‘Twas the night before Halloween

when all through the house

not a creature was stirring

except for a Bowman

whose name was Lisa Marie”

— Traditional Bowman Folk Song

And why was I stirring?

Well, first off, that’s what I tend to do.  However, on top of that, I was also stirring because I was watching SyFy’s latest original film, The Night Before Halloween.  I was excited because The Night Before Halloween was full of Degrassi actors!

For instance, Jahmil French played the nerdy but cool Dave Turner on Degrassi.  In The Night Before Halloween, he plays Kyle.  Kyle’s a teenager with a curse.  Basically, unless he can trick someone into killing another person, a supernatural creature will kill him on Halloween night.  It’s a bit like the It Follows curse, except that the curse isn’t passed on by sex.  Instead, it’s passed by fooling someone else into committing murder.  In other words, transmitting The Night Before Halloween curse is a lot less fun than transmitting the It Follows curse.

On Degrassi, Justin Kelly played Jake Martin, a handsome and lovable stoner.  In The Night Before Halloween, Justin Kelly plays Adam, who is handsome and lovable and probably likes to get high, even though we never see him do so in the film.  Adam, unfortunately, is friends with Kyle.  When Kyle tricks Adam in taking part in a prank that leads to the electrocution of Beth (Natalie Ganzhorn), Adam finds himself being pursued by the monster.  Can he and his girlfriend, Megan (Bailee Madison), survive?

On Degrassi, Alex Harrouch played Leo, the abusive boyfriend (and briefly, husband) of Alli.  In The Night Before Halloween, Harrouch plays a much more sympathetic character, Wyatt.  At first, Wyatt is likable and nerdy but then Kyle tricks him into helping to kill Beth.  Leo is the first of the friends to understand what has happened but, when he tried to inform his friends, they ignored his calls and texts.  So, as Leo puts it, he made some new friends, with names like Benny and Oxy.  Leo has had to do some terrible things to survive and he’s been left a haunted shell of his former self.

The final member of this group of friends is Lindsay.  Lindsay is played by Kiana Madeira, who does not have a Degrassi connection but still does a good job in her role.  Lindsay may start as a skeptic but soon, she’s willing to do almost anything to get rid of the curse.

Anyway, of all the It Follows-inspired films that showed up on SyFy this October, The Night Before Halloween was definitely the best.  It was well-acted and directed and the supernatural monster (which usually manifested itself as a swarm of flies) was creepy.  Best of all, the film fully embraced and explored the question of how far people would go to survive.  In The Night Before Halloween, the only way to escape the curse is to betray someone.  While you may not be surprised when the friends start to betray each other, you’ll still never guess just how far one of them is willing to go.  You may even find yourself considering just how far you would go to save your life.

The Night Before Halloween is a very well-done SyFy shocker.  Even if it didn’t have the Degrassi connection, it would still be one to track down.