Hopefully, by seeing this article’s headline, something buried deep within your memory sparked, as kids adored this movie in the early 2000s. The reason you may have forgotten about “Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktakular” is that it never had a theatrical release and was primarily shown on Cartoon Network. This movie went straight to DVD, so you needed to buy it in order to watch it outside of October. Despite this limitation, it was aired a lot during the Halloween season which made it possible for kids to watch the movie multiple times within a single month. Because of this, you may need a refresher or an introduction to what this movie is, so let’s recap and review this classic.
“Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktakular” was an animated film released in 2003, as it follows the story of Hannah Marie, a trick-or-treater who gets tricked into going into a scary house alone and then gets locked inside by her friends. Hannah then meets the title character, Scary Godmother, where she begins to get introduced to a bunch of monsters. Luckily for her, these monsters are quite friendly and they want to help her get over her fear of terrifying creatures.
Now for the review part, as there are definitely many aspects of the film to be covered.
Let’s look at the animation first, as it’s rather notoriously low-budget. It is nowhere near the quality of other animation giants such as Disney or Pixar, even for 2003. Hannah’s trick-or-treater friends arguably have some of the strangest animations, giving off a strong uncanny valley vibe within every scene. However, most of the movie does take place in the “Fright Side,” a location where Scary Godmother and her monster friends reside. Because the monsters do not look human, that uncanny feeling isn’t present in any of them. Overall, this seemed like a wise choice to only focus mainly on the monsters, since they’re the highlight of this film.
The monsters themselves are very creatively written, all having unique personalities that fit their character. They’re very similar to the monsters found in films like “Hotel Transylvania” or “Monsters Inc.,” where they aren’t intended to be scary but rather funny instead. “Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktakular” features many different Halloween monsters such as a skeleton, vampires and a werewolf. When you see one of these monsters on screen, know that it’s going to be a fun scene.
Speaking of fun scenes, let’s talk about arguably the best scene in the whole movie, the dance scene.
This scene is a perfect encapsulation of the whole movie, random fun with interesting-looking characters and questionable animation. However, because the movie does focus on Halloween fun rather than a compelling story, it may feel like the movie is dragging on with scenes that do not add anything special apart from a couple of jokes.
The runtime of this film only comes in at 48 minutes as well, which doesn’t help with trying to tell a story. Regardless, “Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktakular” is still an interesting and quick watch so it’s highly recommended that you give it a chance this upcoming Halloween!
