Five friends go in search of an extreme haunt called the Blue Skeleton (which moves around) over the course of almost a week as they go on a road trip when they film.  The movie is also intercut with video supposedly shot by the employees of the blue skeleton and news footage of customers and employees of haunted attractions being interviewed.   As the five friends go on their road trip, they find they are being scared by the haunt they are looking for.  

 

THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT is the latest in the found footage horror genre and it is a mostly tedious film with only a few scary moments.   I think this movie would have worked better as a conventionally shot horror movie and it makes me think I’m done with the found footage genre unless someone can come up with a really good (and well shot) film.   I found myself wanting to be interested by the movie, but I was checking the time and fast forwarding through parts as I didn’t really care for these five friends (the movie is written by three of the people who play the friends with one of them directing this excuse for a found footage movie).   I just wonder why this lone woman of five friends decided to stick with these four guys as more creepy stuff keeps happening.   The writing of the film results in a film where you don’t care for this group of friends and don’t even connect with the creeps that scare them as they amp up the scares through the film.

 

The sad thing about THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT is that it has really cool DVD jacket art and a great end credits song.  Too bad the movie couldn’t have lived up to the great DVD cover art.   Skip this movie and save your money.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

BEHIND THE SCENES: AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE HAUNTS has the cast interviewing owners of a few of the haunts featured in the movie including Zombie Manor and Hauntedhouse.com.

 

CAST CARVINGS BY THE PUMPKIN GEEK

PORTRAIT OF A SCARE ARTIST photo gallery is a two minute slideshow of various haunted attraction actors and even the main female actor sometimes posing with them.

 

The deleted scenes have more footage of the friends visiting various haunted attractions/ haunted houses and other moments.

 

Previews for THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL and WOLFCOP (which I can’t wait to see).

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT is a bad movie in the found footage genre which makes me want to stay away from found footage horror movies if this is the best filmmakers can do.  Skip this movie and save your money- go rent something better.

 

This review is ©1-7-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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