Hold The Fort

Bluesky

Jenny (Haley Leary) never wanted to live somewhere with a Home Owners’ Association. Her husband Lucas (Chris Mayers) seems considerably more enthused about the move to the suburbs, though they both like the house, there’s no property tax, and they can’t complain about the price. It will be for the best, Lucas suggests, if they at least try to be friendly with their new neighbours, so when HOA president Jerry invites them to attend an equinox party, she reluctantly agrees.

Jerry (Julian Smith) is one of those persistently cheery people who, in a parallel universe, might have been played by a young Bruce Campbell. In a brief prologue alerting viewers to the threat which Jenny and Lucas are yet to discover, we have seen him praised by his boss for his vision and coping skills, and it’s not long before we get a hint of how much he has coped with since. There are, of course, two equinoxes each year, but here the term seems to be used as a means to avoid saying ‘Halloween’ and giving the newcomers a heads-up. As Jerry goes through the annual drill at the party, explaining when the local hellmouth is expected to open and what might be coming out of it, asking for volunteers for crucial defensive roles, they remain convinced that it’s a joke. Lucas’ focus is on making friends, Jenny’s on getting as drunk as she can.

The party build-up gives us a little time to get to know the characters, from longstanding residents Ted (Levi Burdick) and Annette (Michelle I Lamb) to better-living-through-chemicals advocate Lesley (Tordy Clark), but writer/director William Bagley understands his audience and wastes little time in getting to the action. Tough guy for hire McScruffy (Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson) is a late addition to the gathering, but for various reasons his ability to perform his habitual duties is limited, obliging the hapless newcomers to play a larger role than planned in what follows.

There isn’t much more plot to it than that – just the various residents fending off wave after wave of attacking monsters, from storybook witches to the much-hyped stick man. Each type of monster requires a specific solution, with Jerry, endlessly plucky regardless of circumstances, acting as the keeper of the lore. Of course things don't go to plan and there is a significant body count, with a hefty helping of gore, but the focus of the film is so firmly on comedy that even some people who don’t like horror are likely to find it a fun ride. The special effects work is ambitious and not entirely successful, but if anything that’s a plus, contributing to the B-movie atmosphere. The same could be said for some of the ropier performances.

Is there a point to it all? Not really, beyond the fact that one really ought to read contracts properly before signing up to things as serious as home ownership. It’s a bit of lightweight fluff, but it has no pretensions, and its heroes are easy to like. There are some cracking one-liners and a lot of genre in-jokes. At a festival like Fantasia 2025, where it premièred, it’s a great opportunity to relax and have fun between screenings of more serious fare. Beyond that, it’s a natural party film.

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