Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween Review

Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween review

Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween offers up lightweight thrills and a muddled investigative horror story. Likable characters elevate this low stakes teen horror movie to a comfortable, occasionally funny, viewing experience.

New movie review will not contain spoilers.

Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween

Directed by Rob York

Screenplay by Rob York and Scott Baird

Starring Chelsea Jurkiewicz, Tanner Gillman and Colin Cunningham

Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween Review

Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween ticks a few boxes that other lower budget teen horror films struggle with. It finds likable unknown actors and puts them into a fine Halloween aesthetic. It doesn’t strive for anything more than light thrills, but it is enough fun to make something of it.

High school teenagers must stop an ancient Irish demon before midnight on Halloween. They learn that the demon has a connection to Mary (Chelsea Jurkiewicz) and a family secret that even she didn’t know. There is also a poorly told family drama subplot. After a lot of annoyance, it ties into the story.

The aforementioned family drama story is Curse of Crom at its worst. Every scene involved in the suplot is fundamentally flawed. It would be one thing if there was just one or two moments where you were annoyed that characters just stand still not explaining themselves…but it happens every scene and is infuriating. The script required a certain amount of family strife and secrets to pay off its plot. The way they go about it is to make every character involved look very stupid as they are unable to explain any plot point or emotion though repeatedly asked.

The resolution of the central conflict between Mary and her father is equally sloppy. It gets tacked on to the climax in borderline hilarious fashion. At least it showcases both extremes of the relationship in short order. Not that understanding the full story makes it play any better.

Curse of Crom is an ultra low stakes affair. It would probably play well as a family film. The monster is rarely seen. There are only a few lightly suspenseful scenes. It’s likely too slow moving to hold a young watcher’s attention, however. The movie spends a lot of time on its investigation.

That investigation makes an odd choice to have most of the information relayed in exposition by a side character. He’s doing his research off screen and then dropping into explain things just when they need explaining. This isn’t the most dynamic way to tell a story…but the character provides some timely comic relief along with the exposition.

Curse of Crom takes its time to make Mary an interesting lead. Jurkiewicz turns in a strong performance as the frustrated food deliverer. She deals with annoying customers, a controlling father, a friend group who don’t initially believe her and the worry of saving for college with a likability that could have been easy to squash.

The rest of the cast does well in support. Everyone has enough of a quirk to their character to provide fun dynamics within the group. The father character is shortchanged by a script that doesn’t allow him to answer a stupid question. He spends a lot of time staring back silently.

Eventually we get all our answers. It’s all convoluted and pretty silly. But, again, Cuse of Crom is smart enough to have fun with it. There are simply a few too many missed opportunities to deliver a well-rounded fun family flick. What’s here amounts to more of an inoffensive one.

Scare Value

There are better movies out there than Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween. There are also far worse ones. It would benefit from a better plotted family drama and the investigation results being delivered in a more dynamic way. Still, a lot of the movies of its type tend to overload themselves with unlikable characters and poor direction. Curse of Crom avoids those traps with a fine cast and a pleasant Halloween aesthetic.

2.5/5