A masked killer begins picking off teens during a Halloween trail night in "Haunted Trail", Robin Givens' fun, if unoriginal, slasher that takes a page out of the "Haunt"/"Hell Fest" playbook and manages to make it work reasonably well. It definitely helps that a mostly black cast does a good job of subverting the standard slasher character expectations, imbuing their parts with personality quirks and features that feel fresh despite the otherwise derivative material. Then there's the killer himself: a Michael Myers-esque madman with a cool mask design but an ultimately underwhelming (albeit kinda funny) motive. Before his unmasking, at least, the killer is great. There are flaws, however, chief of which is the relative lack of gore and spotty direction during various kill scenes that make it a little difficult to tell what's happening. The filmmakers are obviously working around a limited budget, though, so I guess it's alright. And kudos to them for creating an attraction within the movie that actually seems like it would be a cool live-action horror experience and isn't just a cobbled-together excuse for the movie's plot. Go into "Haunted Trail" with the usual low expectations you'd reserve for a Tubi horror flick and you might just be surprised by this fun little slasher.
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