When Stores Make Movies

I feel pretty safe in saying a lot of us have been to a Spirit Halloween store at least once. Right? If anyone’s not familiar with them, they’re an American Halloween superstore that pops up around mid- to late August or so, usually in some vacated store space. They not only have costumes and makeup galore, but they oftentimes will set up the decorations in such a way that it’s like a walk-through attraction at Universal.

One of the stores in my area this year is housed in a former CVS. Here’s a teeny glimpse:

While all this is well and good for Halloween and horror fans, Spirit Halloween is more than just a store. It’s also a movie. Yep. It’s called Spirit Halloween: The Movie. It’s set in a Spirit Halloween and was made in partnership with Spirit Halloween. There’s even a CD soundtrack.

What’s even more amazing is that Spirit Halloween was shown in theaters. For a few days, anyway. It was released on September 30, 2022 and went to streaming on October 11, 2022, but it’s hard to say if anyone noticed. Naturally, the movie had its premiere at a Spirit Halloween store on July thirtieth.

The movie opens with a fancy towncar pulling up to the Sacred Hearts Home For Wayward Children on Halloween. The car stops…and Christopher Lloyd, er, Alec Windsor gets out. He’s there to threaten the nice matron (Michelle Civile) and the little girl (Aaliyah Calloway) that if the home doesn’t clear out in forty-eight hours, the bulldozers will come in and knock everything down.

Ms. Matron doesn’t answer, but repeats some kind of incantation and directs it at Alec. He kids her for a second, but then he really does fall down dead, and what looks like a flying octopus pops out of him, floating heavenward. It’s pretty safe to say the Wayward Children aren’t going anywhere.

Neither, for that matter, has Alec Windsor, who, many years later, is a town legend. They even do Punch and Judy-type puppet shows portraying the matron taking him out. It’s all fun and games, though, and no one thinks anything about it.

This is when the movie kinda gives itself away, but to be fair, it wouldn’t make sense otherwise. A big part of the Alex Windsor legend is that no one ever found the body, and every year his ghost comes back on Halloween Night to look for another body that he can take over.

One big fan of the Alec Windsor legend is Jake (Donovan Colan), who’s about to become a teenager and go into high school. His buddy, Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel) is already a teenager and for some reason obsessed with the fact that he’s getting whiskers and chest hair. Their other friend, Bo (Jaiden J. Smith) is kinda caught in the middle, but he’s a good kid.

Jake’s mad because he misses his late dad, and he’s resentful because his mom, Sue (Rachel Leigh Cook) got remarried, which means he now as a stepdad and a stepsister, the latter of whom wants to put princessess in the front yard next to the Halloween decorations. Jake’s not too keen on that, or on the idea that he’s suddenly too old to go trick-or-treating.

Our three restless teenagers have an alternative, naturally. While riding their bikes they happen upon a popup store in an old Toys ‘R Us. It’s Spirit Halloween, of course. The boys go inside and think it’s completely awesome. Jake gets the bright idea of camping out in the store on Halloween night and seeing what happens.

Plenty, of course.

After a totally awesome montage where the guys have the run of the store, including having swordfights and trying on some of the store’s inventory in a not-at-all-like-an-infomercial whirlwind, the boys start reading a book Jake brought about the Alex Windsor legend and they ask the fortune teller a few pertinent questions. Long story short, Alex Windsor was hiding out in the fortune teller and comes out to try and possess one of the boys.

The group’s not complete, though. Carson’s older sister, Kate (Marissa Reyes) figures out that the guys are at the store and comes by to give Carson his smartphone. She has to climb up on the roof to get in, but no problem. Meanwhile, Alex goes around possessing some of the Spirit Halloween gadgets and scaring the life out of the group. When he inhabits a giant teddy bear, though, things take on a kind of interesting feeling. The kids find a basement trap door in the back and see that there’s a cave under the store with a spooky little cabin.

After that, the movie takes on a sort of Goonies feel, only Goonies didn’t have Christopher Lloyd as a giant teddy bear chasing teenagers across a Spirit Halloween store. It also didn’t have anyone burning a ghoul costume with a lighter and a can of Raid, either.

Things get incredibly crazy, and no, I’m not giving spoilers.

OK, I know Spirit Halloween is pretty fun, but I keep wondering how I should feel about it. Who has Christopher Lloyd as a giant teddy bear on their Movie Bingo card? I sure didn’t. Or seeing a movie set in a Spirit Halloween to begin with, although, oddly enough, no one ever says the name “Spirit Halloween” once. Maybe they were trying to downplay the screamingly overt product placement.

I know i should have felt entertained, but I can’t shake the incredulity that this movie exists in the first place. It’s not hard to come out of it in a mild stupor with a vague desire to visit a Spirit Halloween store, only minus the lock-in stuff..

However, it’s not all bad. It’s got a decent cast, most of whom, to be honest, are too good for the movie. The writing is a lot less awkward than these low-budget horror films turn out to be, although the story is pretty predictable. The movie is going to look incredibly dated in five years or so because it’s very much stuck in 2022, with smartphones and Instagram.

Then again, that may work in Spirit Halloween‘s favor. When a movie is as weird and unexpected as this one, anything that grounds it even the slightest bit is a good thing.

The We Are Family Blogathon starts tomorrow…are you all ready? Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you for what should be a fun event…

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Spirit Halloween is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon, and is free to stream for Prime customers.

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