I had not so secretly hoped that “Spirit Halloween” was a very old movie and that the retail store was named after it but that was a false hope, seeing as the movie came out in 2022.  I had a little bit of hope because the movie stars one of the most unappreciated actors of our generation Christopher Lloyd. His disembodied head takes up a good 40% of the movie poster, floating over the rest of the cast like the great and powerful Oz, so imagine my surprise when he’s killed off before we even get to see his name in the opening credits. He plays a businessman from the 1940s who just purchased the small New England or possibly midwestern orpahnarium so he could develop the land, and when he tells the adult who runs the place to skedaddle off his newly acquired property, she puts a curse on him and he drops dead. That’s it. Three lines of dialogue.  It took me longer to tell you he was in the movie than he was actually in the movie. 

We cut to the present day, where it becomes obvious this is going to be the sort of teen movie that made Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel piles of cash, only without the piles of cash. Also starring in this movie is Rachel Leigh Cook who much to my surprise does not play her usual ultra-adorable teen protagonist role, but the mother of our teen protagonist because she got old. I mean she’s a year younger than me, so really … I got old.  Fuck. Either way, Still rather unsettling to me like when my favorite adult actress suddenly stopped doing barely legal films and started doing MILF movies. 

The actual teen protagonist of this movie is her on-screen son, Jake. Jake is a mildly angsty young boy, as his dad is dead, his mom has remarried and his new stepdad and step-sister think that princesses are perfectly acceptable for Halloween decorations, which they aren't because they’re not scary. So I feel him on that one. Jake has two friends. Carson, because of course every third child these days is named Carson, and Bo is played by Jaiden J. Smith. Not to be confused with Jaiden Smith, offspring of Will Smith. Although I hear the J in Jaiden J Smith stands for Jiggy. Bo knows getting Jiggy with it. 

They stumble upon an abandoned mall (built on the site of the old orphanage) with a Spirit Halloween in it, and while I expected a self-aware meta-joke here, much like my college girlfriend, it never came. 

Jake’s favorite Holiday is Halloween, which makes sense given the title of the movie. I mean if his favorite holiday was Labor Day, that would be kind of silly. But his best pal Carson doesn't want to go trick or treating this year because they’re too old for it, as they’re going to be in high school next year and “peach fuzz” on his chest now, but Jake disagrees, they compromise by agreeing to break into and spend the night in the local Spirit Halloween on Halloween night. 

Mom tells the Jakester that Stepfather has offered to take them to buy Halloween costumes tomorrow, as he’s putting the final touches of makeup to complete his vampire costume. At least I thought it was a costume, but why would he need another costume tomorrow? Unless he’s a real vampire?!? 

Finally, Halloween night rolls around, and Trick or Treaters are wandering around town in full costumes, conveniently available at Spirit Halloween, not knocking on doors or collecting candy as is typical for most shows and movies set on Halloween night.  Yeah, bet you never noticed that in ET everyone just wandered around aimlessly in costumes, with no one getting their Recees Pieces on. 

The boys hide inside the props of the store and wait to be locked inside at closing time. The seasonal Spirit Halloween store is well organized and fully stocked, with never-opened costume packaging … on Halloween night, instead of looking like a store that has been looted multiple times. No licensed costumes or costumes changed just enough to not be copyright infringement like Italian Plumber Man, Midweek Goth Girl, or Stabby Fist Sideburns Guy. At least the floors are sh*tty and dirty so that feels authentic.

Jake has told his mom he staying at Carson’s Halloween night. Carson told his mom and sister he was staying at Bo's, Bo Knows to tell his grammy that he’s staying at Jakes. But Carson’s mom is working, and his older sister is supposed to be the responsible party. But Carson forgot his phone at home, so she tries to bring it to him at Jake’s. Wait a minute … so unbelievable. I don’t know a teenager that would accidentally leave their phone behind when they leave the room to make dookie let alone when they leave home. Anyway, Kate does them a solid and lies to Josie and The Pussy Cats and says she made a mistake and that they were staying at Bo’s house. But they aren’t there either, so she tracks them down to the cell phone dead zone of Spirit Halloween with an Instagram post.  Did I mention that Jake has a thing for Carson’s older sister Kate? Cause this will be important later. 

All the animatronic Halloween decorations start to come to life, possessed by the ghost of Christopher Lloyd. We don’t see anything that resembles Lloydd though,  just a vaguely spooky-looking light and his voice or a reasonable facsimile thereof. It’s likely his voice because I remember how pissed off Crispin Glover go when they had someone else play him in Back to the Future 2. Anyway, the old man's ghost needs to possess a real body to leave the store and he’s only able to do that one hour on the anniversary of his death. 

Sister, Kate shows up at Spirit Halloween wearing pants stolen from Bray Waytt and upon finding the front door locked, immediately decides the best course of action is to climb to the roof and try to find an entrance there, and it works as she drops from the ceiling to the top of the only metal display rack in the store. They all then try to escape from the store and the newly haunted human-sized teddy bear by climbing back up that metal rack. See they can’t open the doors from the outside cause they're dead-bolted from the inside and they can't open them from the inside cause … the movie would be too short if they did. I don’t know man, they just don't. Poor little Bo gets stuck on top of the display, and Bo doesn’t know how to climb out, but also the bear is on the ground vaguely threatening him by gently rocking the display. Bo is scared because Bo knows gravity. 

The remaining three decide to come to his rescue by shooting the bear with Nerf guns, which might be mildly annoying if he had eyes of flesh but he doesn’t he’s a teddy bear. But this plan works somehow until they run out of Nerf bullets, so ten seconds, maybe eleven, which allows Bo time to climb down. Then Kate does some cartwheel flippy ninja kick to the bear completely out of the blue. 

The kids' bear-icade themselves in the store room, get it … Bear-decade? And rather than just waiting it out for another 45 minutes they try to come up with a plan to escape, using the trap door they found in the manager's office. A perfectly normal thing to have in an abandoned mall, right? The oddly placed below-ground office space gives way to a creepy basement, which gives way to a scary crawl space, which gives way to caves with walking paths and handrails. And while yes they are escaping the g-g-g-g-g-ghost, they seem to be progressing to scarier and scarier locations. None of which should be under a mall. If the Alamo doesn’t have a basement, neither should Spirit Halloween.

Meanwhile, mom is getting sus. Did I use that right? I'm not old I'm hip with the lingo. She’s all sus that something’s up, so she decides to go for a drive.

The spirit decides it needs to upgrade its body to break down the door to the office. And when it finally succeeds… No, succeed is a word I need to say all of. When it finally succeeds we see a Halloween costume that's a deformed man, in overalls, with a saw in one hand, and a circus-sized wooden mallet in the other. Unfortunately, he now lacks fingers so he can’t pull open the trap door, and the best moment of this movie is seeing Buzzsaw, shuffling out of the office, dejected, and muttering to himself “I need to find one with hands.” 

The kids find the ghost's skull in the cave, which isn't a prop from Spirit Halloween, it's like so realistic dude. Then they find inexpiably inside the cave, a shack, with a rusted tin roof. Now if I were the type of person who yells at characters in movies, I'd yell: “Stay away fools! The Club Rules” But they go in and find some handy plot devices that tell them they’re in trouble if the spirit possesses them at the stroke of midnight. 

The spirit, now in a four-handed body, breaks in through the wall. They flee but Bo Bo falls go boom. The monster slowly begins to approach him but Bo makes a not-so-witty element joke, then uses a lighter and aerosol spray can to torch the ghost's body, Because Bo knows science. I feel like there should be a kids don't try this at home warning here. The body of the haunted decoration turns /into a fireball and melts rather quickly because all that sh*t at Spirit Halloween is made with the cheapest most flammable synthetic stuff on Earth. 

The kids run back up to the store and discover the wire rack is knocked over, and Kate proclaims “Now there's no way out.” because thinking about setting the rack upright is too hard, and windows can't be broken and aren’t for walking through. Carson points out, if the ghoulie gets them, that at least they`ll go down together. He then suggests giving their ID card to the boarder guard, you know the one with the Alias of Jean Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets, cause he won’t speak English anyway. 

Mom meanwhile has driven past everyone's house and looks very concerned, or possibly constipated, as she sees a light emanating from the store and away she goes like a bat out of hell because only her son can shine a weird bright light like that, or something. 

The kids have decided to not run anymore, and stand and fight the ghost. So it’s going down, and Ke$ha’s yelling timber. They find rhyming instructions on how to defeat the ghost, so it works if it rhymes. Kate offers her grandma's necklace as a sacrifice for the ritual, but Jakey-poo loses it because he’s an irresponsible teen, or the ghost inhabited a skeleton prop and picked his pocket. Carson is an unusual moment of clarity for bad films everywhere, just suggests they use something else, rather than wasting time looking for it. But he insists they use the picture Jake has of him and his dead dad. Jake doesn’t like this, obviously, and tells Carson he wouldn’t understand because his dad was an automobile. I mean a car. This leads to fisticuffs between the two. Bo attempts to mediate because Bo knows interpersonal relationship dynamics.  

Carson storms off angrily, and it’s always a good idea to go it alone when being chased by a monster, ghost, or serial killer. As soon as he does Jake agrees to do what Carson wants, so clearly he has strongly held beliefs. Before they can start the ritual, the ghost knocks over a jar of eyeballs which Kate slips on and then the ghost possesses her. I’m not sure why the ghost couldn’t just inhabit her, or anyone else and always felt a need to punch them or something first, it’s like he was trying to fail. But apparently, his self-esteem has improved and he’s no longer self-sabotaging because now he had succeeded, and haunted Kate just ate the picture. 

Here comes Mom to save the day because she’s all that. But I’m not sure how she knows they’re in there or they need saving. Also, everything is over before she can break the window with a crowbar and contribute. 

It’s final boss time, and Carson arms himself with a Nerf gun, Bo has a plastic ninja sword, (Bo knows ninjitsu) and Jake gets the rope because someone just ate a picate sauce made in New York City. Jake tells the ghost to leave his girlfriend alone, which is creepy because they’ve never even talked about dating, or even flirted. They finally throw a book onto the fire and break the spell just as it turns midnight. Everyone is saved and as Jake leans in to kiss his non-consenting girlfriend, she tells him it isn't going to happen. Finally some realism to this movie.
The end … no wait … 

Cut to the next morning, when the Spirit Halloween employee opens up and finds the store trashed like any good Spirit Halloween should be on  November 1st! The end … 

No wait! Cut to one year later and Jake is taking his little step-sister out trick or treating. Step Daddio tells him he’s proud of him. They hug and fade to black at the end. 

No wait! Cut to that inexplicable shack in the cave, under the mall. And Bo’s half-blind grandma is there doing so witchy voodoo shit with the dead guy's skull so his spirit can finally rest. Because if there’s anything Bo’s grandma knows it’s creepy-sounding chants. And then inexplicably, there’s lightning, inside the cave, underground below the spirit Halloween and she disappears. The end. No wait! Don’t go, the movie loves you, it can change, it promises. It’ll never hurt you again. The end. Or is it? Muahahaha. It is the end now. For real this time. At least until Spirit Christmas the movie comes out with the Ghost of Christmas Past and Bob Marley because the Rasta Man costume didn’t sell out at Halloween this year. 

Spirit Halloween is available streaming on Prime.