Halloweentown High (2004)

My daughter and I loved the first three Halloweentown movies. I graded them tens completely. The reasons include great effects, actors, and exceptional music. They have become a tradition with my household, and being born on Halloween I look forward to the creativity without the pure evil that is often in other theme based movies. This year I am saddened to see that Kimberly Brown has been replaced and her little sister also seems to be omitted. After this many movies, the characters should have stayed consistent at all costs!!!!Shame on your company for leaving these winning actresses out of the fourth movie. I am sure we will still watch the premiere of number four. It will be hard to explain to my kids (three boys as well) why only these two characters changed, and it won't quite be the same without the original main characters. Sincerely, mother dearest

I must say that this third installment of Halloweentown was a huge disappointment. I loved the first one, and enjoyed the second, but Halloweentown High doesn't even come close. I have the first two on tape, but have no desire to see this one ever again. First of all, it takes place almost exclusively in the human world. The only part of Halloweentown we see is a courtroom. Also, the mother is shown using magic more than once. This makes no sense because she made it clear in the earlier movies that she chooses to live as a mortal. They even show her using magic for stupid mundane things like making hot chocolate. And when the Cromwell women sit down to work a spell together, the mother participates, but the younger sister, Sophie, does not! Sophie, who played such a major part in the two earlier movies, is almost nowhere to be seen in this film. Also noticeably missing is Luke, Marnie's best friend from Halloweentown who helped her deal with the villains of both earlier movies. You'd think he'd at least stop by for a visit. Overall,though, I think that the writers lost track of what made the first movie so enjoyable - Halloweentown itself. Like Narnia, like Diagon Alley and Hogwarts - the fun of stepping through to a magical, adventurous world so near to our own and the potential that it represents is what keeps me coming back to the first movie for more.

This movie was horrible.I really liked the first two halloweentown movies and I was exited when another one was coming out but this had to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Everything about it was bad. The acting was horrible,the effects were horrible, the dialogue was horrible. It was just a huge waste on a good movie. Nobody would just accept monsters into the world so easily.The movie tries to hard for laughs and tries to be scary when it is definitely not.Unlike the other two movies they do not show halloweentown all they show is a courtroom and that is another bad thing about it. I would not recommend this movie to anyone because they should not waste an hour and a half of their lives to see this.

As both a fan of the first two Halloweentown movies and a student of Communication Arts, I was very much looking forward to the third movie in the Halloweentown series, especially since said series is supposed to end as a trilogy. However, the movie's narrative proved that this is not the case.The first problem one encounters is that the flow of the story doesn't match up with that of the previous two movies. Sure, the flow of the trilogy goes from a childish good and evil narrative in the first move, through a revenge plot in the second movie that fits Marnie's status as teenager, into a reasonably adult diversification theme that metatexturally speaks of Marnie's selfishness. The problem, however, lies in the fact that our young protagonist goes about this in a way that is not structured in the exchange students' best interests.SPOILERS BELOW!Furthermore, Gwen, Marnie's mother, uses magic. This may not seem like a big thing to a first-time watcher, but throughout both earlier movies, it has been proven that Gwen actively *chooses* not to use her powers, especially while in the human world. The frivolous use of magic in a scene where Gwen and Marnie interact isn't only odd, it's actively confusing. The only times Gwen used spells in previous movies was as self-defense.Also, certain characters who had a strong presence in the first two movies were noticeably absent. One can understand the under-use of Emily Roeske's Sophie, because the character is noticeably younger than her siblings and therefore probably still in middle school, but the absolute absence of Luke is inexcusable. This is a character that not only plays a major role in the first two films and is a fan favorite, but also the character who throughout the first two movies was positioned as having a crush on Marnie and, in the second movie, being her friend. While one can understand that contract negotiations and so on may have prevented Phillip Van Dyke from appearing in the movie, to completely forget the character's presence and importance is unforgivable. Even a single line explaining the character's absence would have been preferable. That would have explained why the parents and other more sophisticated viewers of DCOM didn't get any sort of triangle between Marnie, Luke, and Marnie's human boyfriend, which would have been infinitely preferable to the plot we were presented.In conclusion, while the story is good enough on its own, and the costumes and special effects are magnificent, the movie's shortcomings handicap its impact. The movie is skewed, and appears to have nothing to do with Halloweentown so much as Marnie's selfishness in particular. This is, by far, the weakest of the three movies, while it had the potential to be the best. Disney undershot its goal this time, folks. 3/10 stars, for beautiful costumes and set design.