Terror Tuesday: Spirit Halloween- The Movie (2022)

When Spirit Halloween stores start popping up in strip malls and abandoned spaces, you know the haunt season is on. Even if it's the middle or late summer.

Plus, it was bound to happen that the company would eventually make an eighty plus minute commercial (hidden inside a movie) to showcase their products.

As a movie, it's really not that bad, especially if you're a parent who loves horror movies but has a hard time finding something for the younger kids to watch. Besides an Olsen twin's movie from the 1990's, this could feed the young viewers appetite.

Starting a long time ago, Alec Windsor (Christopher Lloyd) arrives at the Sacred Heart Home for Wayward Children and hands the orphanage matron (Michelle Civile) an eviction notice. He's bought the land and she along with her charges, have forty-eight hours to vacate.

As he leaves, she puts a curse on him and then we're transported into the future where three friends Jake (Donovan Colan); Bo (Jaiden J. Smith) and Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel) are busy riding their bikes throughout town, and they stumble upon a Spirit Halloween store.

Intrigued, they go inside and look around, but Carson isn't really into it since he tells the other boys that he's not going trick or treating. He's eight months older than Jake and is busy "growing up." It's a shock to them since they've always spent Halloween together and as Carson tells Jake, "In eight months when you have chest hair, you'll think this is all for kids." So, I paraphrased the line, but you get the drift.

What he really wants to do is go to a high school party.

Once he gets home, Jake is mad at his mother (Rachael Leigh Cook) and his stepfather Frank (Brad Carter) along with his stepsister Joanie (Billie Roy) since they're decorating all wrong, plus he's still mad at Carson.

He goes over to Carson's house after Joanie makes a comment about his father dying and how sorry she is and while there, Carson's older sister Kate (Marissa Reyes) is also decorating and comes across a button that her teacher gave her one Halloween.

Since Jake wants to do something for Halloween, he suggests that the three of them lock themselves in the store and that they should spend the night in there. Afterall, it would be better than trying to crash a dumb football jock's party, right?

While kids are out trick or treating, the three head over to the store and hide amongst the store displays and after the store manager leaves, they begin to have their own party, by playing with the Halloween props.

But then things go south as the spirit of Alec Windsor starts to play tricks on them after he's summoned by the animatronic fortune teller.

The boys are chased by a demon animatronic and after successfully getting rid of it, they discover that they can't get out of the store.

Meanwhile, Kate is getting ready to go to her party when she gets a call from her mother and then finds out that Carson forgot his phone at home. She thinks that he's over at Jake's house, but when she gets there, his mother tells her that they're at Bo's house.

This makes his mother start to think about his whereabouts.

Kate doesn't have as much success as Bo's grandmother (Marla Gibbs) tells her that no one is home, which now stumps her.

She goes through Carson's phone and looks at pictures and texts then figures out that the boys are at the store.

When she gets there, she can't get in and breaks in through the roof, while the boys are hiding. She tells them that the only way out is through the roof, but then they're terrorized by a bear that Windsor's possessed.

Now that they're trapped, they have to figure out a way to get out of the store with their young lives.

While there's nothing truly frightening with the movie, there are a lot of "jump scares" with the animatronics in the beginning of the movie and a few scattered around. There are no chainsaws or killer clowns to contend with, so I think a tween may be disappointed.

Yet at the same time, the movie also deals with growing up since Carson keeps pushing it, which causes he and Jake to get into fights a few times. The heaviest plot involves Jake and the loss of his father.

That keeps coming up multiple times and he's still grieving over the loss. He wants things to stay the way they are between the three of them and underneath his character, he knows that things will be different the next year.

For poor Bo, he suffers from lactose intolerance, and he brings it up a few times.

But as I said, this is also a long commercial for the store, and their products are featured quite prominently. I'm pretty sure that you can pick up a copy of the movie there as well!