For those hording toilet paper

I put together a writeup for The Houses October Built (2013) a few years ago, but I think this second viewing was more “season appropriate”. I think what works for it is that it comes off quite realistic and that realism is very scary to contemplate unless you are the one behind what happens to a group of buddies on a trip throughout a few days in October heading to Halloween as they search out haunted house attractions, ultimately desiring to find an “extreme haunt”. “Blue Skeleton” is this underground independent “extreme haunt” made up of folks in Halloween masks looking not just to scare volunteers seeking to be frightened silly but are far more sinister in their intentions for them. This group of friends are filming their experiences and interviewing willing subjects who take part in haunted house attractions. Zack is the one dead set on locating Blue Skeleton and getting his pals the scare of their life, not anticipating being buried alive by the end. Brandy doesn’t expect to go into a bathroom in some bar in Baton Rouge and be cornered by pervs in disguises or does Jeff realize one of his friends in a Nawlins’ alley is instead psychos in bunny outfit, doll mask, and clown masks. Everything about the trip grows more foreboding as encounters with backwoods haunted house locals in disguises increase in number. Especially disconcerting is when the group looks outside their RV and see a crowd of folks in disguise surrounding their vehicle. The signs are obvious but Zack persists in his friends encountering the Blue Skeleton for the ultimate haunt, concealing an online recording by perpetrators posted from inside their RV. The interviews I particularly enjoyed as they reminded me of Heather Donahue’s own prior to their trip into the Black Hills of Maryland in The Blair Witch Project (1999). The candidness of the interviewees as they speak about the possibilities of going too far (actual bodies and body parts being used, an accidental hanging, and violence escalated out of a desire to scare patrons) are captured and “small boxed” (letter box to the extreme), so they are emphasized as outside of what happens on the RV and what is recorded by Blue Skeleton. The leads (Brandy, Zack, Jeff, Mikey, and Bobby) are really a likable, fun-loving group of young adults just going for a minor trip to encounter chills and thrills but that pursuit for something a bit extra, out of boredom in the same-ole/same-ole, gets them in big trouble. Their naïveté is a bit alarming, quite frankly. When Zack sees that their RV was infiltrated as they slept and recorded (and the creepy girl in the doll mask boarding their RV uninvited, screeching and looking disturbed), this should have been the biggest red flag that enough was enough and perhaps they should have went home to celebrate Halloween. There are fun trips inside haunted houses recorded where Brandy (and the guys, occasionally) gets the hell scared out of her repeatedly. Some of the houses are quite well decorated and many of the workers really get into their characters. What happens to them at the end is kind of invited as they don’t seem to take a hint that these results were almost expected. Just take what little jollies the usual haunts provide instead of chasing after something not quite as safe. And the idea that a group would search for a haunt that takes them into mysterious parts of rural America they are unfamiliar screams dangerous. Hard to sympathize, admittedly. Good for the season, I think, but I can’t say I found this altogether exciting. A lot of the content on the RV is friends goofing off with each other, but that could be seen as allowing us to get to know them. The locals in their Halloween disguises outside the RV are far more interesting, I think, though.