The Halloween Tree

I will say that I attempted to lure my boys in a little bit with an MST3K kind of vibe from the onset. The movie IS 32 years old so there are plenty of things that are ripe for parody or mockery. This seemed to be a mode that worked for a good little while. It’s not a particularly scary movie but it isn’t The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, either. Being narrated by the writer of the original story, Ray Bradbury, it’s leant the most dastardly of frights by the eerie voice stylings of Leonard Nimoy as the benevolent antagonist of the film. I don’t think I realized how complicated the actual underlying plot of the film was. It’s 4 kids looking to celebrate their favorite night of the year with their best friend, Pip. He’s the master prankster and Halloween connoisseur that drives the collective love of the holiday. But as the four friends frantically don their costumes and make their way to meet Pip, they realize he’s late. Pip is never late. So they go to his house to find him but we see someone on a gurney being put in the back of an old timey ambulance as the parents get in the back with him. As Pip is rushed off to the hospital, the kids find a note he wrote them and left on the front door. Odd that he was being taken by ambulance but still had time for handwritten correspondence. But the kids are still determined to have a great Halloween and suddenly they think they see their friend running down into the ravine behind his home and into the woods. They make chase after him and we can clearly see that there’s a transparent quality to Pip alluding to the fact he may not have made it to the hospital in time.

As the kids reach a clearing they see a tremendous old mansion and the narrator makes sure we know it has a lot of chimneys. I think chimneys were very valuable at this time and without zillow, we were made to assume this was a very wealthy individual who lived here, because of all the aforementioned chimneys. The kids make their way up a rather impressive staircase to the front porch where a tornadic like wind sends them tumbling through the front door and into the presence of one Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud. We know this is his name because he says it aloud as he produces a business card for the children to see. This is our Nimoy character. He’s upset by their intrusion. He was lingering in the shadows of his foyer when the children interrupted him. Nothing like an abrupt halt to standing menacingly by yourself in the darkness of your own foyer. So he was not happy. He’s also put off by the fact that these children are woefully unaware of the origins of their costumes: a mummy, witch, hunchback, and skeleton. However, before he can fully chastise their ignorance, they are whisked away to the porch once again and a massive Halloween tree filled with “millions of pumpkins”. Clearly hyperbole. There probably weren’t even a thousand. But you know how kids are. Then we see Pip once again charging the tree and ascending to the top where there’s a pumpkin that supposedly looks like him. I don’t really see it but there’s no harm in indulging the storyteller a bit here. As Pip absconds with the pumpkin, Moundshroud and the children make chase once again out to a creepy barn.

Now, before I just spoon feed the plot of this movie, I do have to turn back my own critical eye a bit to the 90’s when it wouldn’t have been quite as awkward for 4 children to just trudge off into the night with an eerie stranger. I won’t say this is typical behavior. But the adventurous spirit of a band of preteens in the 80’s and 90’s most definitely trumped a lot of common sense ideology centered around stranger danger and the risks of entertaining would be kidnappers, pedophiles, and ghoulish demons bent on harvesting the souls of wayward children. You cant helicopter parent these four friends and their misguided pursuit of Halloweenish glory.

What ends up happening is Moundshroud escorts these kids to the namesake of their costumed origins. Ancient Egypt for the mummy. Stonehenge and the festival of the druids for the witch. Notre Dame in mid construction for the hunchback/monster. And Dia De Muertos in Mexico for the skeleton. Each of the children learns about their ancestral garb’s roots as well as valuable life lessons, none of which are founded in keeping distance from ghoulish strangers with the power of flight and time travel. That part seems ok in the end. Plus, nothing truly heinous seems to take place so maybe Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud was just looking for a friend in the end as well. Nope. He definitely wanted Pip’s soul. That was his main motivation. I don’t even think he was truly that bent out of shape about the kids in the first place. I think he was just tired of consuming souls with no one around to appreciate it. So to have an audience, especially of the very boy’s friends, as Moundshroud collected up his immortal soul would certainly be of some real motivation for him. And it showed too.

Ultimately this movie is fun. Even having not seen it as a 10 year old, it takes me back even to the promos for this movie that I remember use to run regularly this time of year on TBS. I always meant to catch this one but just never got around to it and I’m glad I finally righted that injustice tonight. I think, in the end, my kids enjoyed it enough as well. I don’t think they loved it. They don’t have that appreciation for what this time of year was like when we were in grade school. The costumes. The candy. The classic specials on tv. Trick or treating. All of it was so magical. We really did hold it in high regard and allowed it the breathing room it needed to be a full season. Coming home that night after filling my gigantic pumpkin bucket and dumping it all out to survey my enormous sugary haul while we watched a near scary movie on tv was the best. Even when the weather didn’t cooperate, it was still perfect. This movie completely took me back to that whole stage in life and I love visiting there. I’m so happy to be a dad and have two awesome boys to share new memories with now. But having those little respites where you get to go back and for a moment or two, relive those times when we were young and free to experience life through the eyes of a child were definitely magical. I’m appreciative of vehicles like this movie which provide me a doorway to that yesteryear.

Ultimately I’m going to give this movie a 6. It’s probably higher than it deserves but the five point whatever grade I would have given it is frosted with chocolatey goodness and packed with nougat all the way up to that 6 threshold. It’s not one I’m probably going to add to the rotation this time of year, especially with my kids rebelling a bit at it. I don’t know if it will ever gain that lasting popularity with them so it might not get a revisit for a while. I could see watching it again a few years down the road. Even if we just goofed on it again and created our own rifftrax commentary each time. Sharing that fun is still a great time with my kiddos. So if that’s what you’re looking for this time of year and you’ve got nostalgia for the 90’s and kids of your own who haven’t seen it, I’d say give it a watch. It’s on par with a Tales From the Cryptkeeper (the toned down Saturday morning cartoon of it’s HBO counterpart’s namesake) or a Real Ghostbusters kind of vibe. Spooky enough to not just be silly but not dangerous enough to leave remnants that create bad dreams. It’s a fun little piece of history to interact with and I had a great time with it. Plus a short run time is always appreciated. So that’s it for today. We are winding down so we’ve only got a few more of these left until Halloween is upon us and spooky season comes to a conclusion once again. So until tomorrow kids, I’ll catch you on the flip side.