HALLOWEENTOWN

On a Halloween night, three children by the names of Marnie, Dylan, and Sophie are kept inside by their mother, Gwen. Meanwhile, the family's grandmother, Aggie comes and visits to warn Gwen of a great evil that is coming to her hometown. For a moment while Aggie was warning Gwen about this tragedy that is set to strike, Marnie overheard the conversation between the two. 

She then wakes her brother and they get set to follow their grandmother home, where they find out about the land they were very so promised was just pretend, wasn't. Welcome to Halloweentown. 

The book of Halloweentown that Marnie got as a gift THE BOOK OF HALLOWEENTOWN THAT MARNIE GOT AS A GIFT; PHOTO BY ROYCE POHLMAN

Throughout the beginning of the movie it definitely brought back some memories of watching the movie when I was younger but my least favorite thing about the beginning was how lame Dylan was at first about Halloween, same with Gwen but I understand where she comes from with her being their mother. Another thing that caught my eye was the foreshadowing of the powers that the children possessed when Sophie was pouting about not being able to go out, a book fell off of the shelf, showing that she had some sort of control of her surroundings. When being introduced to Halloweentown when the kids and the grandmother are on the bus, seeing all of the monsters walking around and seeing the life that Halloween brought for these people. It made me feel as if I had that same imagination when I was younger about all the monsters and made me sort of re-experience the love for Halloween I would wait for year after year. I think the way that they brought in all these fun characters but also balancing it with the evil, but when the evil is introduced it is just very short images of the so-called “Shadow Creature.” Aggie used Merlin’s talisman and filled it with some instant witch's brew in an attempt to turn it on to use it to extinguish the evil that is reigning over the town day by day. I liked the idea of a powerful relic being used to fight away the conflict in the movie, but in a turn of events the witch’s brew didn’t work because it wasn't as pure as a brew would be from scratch. In an attempt to go out and retrieve the necessary resources to be used to make a new witch’s brew, Aggie is pulled away by the town's “local punk” Luke. Where she's told that the Shadow Creature wanted Merlin's Talisman and when Aggie went to where he was, he put a spell on her and Gwen that left her stuck in time until the spell was broken. After this took place I initially thought that the Shadow Creature may get ahold of the Talisman and do what he sought out, but the children had retrieved all of the needed items and created their own new witch’s brew. There was a set of words that had to be said for the Talisman to turn on, so as they all started to put the pieces together of the spell and worked together to turn it on. This part was really good to watch because at the beginning of the movie, each one of these kids were clueless as to if magic was even real or not, and then they just came out above all odds and took down the evil that was about to corrupt the world that they came from. 

From the people like Dylan who didn't like the idea of Halloween to the town full of people who loved it, there was an amazing story to be told and the conflict that was being faced was and Kalabar was a very good choice to make the villain in this story but honestly, when it came down to it he was genuinely likable. He was a kind person when he was helping the kids get back to their grandmother's house, or when he found out Gwen came back to town he was trying to rekindle the old things between them. I’m not saying what he did was right because in no world would that be okay, but he has a part of him that is good and that is what makes him likable.