HALLOWEENTOWN
US, 1998, 84 minutes, Colour.
Debbie Reynolds, Kimberley J. Brown, Judith Hoag, Joey Zimmerman, Philip van Dyke, Robin Thomas.
Directed by to Duwayne Dunham.
Halloweentown is a film for children and families. Released in 1998, it is the first of four films set in the fantasy Halloweentown.
It is Halloween and the mother of the Cromwell family, Judith Hoag, is forbidding her children to go out to trick or treat.Marnie, the precocious eldest child, is in rebellion against her mother (exhibiting those bratty characteristics of so many children defying their parents on screen). She has a younger brother who is something of a nerd, bespectacled and intellectual, and there is a younger daughter, Sophie.
The children were expecting the visit of their grandmother, an always exuberant Debbie Reynolds. It appears that she is a witch, travelling by magic bus from another world and the city of Halloweentown. She has presents for the children, is urging them to enjoy Halloween but always urging them to obey their mother who, it turns out, is also a witch but who has married a human and wants to live a “normal� life with her children after his death?
The children enjoy their grandmother’s visit and she leaves them with a book about Halloweentown. Marnie overhears a conversation between her mother and grandmother and realises the truth and that she herself is a witch who needs training, on her 13th birthday, at this time of wizards, werewolves, zombies and ghouls. Arguing with her brother, she and he follow the grandmother to the magical bus stop and stow away on the bus – later discovering that Sophie has also stowed away.
On arrival, they meet the Mayor of the town, Kalabar (Robin Thomas) former suitor of their mother and all charm – until, of course, he is revealed as the dark enemy who is destroying various characters, even casting grandmother and mother under his spell, wanting to be Lord of all worlds. He has an ally in Luke, an ordinary looking character in the town where everybody looks like some variation on a mutant. He is attracted to Marnie, eventually leading Kalabar away from the family by wearing her cloak – and eventually being revealed as a mutant, allowed to be ordinary and handsome by Kalabar and his working for him.
There are all kinds of fantasy elements in Halloweentown, the children enjoying them, their mother arriving and wanting to take them home, eventually the two women joining in power to confront Kalabar bar and the children, even the boy, realising their powers and defeating him.
The film relies on all the hocus-pocus mythology of Halloween which seems to be deep-seated in the American psyche and (unfortunately?) has extended itself to the rest of the world.
