Halloween: The Wake

• Directed By: Russ Diapper
• Written By: Russ Diapper
• Country: UK
• Released: 2009
• Running Time: 40 minutes
• Links: Watch free on Openfilm
• Horror, Reviews

Halloween: The Wake writer/director Russ Diapper’s tribute to John Carpenter’s genre classic. Although this is, unashamedly, a fan film it does try to do something new with the character of Michael Myers, and with some success.

The film starts with a mockumentary style pre credits sequence that introduces some supernatural speculations about Myers, his bloodline and whether he can ever really be dead. For me, this extension of his character was the most problematic part of the film.

I’m generally less than fond of films that delve too much into Michael Myers’ personality. For me, the strength of the character (in John Carpenter’s Halloween) comes from the fact that he is such a blank slate onto which any audience can project any and all of their fears. He is a faceless and unexplainable terror, stalking his victims without explanation, and the absence of any attempt to explain his motivations makes it impossible to rationalise him away.

Obviously, this also means that the character provides a very rich template around which fans of the Halloween franchise can build their own stories. This is what Russ Diapper has done, and rather effectively.

The story proper centres on the recently bereaved Stephen Strode (Tyler Coombes), one of the last remaining members of the Myers Bloodline. Stephen is convinced that Michael is not only still alive but that he’s coming back to Haddonfield. This is not an opinion that people want to hear in a town that is still coming to terms with the original massacre.

Halloween: The Wake is a well paced film and it’s a cut above the usual fan film fare. It’s also a cut above far too many slashers that are commercially released these days. It is clear that Diapper is very familiar with the original film. More importantly, however, is that he also understands what made it such a powerful experience. As such, he eschews the stereotypes that litter far too many slasher films and, instead, attempts to capture the atmosphere that John Carpenter built when he first made the film that launched a genre.

This is a very successful approach and one that plays to the strengths Diapper demonstrated in his earlier film, Spirits of the Fall. Russ Diapper does have a very strong sense of atmosphere and a real talent for combining sound, music, locations and imagery to to create a ambience that is both spooky and, often, genuinely unnerving.

The film can be seen for free online at Openfilm.com and it is worth checking out. Not just for fans of Halloween, but also for anyone who wants to see just how effective a well designed atmosphere can be.

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