Helloween (2025) Review

Helloween (2025) Review

The year is 2016 and the ‘killer clown’ craze is in full swing, there’s chaos on the streets and the media is having a field day with fearmongering headlines for the masses, making matters uncontrollable. But there is one person who has very real concerns, embattled psychiatrist Dr Ellen Marks (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott), who works in a high security psychiatric hospital that houses one seriously violent psychopath… notorious child serial killer Carl Cane (Ronan Summers).

Determined to uncover the cause of the anarchistic clown uprising, Marks teams up with American investigative journalist John Parker (Michael Paré) to try and get to bottom of the caustic clown contagion, but she soon releases it is closer to home than she ever feared possible.

As Carl Cane’s evil gospel spreads across the nation, and the pair start to question whether the murderous inmate could really be orchestrating events from deep in the bowels of the hospital, the deranged killer escapes in shockingly brutal fashion. Now the doctor must face her very worst fears in a race against time to save her daughters from the killer’s maniacal revenge.

Written and directed by Phil Claydon (LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS) HELLOWEEN has a straightforward narrative but its onscreen presentation is messy. The film constantly trips up over itself by being too busy referencing John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, Stephen King’s IT, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE PURGE, and other far superior films rather than establish its own worth.

Had HELLOWEEN been released to capitalise on the nationwide ‘clown’ sightings of 2016 then it could have warranted some attention. As it is, its too cheap, too derivative, and too restricted by budget to bring the scares that its storyline calls for. For example, the narrative talks about clowns wreaking mayhem across the nation but never properly shows it – failing to have neither the invention nor budget to show this.

In reading the small smattering of online reviews at the time of writing, I am alone in my lack of appreciation for HELLOWEEN, so perhaps it just boils down to my mood at the time of viewing, it happens. In the film’s favour I can say that Michael Paré, starring as journalist John Parker, still has those matinee idol good looks from his STREETS OF FIRE days. He is by far the best thing about an otherwise shambolic movie that is constantly at odds with pacing that feels all over the shop.

Blu-Ray Special Features
Commentary with Director Phil Claydon
Making Of Featurette
Deleted Scenes
Trailer

Helloween (2025) | Official Trailer – YouTube

Credit: Helloween is on UK digital 29 September (Miracle Media) and Blu-ray 13 October (101 Films)