#bubblezreview

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Yo, I'm kinda bad at this whole social media thing.

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I've been told I should in fact shit post. So here I am. Shit posting.

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Halloweentown: Standing the Test of Time

I wrote this ages ago for a class because I love Halloweenteen. It's one of my favourite trilogies. I don't count the fourth one because a part from the weird recast of Marnie the story makes no sense based on the first three! The world was thrown out and it doesn't even feel like a Halloweentown movie! I do mention it in this because I didn't want to be docked marks for not including it and just because it sucks doesn't mean I should condemn the work that went into making it. So I see it. I know it's a thing! But it's bad and it upsets me that is so bad but whatever! This is about the first one!

From director Duwayne Dunham who worked on two well known films Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of The Lost Ark, comes the great Halloweentown, an amazingly magical and fun children’s movie to watch with the whole family.  The movie was filmed in the actual town of St. Helens, Oregon in 1998.  The film is set around a young 13-year-old girl Marnie Piper play by Kimberly J. Brown, her younger brother Dylan Piper played by Joey Zimmerman, and sister Sophie Piper played by Emily Roeske, who are named after Paul Bernbaum’s children, a writer of the movie.  Marnie, Dylan and Sophie learn that they are witches and have magic, and with this knowledge, the siblings follow their grandmother Aggie Cromwell, played by Debbie Reynolds, to a magical town where vampires, werewolves, ghosts and more supernatural creatures live in peace. Or at least they did but when the young siblings get to town, they find out that something is wrong with Halloweentown’s citizens. They find themselves fighting against evil to save the town. (I love this movie so much. I love the second and third as well.)

Fun fact: the citizens of St. Helens, Oregon, welcome tourists and fans of the movie to their month-long Spirit of Halloweentown event during the month of October to celebrate the movie and the Halloween season. To add to the festivities, they recreate parts of the set, like the large orange jack-o-lantern that sat happy, and smiling in the town square when the Piper children first get to Halloweentown and throughout the film. (Not sure if they still do this, but I would love to go.)

This movie is great for children around the Halloween season.  It has spooky moments but a fairly cheery vibe throughout. It has nice characters who were well designed by Paul Bernbaum, Jon Cooksey and Ali Marie Matheson the screenwriters of Halloweentown. It’s not a confusing film to follow, the plot is straight forward which is good for kids. It’s a great movie for cuddling up with your young ones with and enjoying a film together around the Halloween season.

Kimberly J. Brown or Marnie being 13 is a large plot point , a witch must start their training by their 13th Halloween or she’ll lose her powers forever.  If Marnie was already 13 in the first scene then it would make it her 14th Halloween and she would have already missed her chance to become a witch but in the film the slip-up isn’t corrected and doesn’t affect the film’s plot. It’s a just a cute fact to know about the film and if one of your little ones notices the goof you have the answer for them.

Halloweentown is a series of 4 films Halloweentown, Halloweentown: Calabar’s Revenge, Halloweentown High, and Return to Halloweentown. But most fans don’t like to talk about the last film as in the finally film the actress of Marnie, Kimberly J. Brown, was recast for the final film. No one in the fan base really knows why and the rest of the cast remained the same as the previous 3 movies. In all of the films only 3 actors are credited to be in all of them Aggie Cromwell played by Debbie Reynolds, Gwen Cromwell played by Judith Hoag and Dylan Piper played by Joey Zimmerman.

            When was younger, I enjoyed the first Halloweentown so much that when I learned there were more than one film, I lost my mind. I find the series very interesting and easily likeable if you or your kids have any interest in Halloween as a theme or supernatural things at all, you’d probably like this one. It was a different movie from the usual princess films that were everywhere.  It had something special to it and I just have to watch it every year around Halloween. I still like to watch the Halloweentown movies every year and I find that I like to watch at least the first one. Though I have grown up with these movies and my interests have changed, I know that this is not my favourite movie, it never was, I just really enjoy it and find it a very enjoyable watch once a year. It’s cute and simple. There are lots of memorable moments and my favourite was when Marnie and her siblings are in a hairdressers’ and she picks up a hair-dryer, turns it on and it throws fire instead of air, which was real!

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It: Chapter 2 - Why does this movie exist?

Wait for a real horror movie if you want to see one as It Chapter 2 is not a horror movie. Sure, while watching the movie I was creeped out and disgusted but I didn’t find it horrifying. That being said! I think it was an entertaining movie. For this review, I will talk about why It Chapter 2 is not a horror movie, as well as, the characters, the story, cinematography; and a few scenes that really stood out to me in this movie.

There were too many moments of tension broken by the characters making (unfunny) jokes for me see this as a horror movie. Even though they were supposed to be scared; they didn’t seem that scared. Yeah, who gives a crap that the evil clown never died and is trying to kill us again after all these years? Every time a joke was made the timing made it difficult to stay in the moment and if I should laugh or not. A lot of the jokes weren't very funny so it felt awkward at times. That may have been because I didn't see It Chapter 1 so a lot of the character relationships weren't there for me but I won't watch Chapter 1 now! It was advertised as a horror movie but between the awkward jokes and lack of horror it wasn't a horror movie at all.

The story was easy to follow by the end of the movie I knew who every character was by name. It (the book and now movies) started when this weird shapeshifting monster (sorry,) alien (Wait? I'm sorry a shapeshifting human eating alien? Ok...) appeared and started eating kids in the town of Derry. It Chapter 2 is the sequel to It Chapter 1. The sequel follows the same seven characters as the first but twenty-seven years later. Their story is about how their town had many children go missing and they, as children, had to save the town and stop the monster, Pennywise a shapeshifting alien that likes to scare and eat children disguised as a clown. (His voice was creepy but it made me laugh so unless he was eating someone, I didn’t find him scary at all.) As children the seven came together because they were bullied and had no one else to turn to so they became friends and called themselves the loser as they were always told they were. Now twenty-seven years later Pennywise is back which means the group had to come back to the town and find these mementos (the mementos work by the person going to a place in the town that means a lot to them and collecting them by remembering the events leading to or the feeling of getting that thing from their childhood) to help them defeat Pennywise. Spoiler for the ending: They collect them but surprise! it doesn’t work; they end up yelling at him, causing him to shrink, and kill him by ripping his heart out and crushing it. Why they needed to come back as adults to defeat in this remake when the book and the first movie version didn't... I don't know, someone wanted more money I guess.

The characters were Mike, the group's token black kid, the only one to remain in Derry after their first fight with Pennywise. He has this crazy idea of how to defeat Pennywise and calls everyone back to Derry when Pennywise attacks again. Beverly, the token girl of the group, got married to a man who is much like her abusive father. Richie became a comedian; he was the group's jokester and a closet gay. Eddie got married to a woman who was like his emotionally abusive mother and he was also a closet gay. Ben grew out of his baby fat as he was the group's fat kid. Stanley, we meet briefly as he committed suicide out of fear of having to face Pennywise again. Bill, was the leader of the group when they were kids, he doesn’t have much of a story outside of the town as his younger brother was one of the children that went missing twenty-seven years ago, he struggles with that throughout the movie as he blamed himself for his brother’s death. They are exactly how'd you expect traumatized children who have become traumatized adults. (I really didn't have anything to say about them as characters or actors.)

The film was beautifully shot and I really appreciated the work that went into the cinematography. The transitions from present to past were seamless. That being said one of my favourite transitions is when Ben is getting his memento from the school, while Ben is at the school he goes to this old classroom where he met Beverly. The camera zooms in on the lit projector and zooms out to reveal that we are back in the past, in Ben’s memory. Eddie’s memento was disgusting he was vomited on by this gross zombie monster with a long tongue. I don’t want to go into more detail, it was disgusting. Not scary just disgusting and pointless. Eddie dying was hard to watch because he and Richie never got to have their moment and Richie had to watch him die never having told him how he felt. You could see how the two of them wanted to say something about it but they never did. The opening scene was honestly the most horrifying of the whole movie. Watching that poor gay couple get beat up and then eaten was horrible. I thought "Oh, my god. This is going to be a horror movie" and then it wasn't. It was a comedy with horror elements at best.

All in all, it was an interesting movie to watch but not worth watching in theatres. Or again.

Afterword: This was a review I wrote back in college. I have touched it up for this post but the main points are all the same. I don't hate it but I won't watch it again. I stand by this review. I remember my friend who really wanted to see It Chapter 2 being really upset with the lack of horror in this horror movie. Until the next one, Bubblez Review.