Writer: Phil Claydon
Producer: Jonathan Sothcott
Cast: Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, Michael Paré, Ronan Summers
Country: UK
Year of release: 2025
Website: www.shogunfilms.com
Helloween is the fourth film from Mr Sothcott’s Shogun Films brand, following the thrillers Nemesis and Renegades and the school reunion slasher Peter Rabid (which, like Hostel, is a title that only works as a pun if you say it the American way). It is the fourth feature from Phil Claydon, who previously made Alone, Lesbian Vampire Killers (a work-for-hire gig for which he should not be blamed) and an American movie I haven’t seen called Within.
There is rarely anything new in horror, especially in B-movie horror, so there’s no shame in Helloween wearing its influences on it sleeve. What is unusual is that they are sequential, rather than all mixed up. So the prologue is an obvious riff on Halloween, the first act is 50% Joker, 50% Silence of the Lambs, the middle act is kind of The Purge with a sheen of It, and the third act is Saw meets Sophie’s Choice. It’s a horror buffet.
On Halloween 1996 young Carl Cane (Claydon’s son Brody, doing a terrific job) murders his foster parents and some other people. Twenty years later he is still locked up in a high security loony bin where his under the care of Dr Ellen Marks, a single mum with two teenage daughters. Cane by now is played by Ronan Summers, who is quite clearly having an absolute f***ing ball playing a crazy psycho. He mostly does video game voice work but has some feature credits including a small role in Giles Alderson’s The Dare. Dr Marks is Mrs Sothcott, giving one of her best performances, especially in the domestic scenes.
The hospital/prison seemingly has only one other member of staff, an orderly name Rob (singer Shenton Dixon, who was a contestant on The Voice). Also, everywhere is kept in semi-darkness, which doesn’t ring true because hospitals and prisons, except for sleeping quarters at night, are always kept very brightly lit. There is a practical reason for this dark photography of course: it helps to disguise the location which is clearly neither a hospital or a prison. But the problem it creates is that, when all the lights go out, the effect is dampened because it’s not much darker than it was before.
Transatlantic name value Michael Paré is John Parker, visiting FBI spook come to interview Cane about the increasing prevalence of antisocial behaviour by young people with their faces painted in Cane’s distinctive ‘lashes and slashes’ make-up (designed by the director). When the power goes and all the inmates escape, Dr Marks has to get home to her daughters Leah (Caroline Wilde, who was in 2019 Bollywood horror Ghost) and Alice (Megan Marszal). A cult of Cane clones is spreading across the UK, targeting locations marked with a yellow balloon – and there’s one outside the Marks house.
In the final act it all goes a bit torture porn as Dr Marks is chained up in the asylum, playing Cane’s ‘game’: find the key to her chains, find her daughters, and inject an antidote to a poison they have been given, except there is only one dose in the hypodermic.
For all its obvious borrowing of ideas, Helloween is a solid B-movie horror which, aside from the high security facility’s lack of staff and lightbulbs, doesn’t fall apart on closer inspection. It is all very dark, but DP James Westlake (who also lit Peter Rabid) makes sure we can at least see who’s on screen. The cast all turn in good performances, and Phil Claydon shows what he can do when not hobbled by a fast turnaround to grab a tax loophole or the pre-conceptions associated with a flavour-of-the-month comedy duo.
There is a soundtrack album by regular Sothcott collaborators Robert Geoffrey Hughes and Chris Hurst, and also some action figures, apparently! London-based funk metal band In Search of Sun contribute two songs. Phil Claydon has a cameo as one of the clowns, and is also credited with Editing, Carl Cane Make-up and Costume Design, Visual Effects, Additional Graphic Design and Opening and End Titles Design, Sound Effects and Music Editing, and Additional Music. Lance Patrick (Exorcism, Dark Rage) is credited as Co-producer, and one of the three Executive Producers is ‘Lt. Col. Matthew Webb’, which is impressive!
Helloween was released in September 2025. Shogun followed this with Doctor Plague, starring Martin Kemp and the Chinese Detective himself, David Yip. Werewolf Hunt and Knightfall, both with Michael Paré again, are currently in post.
