Hack-O-Lantern

We kick off Halloween season by diving into 1988’s direct-to-video oddity Hack-O-Lantern, a surprisingly decent-looking but truly terrible, wildly entertaining Satanic cult slasher loaded with Halloween atmosphere, costumes, parties, and plenty of gratuitous nudity.

We talk about how the movie’s “so bad it’s good” charm comes from its community-theater-level acting, baffling plot turns, random musical dream sequence, and over-the-top grandpa cult leader performance, while still delivering serviceable gore and nonstop seasonal vibes perfect for background viewing at a Halloween party.

We break down the major story beats—Tommy’s cult grooming, inexplicable killings, a chaotic party climax, and a twist ending—then share why this scrappy DIY mess feels like classic late-night cable Halloween viewing and a fun way to start our month of Halloween picks, plus details on upcoming episodes and Patreon extras.

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Automatic Transcript

Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

Episode 508, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Oh, buddy, it’s Halloween season.

Craig: Oh, it’s exciting. It always is exciting. I mean, we’ve been looking forward to it, talking about it forever. I’m glad it’s finally here.

Todd: Me too. I love it every time of year, no matter where I am in the world.

It’s a little bit of America I can bring with me to wherever I am. Out in Asia, they don’t do a lot of Halloween. Japan’s where you gotta go for the Halloween celebrations. I think I mentioned that once before that I single-handedly brought Halloween to Japan 25 years ago.

Craig: Yep, yep. I

Todd: remember. Yeah. You’re welcome, Japan.

So here we are, and, uh, we have a nice selection of Halloween goodies this year. I’m really excited about what we’ve chosen, especially this first one, which has been on my list, our list, for a very long time. And knowing that it was just, like, a straight to video deal, I, I really kind of dismissed it as some piece of crap that we would get to at some point, maybe if we didn’t have anything better to do.

I envisioned it as this shot on video, kind of like that turkey movie we did once.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: For, uh, Thanksgiving. You remember that?

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: So I don’t know why I had this in my head that 1988’s Hack-O-Lantern would be more or less like that. But actually, it’s shot on film but was put direct to video. And oh boy, is it a trip.

Craig: Yeah, it’s something.

Todd: I guess, I didn’t realize this, but I guess it got some play- Recently from, uh, those guys, Red Letter Media, who do the funny commentaries on movies and things. So that whole Star Wars breakdown about why the new Star Wars movies were lousy. Yeah, I, I like those guys. I really like their breakdown of the first, the, the prequel Star Wars movies.

They really make a lot of points, and they’re really funny. Uh, they have a big following. Uh, you got- Have you never, uh, listened to them or-

Craig: It’s not- … seen

Todd: their stuff?

Craig: The RiffTrax guys?

Todd: Red Letter Media, not the RiffTrax guys.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think so.

Todd: You’re right. They did a RiffTrack on this as well, and it is ripe for it.

This movie’s its own RiffTrack. I cannot believe that I- This is the first time I’ve seen it. I’m so excited. Had you seen this before?

Craig: I don’t think… No, I’ve definitely never seen it before, and I don’t think I’ve even ever heard of it. And I’m surprised just ’cause, like, Hack-O-Lantern’s a great title. Yeah.

That’s fantastic. And 1988, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s prime, you know, prime time for us. But no, I’d never heard of it. And I expected it to be bad, but I, but m- but more so than bad, I expected it to be really low budget. Like, I, I, I think you suggested too. But I, I think that what we saw… I’m not positive ’cause you just sent me a link and I didn’t question it and I watched it, but I think what we saw had to have been, like, a restoration.

Like, I know that there has been a 4K restoration, and I feel like that must be what we saw ’cause it looked really good. Like, I was surprised by how good it looked, and I was surprised by the… I mean, the cinematography is certainly serviceable. Yeah. I mean, i- if not, if not, downright okay. I was surprised by how good it is.

Now, the acting and, and the writing is an entirely different story, but it, it looks… I was surprised by how good it looked. And because I was impressed… Ah, impressed might be exa- an exaggeration. But- But because of my reaction to the, the quality, the technical quality, I was surprised that I hadn’t seen it, you know?

A- and you said that it’s streaming, I think, on Tubi. Like, it’s never popped up for me, or at least I don’t think it has. I mean, maybe I’ve overlooked it. I don’t know

Todd: It’s directed by an Indian guy named, uh, Jag Mund- Uh, I always butcher these Indian names, I’m sure. Uh, Jag Mundhra or Jag Mundhra, uh, who, uh, just has ba- basically done low budget movies.

He’s done quite a few of them, like 31. Mostly, I think, direct to video. Either horror movies or kind of sexual thrillers, things like that. He only died about, uh, 15 years ago, so, uh, this was his fourth movie direct to video. He did a number of other films after this. It all seem like direct to video films.

And the writers, one of them was a ghostwriter who did scripts on spec, like 65 of them. 13 of them were actually produced, so he’s usually credited under an assumed name in, uh, in his movies. But uh, he also wrote, uh… The story guy, not, not necessarily the screenplay- Yeah … person. The story guy is, uh, Dave Eisenstark, who would, uh, called himself Buford Houser for his films.

But Creepozoids was what he wrote under that pen name before this. We’ve done Creepozoids. That was the one we interviewed Linnea Quigley on.

Craig: That’s right. That’s what I was thinking. Yeah, and it also was not very good.

Todd: No. Oh, man. Consistency is the name of the game here. Yeah, uh, the, the screenwriter hasn’t done anything else at all besides this movie, so I mean, that, that tracks.

Craig: Well, good.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I think whoever that was learned from this experience that they probably had other talents- … that they should work on. Not this.

Todd: Career choice, right. It’s funny you mention the cinematographer. Pretty good. The cinematographer was the cinematographer on Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.

Craig: Well, I really enjoyed that one as well, so.

Todd: Yeah, we really did, and at least one or two of the other, uh, gals in this were in that movie as well.

Craig: Oh, really?

Todd: I think Vera in here was on, uh, S- Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.

Craig: Ugh.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I need to watch that again. I’ve only seen it that one time that we watched it together 100 years ago.

I need to-

Todd: Ugh …

Craig: That’d be a good one to pull out this time of year if you haven’t seen it. Yeah.

Todd: That’s a good Halloween style movie, uh, one of my favorites.

And so yeah, there’s some connections here to a bunch of other low budget shot to video stuff, uh, mostly by the women and by the people I’ve mentioned here.

Otherwise, the guys in this, uh, only a couple of them went on to much more. This movie, A Polish Vampire in Burbank, which a few of these gals were also in before this. Have you seen that one?

Craig: No

Todd: I saw that a long time ago, like when I was in, I think when I was in college. Because at the time, and we’re talking 1983, that movie was the most successful independent film ever, ever.

It was like shot for $2,500 and went on to make like a couple million.

Craig: That’s wild. I’ve never heard of it.

Todd: It was one of these cases of a guy …