DVD Review: Mischief Night

By Brad Henderson

One of my favorite things in film is the home invasion subgenre. I think it’s one of the scariest real-life events that can take place. Because there have been many great home invasion films, when I saw the trailer for Mischief Night I got a little pumped. I actually turned off the trailer halfway through so it could be a surprise.

Mischief Night has the elements of a great film and does many things right in order to create a suspenseful film. The beginning of the film is a little silly and that’s because they put Charlie O’Connell in it and tried to make him a badass. I’m not sure what they were going for but Charlie doesn’t cut it. Once that dissolves, we are presented with Em, who suffers from psychosomatic blindness and her night alone during a Halloween tradition called Mischief Night.

Mischief Night becomes very strong once we are introduced to Em and her father. Em’s father has a big date and Em is going to be left home alone during the night. This has never been a problem in the past but he’s nervous to leave because of the date, not because of the blindness (which I was happy about). Way too many times we see it the other way and the events of the night are a big coincidence; the one night they leave the loved ones at home, they get attacked. Em has been alone plenty of times and has everything down to a T, except fending off intruders, of course. Having someone with a disability fending for their life against foes trying to harm them sounds pretty interesting and intense, and it is, but only for a tad.

Everything is great until about an hour into the film when it dwindles down into a cliché horror flick and goes strictly by the book that you shouldn’t follow. Everyone makes a dumb decision and they keep doing so. That’s the most frustrating thing that horror films can do, especially home invasion flicks. I know a lot of people would panic in a real-life situation, but people don’t act stupid and do stupid things like they do in the movies. The filmmakers do it to keep the film going and try to build more suspense, but it’s difficult to give my suspension of disbelief right in the middle of the film. I have to go into the film knowing this. Even so, I shouldn’t have to do it in a straightforward home invasion flick like Mischief Night.

Anyways, Mischief Night is OK and it does have some good scares and gore, but in the end it’s another run-of-the-mill home invasion movie that is completely forgettable. If you just want a mindless horror film to watch while there is nothing else to do, Mischief Night might be the perfect film for that.

Mischief Night was released on DVD via Image Entertainment on December 17, 2013.