDowell has some insanely funny outtakes that are shown during the credits.
Lisa Fremont
Twitter: @lcfremont
Images: IMDb & Wegotthiscovered.com
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