Over the years I’ve always wondered what Brad Dourif was up to in the early 2000s in between his stints as the horror icon Chucky-well this year I can tell you in 2004 he was in a largely overlooked and forgotten Halloween themed gem called THE HAZING from 2004. Believe it or not the 2000s had some under looked horror gems and this one’s ripe for the season. Released on VHS as ‘Dead Scared’ we’ve got a flick here that’s in need of a bigger cult following and a fancy pants blu ray release as well. It’s got all the right spooky moves and is the perfect party monster mash up. From director Rolfe Kanefsky who also is known in die hard horror circles for his cult classic ‘There’s Nothing Out There’ from 1991 and his weird erotic 90’s software films, this appears to likely be his only “other cool” horror film.

Taking place on Halloween we have the spooky tale of a deranged college professor played by none other than ‘Chucky’ himself Brad Dourif. He’s a weirdo who loves to dabble in occult black magic with his cursed demonic book and brutally murder hot women who are essentially throwing themselves all over him and keep their dead bodies in his basement dungeon! What gives Brad?! You just don’t know when you got it so good as an old geezer! Anyway as he’s doing what he apparently loves to do on his downtime, a Frat & Sorority are conducting their annual Halloween “hazing” ritual where in costume, they’ve got to go on a weird wild goose chase for some strange objects and one of the items is a book similar to the one Brad uses. Can you see where this is going?

Things get off to an innocent start, until one pair of “hazee’s” decide to break into Professor Brad’s house to find the book-there they stumble upon him down in his dungeon of terror, get into a scuffle and nearly kill him by pushing him onto a taxidermy animal horn. They flee the scene with his cursed book thinking they won’t get caught and head over to complete “the hazing” at a spooky mansion where the frat bros and sisters are waiting to scare them. One BIG problem-Brad Dourif isn’t dead, but in some sort of coma as the police rush him to the hospital. There in his altered states he astral projects and possesses the college kids and traps them inside the mansion where he can open a gate to hell and steal their souls!!

There’s a ton of Halloween themed fun here, great atmosphere, some well done but cheezy practical fx, likable characters and some pretty good scares too. Brad legitimizes the whole affair, the guy to his credit never phones in a damn performance. Yeah Brad shines as the creepy villain and when his astral body possesses the guys AND the gals their face via some nifty make up fx look just him in his more advanced age.

It’s a highly amusing aspect of the movie and the film most definitely draws it’s frenetic energy more the the 1980s than the early 2000s. Brad’s definitely one of the main attractions here and the other being “scream queen” Tiffany Shepis’ butt!! I’m sorry I HAD to say it and I’m not trying to be pervy but (no pun intended) I watched it with a group of guys and gals and at the end of the movie they all brought up the elephant in the room-how awe inducing her butt was-trust me if you watch ‘The Hazing’ you’ll know EXACTLY what I’m talking about!

Anyway enough about that. The Hazing was a great little surprise with plenty of the season’s spooky cheer. The 2000’s seems to get shit on a lot for it’s horror films but there are actually quite a few solid gems out there and The Hazing has joined the ranks as one of the good ones. If you took Night of the Demon, Hell Night and the Evil Dead 2 and put them all in a blender in the Y2K era you’d end up with this little obscurity. Not quite as iconic as all of those by themselves but a decent blend filled with lots of creepy halloween atmosphere, hot babes, some surprising twists and some gooey fx.

Plus the characters here don’t fall prey to the normal tropes, IE the nerdy asian guy & the “blonde bimbo” played by Nectar Rose aren’t playing by the somewhat tired stereotypical horror rules that came before in the 1980s and 90s. So if you’re looking for HALLOWEEN themed horror from an era that’s not quite as pretentious as most of today’s horror films you just can’t go wrong with The Hazing!