Hallowarrior Review: Fun, Scrappy Horror Movie Shows Its True Potential Early

Though it can't really live up to the high of its impressive opening, Hallowarrior shows enough ambition to stay entertaining.

Published Oct 15, 2026, 10:01 AM EDT

Alex is the Senior Editor of Reviews & Prestige Content, overseeing ScreenRant's film reviews as one of its Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in English, he spent a locked-down year in Scotland completing a Master's in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, which he hears is a nice, lively city. He now lives in and works from Milan, Italy, conveniently a short train ride from the Venice Film Festival, which he first covered for SR in 2024.

A film's budget does not determine its quality, especially in the horror genre. There are plenty of all-time classics that prove limited resources don't have to be limiting. But they certainly can be. Sometimes a premise is simply too ambitious to suspend disbelief without better execution; sometimes there's simply not enough skill behind the camera to breeze past any resistance an audience might have to embracing what's on-screen. Whatever the reason, viewers can feel a movie chafing against the constraints of its making, some heat escaping with every bit of friction.

Hallowarrior, the feature debut of writer/director Ben Sottak, has that quality at times – though it's much more notable for the times that it doesn't. The holiday-themed, post-apocalyptic movie aims to walk a tonal tightrope that it just can't sustain, and it lands in a fun, gory place that the audience who will find it on Shudder will surely appreciate. But it begins in an impressively textured world of lonely melancholy, fed by the performance of star Milly Shapiro (Hereditary), that suggests Hallowarrior might've made a great short film. What lingers from that first impression is enough to carry the movie past its later shortcomings.

After A Stronger Start, Hallowarrior Slides Into Bumpy, Gory Fun

Hallowarrior is temporally slippery. It takes place at least four years after a deadly illness wiped out most of humanity, but the technology, production design, and overall aesthetic suggest the pandemic may have taken hold in a pre-smart phone age. Aside from a home video of a happy family carving jack-o'-lanterns, the only person we see alive in the opening minutes is Pumpkin (Shapiro), a young, orange-haired Halloween obsessive. The disease cleared out the rest of her rural town, her parents and siblings included, but she still lives in her childhood home, surviving on what she can scavenge.

It's October 31, and as she announces over her radio to anyone that may be listening, preparations are made for what was her family's favorite holiday. There's plenty of candy. Apple-bobbing (though apples have all gone rotten). Junk-o'-lanterns (pumpkins, too, are long gone). Pumpkin's even rigged some haunted house-style tricks inside her home. And, a little more disconcertingly, there are people-sized shapes draped in sheets seated on the couch, wearing the family's masks from the old video Pumpkin's decided to re-watch.

Shapiro's embodiment of those conflicting emotions takes the holiday silliness and laces it with a deep, character-driven sadness.

There's an inherent silliness to the Halloween element of this story, and each time the holiday's traditions are referenced, they cut away at any sense of seriousness in Hallowarrior. Thankfully, Sottak isn't really looking to be too grim. The first few minutes, though, are an exception. Though Pumpkin seems like a force of almost childlike optimism, which has surely kept her going through whatever horrors she experienced, the profound loneliness of her life has very nearly eaten that away. Shapiro's embodiment of those conflicting emotions takes the holiday silliness and laces it with a deep, character-driven sadness.

Things change significantly when, to Pumpkin's shock, she catches someone taking the candy set out on her front porch. She chases them, desperate to connect, but loses the masked figure – only to find two people raiding her kitchen when she returns home. Royce (A. J. Bowen) is all scowls and coiled threat, but Thalia (Shannyn Sossamon) is a calmer, more endearing presence. She taps into Pumpkin's deep desire for family, and gets the girl to agree to let the others of their group stay in the house. But when it becomes clear that Thalia and her raiders have not-so-familial intentions, Pumpkin must resort to violence to survive the spookiest night of the year.

Hallowarrior's Ups And Downs Balance Out To A Positive Experience

Most of Hallowarrior is plagued by inconsistency. The dialogue can be a bit on the nose, and the performances aren't all operating at the same level, a combination that puts a serious dent in the characters' potential depth. Sossamon makes Thalia a transfixing villain, but Bowen's Royce and Ajani Russell's Wendy, another girl traveling with the raiders but hardly happy about it, can only hit the same note on repeat. The other raiders end up being more monsters than people, and suddenly, a movie that tapped into some aching humanity in its opening suddenly has little of it to hold onto.

The same is true stylistically, though Sottak deserves credit for erring on the side of ambition. Once the film essentially becomes a single-location home invasion thriller, the visual texture of the opening fades somewhat, and it begins to show its budget. When the story turns violent, the gore effects are quite well done and impactful; a strong choice related to a drug the raiders carry with them is less effective.

The ups-and-downs hold the movie back from making good on its best ideas, but also keep it from sinking to the level of its worst ones. Hallowarrior is fun, moves quickly, and occasionally punches above its weight in a way that suggests Sottak has a promising foundation to build on. For a film of this size and scope, that's a win – but considering where it began, it feels a touch more disappointing than it would have otherwise.

Hallowarrior is available to stream on Shudder from Friday, October 16.