This year marks 25 years since the original Halloweentown came out. Produced by Disney, this childhood movie of mine was always a treat when it came on the Disney channel every October.
For those uninitiated, Halloweentown is about a family, consisting of the mom, Gwen (Judith Hoag), and her three kids, Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown), Dylan (Joey Zimmerman), and Sophie (Emily Roeske), living in normal society, but the kids don’t know that they’re actually magic because their mom keeps it a secret from them. Every year they’re not allowed to leave the house during Halloween, the mom giving vague reasons why. Marnie tries to rebel but gives up when her mom won’t relent.
However, one of my favorite characters shows up on a floating bus to visit the family. Grandma Aggie (Debbie Reynolds), who is magical, but is sworn by Gwen to not reveal anything to her grandchildren. Despite this though, she does heavily hint that Halloweentown is real during a bedtime story. She shows Marnie a book with a witch that looks like her and Grandma almost reveals the Cromwell secret to Marnie when Gwen interrupts. She scolds Aggie alone while Marnie overhears and we find out that if Marnie doesn’t train by tonight, her 13th Halloween, she’ll lose her witch powers forever. We also first learn of a problem in Halloweentown that Gwen isn’t willing to help with, so Aggie leaves. Marnie and the kids follow her on the bus to Halloweentown and their magical journey begins.
One thing I really appreciate now seeing this movie is all the special effects and costumes they used with all the Halloweentown citizens. It makes the world all the more immersive than if they had the budget for CGI. Speaking of, the CGI in the movie is definitely dated, but considering the movie reportedly only had a budget of about $4 million, it doesn’t come as a complete shock and not all of it is egregiously bad for a movie from 1998. They seemingly relied on special effects a lot, which I think help give the movie a timeless feel. Some shots, like when Marnie and Aggie get Marnie her first broom and teach her hope to fly, does look very green-screened in, but I found it funny to watch and it gives the movie some extra charm.
I also want to touch on Debbie Reynolds’ performance. She has since passed away back in 2016, but I love her as Grandma Aggie in the movies and it was so fun getting to see her play as the iconic, magical and fun character I remembered her as after not having seen the movie for years. It’s a bit of a solemn watch knowing she’s passed, but she’ll always carry on in my heart as Aggie.
Going into spoilers here, I will say I notice that the climax of the film felt a bit rushed as most of the action of the film occurs in the last half hour of its roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes runtime. We’re hinted at the conflict with Halloweentown, but we don’t get to it until about 50 minutes in. We also do see the villain early on, which is Calabar, the mayor of Halloweentown, but we don’t know he’s the true villain until he reveals himself with about 10 minutes of runtime left. With that, I felt like they could’ve added more to it, but at the same time it works because the other central conflict is Marnie and her mom not getting along and fighting throughout the movie. They only make up when they’re able to team up in the end, along with Grandma Aggie and the other kids to chant a spell to get rid of Calabar for good-even though he does return in the next movie.
There’s also admittedly not that much magic going on in the movie, though I can forgive it since a large majority of the runtime is spent with Gwen restricting the kids and hiding their abilities and origin from them. It also is called Halloweentown, so it includes all things ghoulish like vampires, werewolves, and more, not just witches and warlocks.
These little details hardly bother me though as I felt the warmth and charm of childhood nostalgia wrap me up while I watched this movie on Disney+ for the first time in probably ten years. It was a fun revisit, especially for the upcoming holiday!
