The 31 Days of Halloween: Day 24

Halloween is the best time of the year. It's a wonderfully indulgent time, where your inner ghoul is given societal license to be put on display. To celebrate it to it's wicked fullest, the Midnight Cheese will be posting every day in October with excellent ways to enjoy the season. Whether it's horror films, video games, books or activities, check back every day for some new Halloween fun.

The Hazing

In preparing a list of topics to discuss for this month long count down, I was bound to come across titles which I had just simply missed out on and was unfamiliar with. In googling for films which take place on Halloween, one in particular caught my attention. I don't know what it was about The Hazing that stopped me from passing it by, but if I'm being honest with myself it was likely the hot girl(Nectar Rose) in the playboy bunny costume wielding a chainsaw on the cover.

What I watched was a rough amalgamation between Evil Dead, House on Haunted Hill (1999) and Night of the Demons with a lot of flair and tons of style. Your basic plots follows five pledges, three guys and two girls, who are participating in cross fraternity/sorority scavenger hunt event. The plan is for them to all meet up in the old creepy house with their collected items, where their pledge masters are waiting with a bunch of gimmicky scares. Of course, things go from wacky teenage hijinx to "oh my god is that my spleen?" faster than you can say "oh my god that IS my spleen!".

Tiffany Shepis is excellent as one of the pledges. I get the impression that she was given license to really have a great time with the role and she certain does steal a lot of the scenes she's in, hamming it up. Nectar Rose also shines as another one of the pledges who does not react to shit hitting the fan at all how you would have expected. Most of the male leads are unremarkable, except for Brad Dourif as Professor Kapps, whos research into occult rituals and human sacrifice is what sets our whole ride into motion.

While it is now out of print, you can watch The Hazing (aka Dead Scared) on Netflix's instant streaming service. That's where I came across it. It's hard to find Halloween movies that are this much fun. You'd think there'd be more, given how much horror fans love the holiday. Here's one more, at least, to add to your list.