A Halloween Feast (2025)

-Written by Kyle Bain.

Have you ever tried to explain why someone in your family is fucking nuts? Karen Long (Julia Coulter) is struggling with trying to understand why her newly-retired mother, Angela (Lynn Lowry), has gone off the deep end–seemingly descending deeper and deeper into madness. After the infamous Halloween dinner, the Long family has found it nearly impossible to live a normal life–and things are only getting weirder. 

Uncomfortable isn’t strong enough a word, as A Halloween Feast contains some of the strangest and sexually offputting moments that I’ve ever seen in film. Intentionally developed by Writer-Director Guile Branco and Co-Writer Arthur McClen, this dark, satirical comedy is made to antagonize viewers from the start –and they’re absolutely successful. The repeated use of sex to drive a story that truly has nothing to do with sex is an incredibly bold decision, but one that this duo of writers did not take lightly. As they insert gratuitous sex into every fiber of A Halloween Feast, viewers begin to understand that they must take every bit of this film with a grain of salt, and to, more than anything else, expect the unexpected.

A Halloween Feast continues on this trajectory of the unexpected, pulling in bits from a series of seemingly unrelated and impossible narratives throughout. With that, it’s necessary to express that there’s far too much going on throughout the course of this film. Nearly a dozen narratives are forced together into something that ultimately feels frumpy and disjointed. A Halloween Feast is overwhelming in this sense, and I’m not entirely sure that Branco is ever truly effective in blending the series of stories in a way that feels at all natural or accessible. Furthermore, A Halloween Feast lacks conviction in the sense that it never provides an explanation for what occurs throughout. Why the sex? Why all of the killing? Why does anything happen throughout the course of this film? I feel that A Halloween Feast needed a direct and deliberate explanation by its conclusion, succinctly wrapping everything up and providing answers. By lacking an explanation of each of the asinine events throughout, it almost feels as if this film is incomplete–an incomplete thought. 

What ultimately allows A Halloween Feast to land on its feet and avoid the seeming inevitably of failure, believe it or not, is the comedy. The comedy is absurd, far too exaggerated to work–but Branco manages to present it to this slew of actors (and the actors deliver) in a way that makes the absurdities work, reaching viewers in a way that’s both effective and welcome. Grandma catching a fly on her tongue, fingers being cut off, and more insanity fills the screen throughout the duration of A Halloween Feast. I gutturally laughed on many occasions, even if it was sometimes out of discomfort–but, regardless, it works for the film. It’s the film’s saving grace, and the one thing that manages to make this journey worthwhile. To a degree the comedy also answers the lingering question of “why?” In short: it’s because nothing makes sense. Branco frames the film as one that doesn’t need to make sense, and the comedy is a constant reminder of that. 

A Halloween Feast has a high production value that explores the ideas of family and sanity, while presenting it in a way that fucks with your senses and forces you to question reality. While there are aspects of the film that remain inaccessible as a result of the absurdities, at its core, A Halloween Feast represents the issues that we face in our daily lives with family and friends. There’s far too much going on, and I’m not entirely sure that questions are ever truly answered by the film’s conclusion, and those aspects greatly hinder the film’s overall success–but the comedy manages to give it a leg to stand on and provides it with some level of success. 

Directed by Guile Branco. 

Written by Guile Branco & Arthur McClen. 

Starring Lynn Lowry, Julia Coulter, Guile Branco, Lou D’Amato, Asia Lynn Pitts, etc. 

6/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE