L'esprit de l'abandoned department store
Yeah, you read that right. Spirit Halloween: The Movie is a branding exercise in repping the spookiness of America's favorite way to temporarily fill abandoned storefronts Halloween superstore. Produced in conjunction with three studios you've never heard of, Spirit Halloween has taken the world by storm. And by "the world," I mean "limited theaters and VOD where it's already priced at $4."
The film follows three middle school kids: the Halloween-loving Jake (Donovan Colan), the cowardly Bo (Jaiden J. Smith), and the wild card Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel). Carson is deeper into the first throes of puberty than either of his besties, and he feels that three besties who are about to start high school shouldn't be running around trick or treating instead of going to parties. But Jake heartily disagrees - both because he loves trick or treating and because it's something that connects him to his father, who has passed away.
They compromise and agree to spend the night locked in their local Spirit Halloween. What do you know, but the abandoned lot where it has taken residence just happens to be the site of the death-by-witch-curse of evil local land baron Alex Windsor (Christopher Lloyd), whose spirit possesses the various spooky things they sell at Spirit Halloween in order to chase down the boys and attempt to claim one of their bodies for himself. Meanwhile, both Carson's older sister Kate (Marissa Reyes) and Jake's mom (Rachael Leigh Cook) are trying to track down the boys.
Spirit Halloween: The Movie is actually quite similar to The Lego Movie, in the sense that it's a film that sprung from soulless corporate motivations yet nevertheless turned out much better than it should have. This is where the comparisons end. For one thing, part of Lego Movie's appeal was the fact that they also licensed many of the properties from various Lego sets, recreating the world that imaginative kids could concoct by combining various characters and locations.
Spirit Halloween, being the purveyor of such fine goods as the hilariously misguided Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers fleece blanket (that currently graces my bed) and more Hocus Pocus merch than you can shake a broomstick at, could have used their access to some of horror's most beloved properties to paint with all the colors of a classic North American Halloween. Unfortunately, licensing all that would cost money, and this movie does not have any.
The other thing is that, while The Lego Movie was genuinely quite excellent, Spirit Halloween just barely limps over the line of "good." It's a gateway horror-comedy that combines the gentlest sort of horror with an even gentler vein of comedy. While it's better than it has to be, it's more boilerplate and bland than pretty much any good kids' horror out there. In fact, I could probably name a half dozen better titles just off the top of my head, but I wouldn't waste your time like-
Goosebumps. The Monster Squad. The Witches. ParaNorman. Monster House. Halloweentown. The Nightmare Before Christmas. Casper. Return to Oz. Gremlins. Oops.
None of the young stars of the film are bad, they just aren't asked to deliver characters that would tax any performer whatsoever, and none of them really imbues much life into their roles beyond what's on the page.
Then, of course, the movie begs the question - why do this to Rachael Leigh Cook? The poor woman gets more to do in He's All That than this and that movie has actual stars in it (if we're counting TikTok). She acquits herself well, but both she and Marla Gibbs (in an even smaller role) reek of "you've got three hours with me, let's make this work." Lloyd has about the same amount of screentime, but does offer a bit of VO work to make himself a more consistent presence throughout the movie.
His cartoonish vocal tics do work well to blend this movie's sense of horror and comedy together once his spirit sets to work. This does provide a slight atmosphere of a chintzy neighborhood Halloween to the film as he possesses the incredibly fake-looking yet kinda scary monsters that populate the front of the store. Unfortunately, the production design around him inherently has to be the bland, white-tiled, corporate void that marks more or less every Spirit Halloween store.
Once the kids escape into the underground caverns that the store is - naturally - built over, the film allows itself to come to life a little bit with a bit of the over-the-top spooky production design that the film so desperately craves. But of course, you don't stage the grand finale of Spirit Halloween: The Movie anywhere else but Spirit Goddamn Halloween. As it happens, the movie really does live up to its title. It exactly evokes the store it's meant to promote, providing a bevy of Halloween delights completely divorced from the context that will eventually make them creepy to anyone but the five-year-olds whose parents have dragged them in while running errands.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
The film follows three middle school kids: the Halloween-loving Jake (Donovan Colan), the cowardly Bo (Jaiden J. Smith), and the wild card Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel). Carson is deeper into the first throes of puberty than either of his besties, and he feels that three besties who are about to start high school shouldn't be running around trick or treating instead of going to parties. But Jake heartily disagrees - both because he loves trick or treating and because it's something that connects him to his father, who has passed away.
They compromise and agree to spend the night locked in their local Spirit Halloween. What do you know, but the abandoned lot where it has taken residence just happens to be the site of the death-by-witch-curse of evil local land baron Alex Windsor (Christopher Lloyd), whose spirit possesses the various spooky things they sell at Spirit Halloween in order to chase down the boys and attempt to claim one of their bodies for himself. Meanwhile, both Carson's older sister Kate (Marissa Reyes) and Jake's mom (Rachael Leigh Cook) are trying to track down the boys.
Spirit Halloween: The Movie is actually quite similar to The Lego Movie, in the sense that it's a film that sprung from soulless corporate motivations yet nevertheless turned out much better than it should have. This is where the comparisons end. For one thing, part of Lego Movie's appeal was the fact that they also licensed many of the properties from various Lego sets, recreating the world that imaginative kids could concoct by combining various characters and locations.
Spirit Halloween, being the purveyor of such fine goods as the hilariously misguided Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers fleece blanket (that currently graces my bed) and more Hocus Pocus merch than you can shake a broomstick at, could have used their access to some of horror's most beloved properties to paint with all the colors of a classic North American Halloween. Unfortunately, licensing all that would cost money, and this movie does not have any.
The other thing is that, while The Lego Movie was genuinely quite excellent, Spirit Halloween just barely limps over the line of "good." It's a gateway horror-comedy that combines the gentlest sort of horror with an even gentler vein of comedy. While it's better than it has to be, it's more boilerplate and bland than pretty much any good kids' horror out there. In fact, I could probably name a half dozen better titles just off the top of my head, but I wouldn't waste your time like-
Goosebumps. The Monster Squad. The Witches. ParaNorman. Monster House. Halloweentown. The Nightmare Before Christmas. Casper. Return to Oz. Gremlins. Oops.
None of the young stars of the film are bad, they just aren't asked to deliver characters that would tax any performer whatsoever, and none of them really imbues much life into their roles beyond what's on the page.
Then, of course, the movie begs the question - why do this to Rachael Leigh Cook? The poor woman gets more to do in He's All That than this and that movie has actual stars in it (if we're counting TikTok). She acquits herself well, but both she and Marla Gibbs (in an even smaller role) reek of "you've got three hours with me, let's make this work." Lloyd has about the same amount of screentime, but does offer a bit of VO work to make himself a more consistent presence throughout the movie.
His cartoonish vocal tics do work well to blend this movie's sense of horror and comedy together once his spirit sets to work. This does provide a slight atmosphere of a chintzy neighborhood Halloween to the film as he possesses the incredibly fake-looking yet kinda scary monsters that populate the front of the store. Unfortunately, the production design around him inherently has to be the bland, white-tiled, corporate void that marks more or less every Spirit Halloween store.
Once the kids escape into the underground caverns that the store is - naturally - built over, the film allows itself to come to life a little bit with a bit of the over-the-top spooky production design that the film so desperately craves. But of course, you don't stage the grand finale of Spirit Halloween: The Movie anywhere else but Spirit Goddamn Halloween. As it happens, the movie really does live up to its title. It exactly evokes the store it's meant to promote, providing a bevy of Halloween delights completely divorced from the context that will eventually make them creepy to anyone but the five-year-olds whose parents have dragged them in while running errands.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
