A Visual Trick-or-Treat for Horror Fans

Read Time:5 Minute, 5 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Screamityville
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Genre: Holiday, Horror, Documentary
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 24m
Director(s): Ryan Archibald
Where to Watch: available now, order your copy here: www.mvdshop.com or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: I’m a sucker for documentaries, and an even bigger sucker for Halloween, so this had me psyched! SCREAMITYVILLE is less a traditional documentary and more of a love letter to Halloween itself — an ode to neighborhood creativity, lights, and the strange comfort found in the eerie hum of suburban extravaganza. At just under an hour and a half, it abandons typical documentary conventions for something more immersive and sensory in flavor. It’s not about explaining; it’s about experiencing. Director Ryan Archibald trades interviews and context for texture and tone, crafting a chronicle of how ordinary front yards transform into worlds of imagination each October.

From its opening shots, you sense that this isn’t a film meant to frighten. It’s intended to engulf. The camera slides slowly through cul-de-sacs lit by orange bulbs, passing rows of skeletons and tombstones covered by fog and flickering strobes. Archibald’s background in holiday-themed features (particularly his “Christmas Lights” trilogy) serves him well here. He approaches Halloween with the same fascination he once gave to tinsel and sleigh bells, only now the glow is a little more sinister. What remains consistent is his fascination with community — how ordinary people use light and sound to turn their homes into miniature mythologies.

The beauty of SCREAMITYVILLE lies in its simplicity. There are no talking heads or essays to break the illusion, no hosts guiding viewers from one setup to the next. Instead, the film unfolds as a continuous collage of horror installations, each one treated like a living organism. The sound design merges with the score to create something hypnotic. Watching it feels like taking a midnight walk through an endless Halloween neighborhood, where every turn reveals another expression of obsession and joy.

Each house tells a story through design alone. One transforms its front yard into a pirate ship, sails glowing under ultraviolet light. Another is a graveyard populated by animatronics, whose movements are both comical and unsettling. There’s a carnival of undead clowns whose painted smiles flicker between delight and menace. Even the quieter displays — a single illuminated jack-o’-lantern surrounded by swirling mist — feel alive.

The rawness is part of the film’s charm. It acknowledges the trickery without puncturing the illusion. It celebrates the imperfections that make Halloween what it is. The crooked gravestone, the flickering bulb, the animatronic head that turns a few degrees too far — these details are reminders that behind every display is a creator chasing joy through invention.

As a home release, it doubles as both an atmospheric experience and a collector’s curiosity. You could play it in the background of a Halloween gathering to enhance the ambience, but watch it alone in a dark room for a different experience. It becomes meditative — a slow drift through suburbia’s collective imagination. It’s somewhere between an art installation and a seasonal comfort film.

If SCREAMITYVILLE has a weakness, it’s the same one that gives it personality: its refusal to explain itself. Some viewers may find its lack of structure distancing, but others will find freedom in that openness. Archibald’s choice to let imagery replace narrative feels almost rebellious in an era obsessed with commentary. The absence of voices creates space for the viewer’s own nostalgia to surface — memories of childhood trick-or-treating, of late-night horror marathons, or that one neighbor who went too far with decorations and became a local legend. The film becomes a mirror for those memories, not a manual for how to create them.

By the final moments, when the last string of lights fades and the hum of generators falls silent, what remains is a feeling of contemplative calm. SCREAMITYVILLE doesn’t chase jump scares or sentimentality; it celebrates ritual. It understands that Halloween isn’t only about terror — it’s about transformation, about turning ordinary streets into something strange and communal for the season. The film captures that ephemeral beauty perfectly.

Archibald’s experiment won’t appeal to everyone, but for those who find magic in the glow of porch lights and the hum of fog machines, it offers a homecoming. It’s a quiet, patient celebration of a uniquely American art form — one built on equal parts obsession, creativity, and nostalgia. SCREAMITYVILLE doesn’t shout its love of Halloween; it whispers it through the rustle of leaves and the flicker of plastic ghosts. That restraint is its secret strength — an invitation to look closer, to remember, and to enjoy the haunting glow of ordinary wonder simply.

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[photo courtesy of BORDERLINE MEDIA, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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