"Spirit Halloween: The Movie" has its charms but falls short of gateway-horror potential

Spirit Halloween: The Movie (2022)

We’ve seen movies based on toys and amusement park rides, but what about a novelty retail store? Well, there you have it — “Spirit Halloween: The Movie,” a bite-sized, low-budget feature film for the kiddos just in time for spooky season. There’s so much potential here for a mirthfully frightful gateway horror-adventure. First-time feature director David Poag and writer Billie Bates certainly try tapping into that Amblin charm and capture an autumnal Halloween atmosphere with limited resources, but “Spirit Halloween: The Movie” still falls short of being a celebratory treat.

Three middle-school friends, Jake (Donovan Colan), Bo (Jaiden J. Smith), and Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel), decide to skip trick-or-treating this year. Instead, they fake a sleepover and spend Halloween night locked inside their town’s “Spirit Halloween” store in a deserted strip mall. It’s fun at first, watching scary movies on an iPad and plastic sword-fighting. But then, the store turns out to be haunted for real by the spirit of local legend Alec Windsor (Christopher Lloyd, on screen in the flesh for a whopping three minutes), whose heart stopped from the spell of a witch for taking her land. Now, Windsor is back and jumping into every one of the store’s animatronic ghouls (with Lloyd doing some silly voice work) to terrorize these kids. Carson’s high school-aged sister Kate (Marissa Reyes) tries coming to the rescue, breaking into the store as if she’s an expert cat burglar, but they will still have to figure out how to put Windsor’s soul at rest. 

Sure, it’s “The Goonies” in a Halloween store—or something like “Annabelle Comes Home”—but that’s enough of a fun concept for a narrative feature to be more than just a cynical extended advertisement. Running only an hour and change before credits, “Spirit Halloween: The Movie” could have been less hurried and undercooked in certain areas. The characters are mostly bland and underwritten. Save for Marissa Reyes giving Kate a spine and injecting some energy, none of the boys make that strong of a mark. For some reason, what should be the heart of the film (Jake’s Halloween traditions and love for the holiday with his late father who passed away from cancer) feels slighter than it should. It doesn’t help matters that when the eight-months-older Carson breaks it to Jake how he’s outgrown trick-or-treating, Jake overreacts as if Carson put razor blades in his apple. Grieving or not, Jake is just too much of an unreasonable brat when his mom and stepdad put up princess decorations to satisfy Jake’s half-sister. Rachel Leigh Cook is also always nice to see, even if she’s relegated to the mom role, as proactive as she can be.

It’s no great shakes, but “Spirit Halloween: The Movie” is a harmless starter-kit watch with enough Halloween spirit. It’s competently made on a technical level and not without a few mildly creepy moments (director Poag clearly loves Sam Raimi’s funhouse brand of horror). A better film is just dying to get out. While it’s too forgettable to enter anyone’s annual Halloween rotation, one feels bad being too hard on it. Now, will the next movie take place in a Spencer’s?

Grade: C +

Strike Back Studios is releasing “Spirit Halloween: The Movie” (87 min.) in select theaters on September 30, 2022 and VOD on October 11, 2022.