Steven (Jeremy Ivy) thinks it's a great idea to bring his fiancée
Amanda (Sherri Eakin) back to the town he grew up with for Halloween, to
meet his uncle (Richard Tyson) who brought him up. Thing is, uncle is
absolutely enthusiastic about Halloween, so he organizes a hayride every
year, complete with all kinds of serialkillers from the movies and popular
lorse jumping out of the bushes, a haunted house as a stop, and everything
horrific you can imagine. Amanda isn't exactly crazy about this, but for
Steven, she agrees to go on a hayride, too. Meanwhile, a notorious
serialkiller has escaped custody, and now the police does their best to
trace him - but the area is vast and largely uninhabited, so it will take
weeks to track him down - and that's an optimistic guess. At first, the
hayride is good and harmless fun, as it should be ... but then a new
character shows up, Pitchfork, a killer from a local legend, who at first
mixes quite well with the other characters - until he starts killing for
real, visitors and performers alike, and since this is a hayride, it takes
everybody quite a bit to figure out that Pitchfork is not part of the
entertainment but the real deal - and with their friends falling left and
right, Steven and Amanda do their best to stay alive, running, struggling
and whatnot - but will they make it? Slasher fans will no doubt
love Hayride: Not only does it feature many a bloody murder, many a
expertly executed shock moment, and a very spooky killer outfit, it also
features a perfect and perfectly creepy backdrop for a film like that,
where fiction and (the film's) reality are bound to constantly crash to
keep the viewer alert, and quite a few original plottwists towards the
film's end do actually make this one of the more memorable slashers of
late. However, Hayride is not without its flaws: Especially
towards the beginning it tells more story than necessary, features a few
too many subplots to really concentrate on the main storyline, a few too
many not too interesting characters to keep track of. Basically, the film
only starts to be fun in the second half, when everything is properly set
up and the killer is (literally) let loose on everyone. But once it starts
to be fun, it's real fun!!!
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