Brian Owens created, in the span of two years, two marginally interesting horror antagonists in the demon-of-few-words Father Malius and Brainscan's digital devil Trickster. Both were a little derivative, but still could have been better than the footnotes* they've become.
Happy Hell Night has its moments, and the underlying idea of it is solid, but aside from the gore and the potential in the very creepy Malius, there's almost nothing else here. Maybe Bara's horrible mullet. Or a very young Sam Rockwell showing up for a succinct cameo, setting up the mythology that will just get chucked out the window as the movie rattles to a close.
I won't make my standard horror movie complaint here. Not because it doesn't do it (because it does), but because it's obviously so baked into the genre that it's pointless to even waste the keystrokes on it.
*Fine, Malius may not even qualify as a footnote.