HAPPY HALLOWEEN | ©2026 Uncork’d EntertainmentRating: Not Rated
Stars: Emma Reinagel, Aline O’Neill, Graham Weldin, Jack Cathcart, Cameron Mabie, Mickey Stone, Jennifer Buttell, Teri Austin, Seth Sims, Tom Baker, Nathan Shelton
Writer: Brittney Greer
Director: Brittney Greer
Distributor: Uncork’d Entertainment
Release Date: April 14, 2026 (digital)
In the spirit of celebrating everyone’s favorite horror holiday all year round – because, hey, why not? – HAPPY HALLOWEEN is being released on digital in April. The scrappy indie slasher ends with the onscreen statement, “We made a movie!” The enthusiasm encapsulated there is reflected throughout.
Directed and written by Brittney Greer, HAPPY HALLOWEEN has game performances, an impressive corn maze, a score full of ominous piano chords by Chris Porcelli that sounds just this side of copyright infringement of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN music, and some lapses in logic.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN opens with a high school senior seeking his ex in the town’s Halloween corn maze. He ends up stabbed to death, tied to a cross, with a mask covering his face and the words “Happy Halloween” carved into his chest.
We then get some nice helicopter shots with mountain woodlands displaying their autumnal foliage, emphasizing the isolation of the little hamlet where the action takes place.
Mayor West (Tom Baker – another Tom Baker, not the actor from DOCTOR WHO) discusses his re-election campaign on Howlin’ Harry’s (Nathan Shelton) local radio talk show. High school senior Hadley Briggs (Emma Reinagel) and her mother (Teri Austin) return after a year away.
Vague references are made at first to exactly where Hadley was, but since everybody appears to know anyway, the secrecy has no effect. Hadley has been in the hospital after being stabbed by her boyfriend Curt (Seth Sims) the previous Halloween. Curt was committed to a mental hospital.
With Mom being extra-protective, Hadley feels a little hassled, but she’s soon back in the swim of things with old friends and classmates Payton (Aline O’Neill), whose mother (Jennifer Buttell) is the school principal, mayor’s son Kagan (Graham Weldin), Payton’s boyfriend Adam (Jack Cathcart) and prankster Dacey (Cameron Mabie).
When more teen bodies start to pile up, all stabbed, masked and posed, the town sheriff (Mickey Stone), Hadley’s uncle, wants to shut down the town’s annual Halloween dance and 300th birthday celebration. He is opposed by the mayor, who doesn’t want the money already spent on the events to go to waste.
Meanwhile, Hadley is consumed with guilt by a lie she told.
Greer’s script is onto something as far as how hard it can be to distinguish actual psychosis from general callousness and crassness (the points aren’t necessarily original, but they’re evergreen).
However, HAPPY HALLOWEEN begs for bigger suspensions of disbelief than we may be inclined to allow. Nobody expects documentary realism from a slasher, but HAPPY HALLOWEEN isn’t a parody or even a self-aware SCREAM-type homage. The serious notion that a town this little and vulnerable would proceed with public festivities on the heels of multiple murders is a big stretch.
Further, there’s the issue of Hadley’s lie. When we see what actually happened in flashback, it doesn’t seem like the mildly self-protective fib could have swayed the outcome. This would matter less if Hadley, her friends, the sheriff and the movie didn’t make such a big deal out of it.
Finally, after offering a number of possibilities, the story settles on a fairly rote motive for the killer.
Otherwise, HAPPY HALLOWEEN works well enough as intended. It’s energetic, it’s agreeably creepy, and as the tagline says, the filmmakers not only got it completed but distributed.
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