Hallowarrior

Her childhood Halloween home movies are all that Pumpkin (Milly Shapiro) has to watch as she prepares for another year on her own. She loves Halloween and has prepared the house for visitors. She knows it’s a forlorn hope as she sends out her invitation through short wave radio, even calling herself the ‘last girl on earth’.

But this year she has visitors albeit one she nearly shoots while the other gets off a crossbow bolt at her. Royce (AJ Bowen) and Thalia (Shannyn Sossamon) are a married couple who break in looking for food. All Pumpkin has to offer is candy, though at his insistence she gets her father’s booze out for Royce. They are later joined by a hooded Wendy (Ajani Russell) who has little time for Pumpkin’s whimsy.

When Thalia says that she is going to get the rest of group, there’s a distinct feeling that you know where this is going and what they are about. Leaving Royce and Wendy with Pumpkin, there’s an altercation and Royce’s true nature comes to the fore resulting in violence. At which point Thalia returns with a bunch of weirdos.

This is an end of the world through disease with survivors and as such not the most original premise. But writer and director Ben Sottak has done it very well keeping the direction tight and tension high in what for the most part is a single location shoot.

The cast are solid though Shapiro with the greater screen time and character development is excellent as a world-weary teen who is desperately lonely, naive and also, we find out quite weird herself.

The home invaders are the usual drugged up, masked and S&M type psychos who come to horrible deaths. And the blood and drugs do begin to flow copiously as the film approaches the end.

There’s a satisfying conclusion spoiled by a heavy-handed hint at a sequel which is a shame and happening far too often.

Hallowarrior will be available on Shudder from 16 October 2026.