Spirit Halloween Review

PLOT: Three friends, thinking they’ve outgrown trick or treating, decide to spend the night locked inside a Halloween store. But their night of spook-filled fun soon turns to outlandish survival.

REVIEW: Given the success of the recent Goosebumps films, it’s no surprise that we got a Spirit Halloween movie. Actually…yeah, it kind of is surprising because Goosebumps was based on a popular books series while Spirit Halloween is just a Halloween store that isn’t even open all year. Not only that, but they make the decision to set it in a Spirit Halloween itself, featuring a ton of the costumes and props that are on sale at the actual store. Oh, commercialism, you bastard.

As you probably suspected, this is a kid’s movie. So don’t go into this expecting some kind of circumvention of the genre. The production isn’t quite as “Straight to Cable Movie” as the trailer makes it out to be, but it’s also not the highest of qualities. It follows a pretty basic structure of “kids sneak into a store at night and there’s a spooky ghost inside.” In many ways, I could see this being an episode of the Goosebumps tv show from the 90s. If that’s your style, there’s sure to be something here for you.

I don’t like to be too hard on child actors, particularly in low-budget stuff like this where they may not have been directed much outside of “stand here”, so I’ll just focus on the ones that did a good job. Jaiden J. Smith is probably the best of the bunch and provides a genuinely good performance. And Marissa Reyes brings a little bit of life to an otherwise dull group of characters. A little bit of personality amongst these characters would have gone a long way.

One thing going for Spirit Halloween is having Christopher Lloyd voice the ghost at the center of it all. Sure, we get him in the flesh in the very beginning, but he’s mostly just a disembodied voice. And it really helps to elevate the movie, even if only briefly. Rachel Leigh Cook is also here as the main boy’s mom but she’s pretty inconsequential to the plot. If this movie weren’t desperate for minutes, then I could easily see her character just being cut entirely. I suppose she had too big of a name for that.

Director David Poag does a pretty decent job with the visuals, as this clearly doesn’t have any budget. There are even some shots I would go as far as to say are actually quite good. And while the CGI isn’t anything to write home about, it’s also not as terrible as the trailer made it out to be. There’s not a lot of passion here, as the film is clearly intended to cash in on the popularity of a niche retail store. Even still, there is a slight charm to its stupidity. And as much as I love Night of the Living Dead, does it have to be featured in everything? There’s plenty of other public domain movies.

With the credits rolling at just 73 minutes, Spirit Halloween is a really short movie. So if you’ve got kids who can’t handle anything too scary but wants to watch something appropriate for Halloween, then I’d give this one a chance. While there aren’t many adults that will get much entertainment out of it, I’m not sure this movie is for them. Kids deserve some lighthearted horror aimed at them too. I’m sure this movie will be gone from my memory by next week, but the Halloween-obsessed will still get a kick out of this. Heck, I’m sure they’ll even notice some of their Halloween decorations.

Spirit Halloween is STREAMING EVERYWHERE ON OCTOBER 11th.

Spirit Halloween

BELOW AVERAGE

5