"Being normal is vastly overrated," according to Aggie Cromwell.
Growing up watching Disney Channel, there was only one movie series that mattered come October: the "Halloweentown" franchise. I remember riding broomsticks on cool October nights, pretending my sister and I lived in a mystical other world. I was a witch for three Halloweens in a row and was convinced I had secret magic powers like Marnie.
While "Halloweentown High" will always be my favorite of the four movies, I jumped at the chance to watch a childhood favorite again.
For those of you who lived under a rock and never watched Disney Channel, "Halloweentown" is a 1998 Disney Channel Original Movie centered around Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown), a 13-year-old girl who just wants to be able to go out on Halloween like all the other kids — especially since she’s obsessed with things like ghosts and witches.
On Marnie’s 13th Halloween, her grandmother Aggie Cromwell (Debbie Reynolds) comes to visit and is revealed to be a witch. She needs Marnie’s mother Gwen (Judith Hoag) to come back to her home world, Halloweentown, to fight a mysterious evil force arising there.
When Gwen refuses, Marnie sneaks on a magic bus in an attempt to follow her grandmother to Halloweentown, learn more about her own powers and help out her grandmother. She is accompanied by the two younger Piper children, Dylan and Sophie.
The rest of the movie is spent attempting to fight “the bad thing,” who is ultimately revealed to be Kalabar, mayor of Halloweentown and ex-boyfriend of Gwen. Along the way, they meet many of the monsters in the town, including a punk kid/goblin named Luke, a werewolf hairdresser and a skeleton named Benny who drives the town taxi.
The movie ties together family bonds and embracing the weirdo in all of us.
Warning: if you have never seen the movie before, it is too late for you. You will not appreciate the plot holes, the less-than-stellar acting from the children and the gimmicky special effects. It will just be another children’s Halloween movie.
