87. Halloweentown

Title: Halloweentown
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family
Year: 1998, 2001, 2004, 2006

Summary:

Halloweentown (1998): The film begins with Marnie Piper and her mother, Gwen, arguing over why she and her younger siblings Dylan and Sophie can never go out for Halloween and wanting to go to a costume party that the "whole world is going to". Gwen patiently explains, but with no detail, it is little surprise that Marnie still has a problem with her mom's order.

Gwen has more or less restored order when her mother Aggie, who is an expert witch, shows up for her annual Halloween visit. The kids are happier to see Aggie than Gwen is, and it is soon shown why: Aggie openly encourages the kids to get more involved in all things Halloween, and Gwen is nearly powerless to stop her.

Aggie seems especially intent on training Marnie as a witch, since it is Marnie's 13th Halloween. Marnie, of course, has no idea about any of this. Aggie drops a huge hint as she is about to head home: reading the kids a bedtime story, when Sophie sees a drawing of a witch that closely resembles her big sister, Aggie does nothing to stop Marnie from imagining such a thing.

Gwen and Aggie get into an argument about all of this, and Gwen insists Marnie will be raised as a normal person and not a witch. Aggie says she disagrees with this, but actually she is there for another reason: people have suddenly started mysteriously disappearing. Gwen thinks they just moved, but Aggie says it is not that simple.

Aggie desperately asks for Gwen's help, but Gwen declines. Aggie is distraught by Gwen's disregard for the safety of her old home and leaves, turning the chicken leftovers into a live chicken on the way out. Gwen is not aware Marnie was watching this the whole time.

Marnie runs back upstairs to tell Dylan what she just saw, and Dylan says she's crazy. They then follow Aggie covertly to a previously non-existent bus stop. When the bus indeed arrives, Marnie and Dylan sneak on board. Suddenly, the bus shakes violently and the bus is filled with flashing lights...and before they know it, the bus is landing in Halloweentown.

Aggie doesn't see Marnie and Dylan getting off the bus. At the same time, Marnie and Dylan don't see Sophie getting off the bus. Dylan notices her, and Marnie asks what she's doing here. Sophie says she was only pretending to sleep; she heard everything Marnie told Dylan, and followed them. They all begin to look for Aggie, who they have lost, when the mayor Kalabar approaches them. He whistles for the cab, which is driven by Benny, a skeleton with a bad sense of humor.

The three siblings find their grandmother's home, and against her better judgment, Aggie decides not to take them home immediately. She says she'll start Marnie's witch training, but has to take care of the bad thing first. She shows her grandchildren what she is talking about: in the cauldron, a vision of a hooded demon appears, laughing maniacally. Aggie has a talisman that she says can defeat this demon, but her witches brew is defective. So she has to take the kids into town and get the ingredients to make her own.

In town, Marnie discovers a broom shop, and the family is introduced to Luke, who looks like a normal human kid. He makes a clumsy pass at Marnie, which she turns down on the spot; after Luke offers to take Marnie out for an ice cream, she stares daggers at him. Benny earlier explained that Luke once looked like a troll, but claimed a shadow demon made him handsome.

Marnie picks a broom, and she and Aggie take it for a test drive. When they get back, a distressed Gwen has shown up and orders the kids to return home immediately. Marnie fights her briefly, but eventually knows she cannot win once her mother decided to ground her.

Gwen can't find another bus back to the mortal world, and when she tries to see if the mayor can do anything, she is shocked that the mayor is Kalabar, her old boyfriend. When Kalabar briefly leaves to handle another problem, Gwen and her kids see Aggie walking somewhere with Luke. Sensing Aggie might be in trouble, they follow Aggie and Luke to an abandoned movie theater.

Once inside, Gwen and Aggie find themselves battling the hooded demon that they had previously seen in the cauldron. The demon freezes Aggie and Gwen with an evil spell, and suddenly Marnie finds herself in charge.

She decides to finish what Aggie started, with some help from Dylan and Sophie, by gathering the ingredients for the witch’s brew that will hopefully make the talisman work. They are successful, and soon find themselves battling the demon, who reveals himself to be none other than Kalabar himself.

With the help of Luke, who has realized the error of his ways, Marnie disables Kalabar long enough but is effectived by the spell just as she is about the sleep she remembers what happens and drop the tailsman light up the jack o latern to unfreeze Aggie and Gwen, as well as all the other Halloweentown citizens whom Kalabar had trapped in the theater previously Gwen and Aggie rush to the kids to find out what happened. Marnie, Gwen and Aggie confront Kalabar. Kalabar is apparently bitter over the fact that their kind was forced to relocate to this new world because humans wouldn't accept them, and that Gwen passed him over years ago for a mortal man.

But the three of them alone aren't enough. Sophie has also been showing signs of possessing magic, and Dylan, when angered, also displays powers himself despite trying to deny it. The five of them combine their powers and destroy Kalabar using the talisman.

Gwen agrees to let Marnie start witch training and even invites Aggie to live with them. The film ends with the family going on to the bus to the mortal world, with a happy goodbye and thanks with Luke as the bus driver, and blast off.

Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge (2001): Witch Marnie, has just spent two years with her grandma Aggie. While hosting a mortal neighborhood Halloween party, Marnie tries to impress a cute new boy, Kal by showing him Aggie's magically-hidden room. Unbeknownst to Marnie, Kal is actually the son of Kalabar and takes the opportunity to steal Aggie's spell book.

Soon Aggie notices unwelcome magical symptoms. She and Marnie travel to Halloweentown to investigate and fix the problem before the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world, open only on Halloween, closes at midnight. They discover that the whole town has been turned into a made-to-match black and white silent film, and that the inhabitants have been turned into humans (or rather, into what Halloweentownians see as humans being: dreary and monotonous beings concerned only with such things as sensible dress or sorting socks). The victims include Marnie's goblin friend Luke. Aggie diagnoses this as the "Grey Spell."

Aggie contacts grandson Dylan back home for a spell from her book, and Dylan and Sophie discover the book is missing. Marnie and Aggie learn that Kal is actually a warlock, and the son of their enemy Kalabar (from the previous movie). Kal broke the Code of Merlin, a way of life for magical beings, by stealing Aggie's book to limit her ability to hinder his attempt to complete his father's revenge on both Halloweentown and the mortal world. Aggie believes that if he is willing to go that far, then there is nothing that they can put past him.

Aggie searches for her spare copy of her spell book at her house in Halloweentown, but it is missing and she despairs. During a conversation between Aggie and Marnie, about another way to reverse the "Grey Spell," Marnie inadvertently says the spell "Trap a" which reverts Luke back to his goblin form. Unable to explain the spells' reversal, the group soon believes that it is temporary. The trio travel to the lair of the well known junk magnet of the universe, Gort, who acquires lost items from both realms. He had been discolored by the Grey Spell and had sold the spare spell book some time ago. Unfortunately Aggie loses her color and sorts socks with Gort and everyone is trapped in his house. Marnie uses time travel to go back before the black and white happened. Unfortunately, when they get there, they learn that Gort had sold the spare spellbook to Kalabar about 50 years prior (as Luke says, "Kalabar must have been working on this world domination thing for decades."). By remembering what things Marnie had been, hastefully, saying back when Luke returned to (Goblin) normal, they learn that, in her haste, she said "trap a" as "trapa", which is "Apart" spelled backwards. Despite being able to use a wizard's lost time-line, to speed up getting back to the present (as, due to the fact that, no matter what time period it is in Halloweentown, time keeps moving in the mortal world). They arrive too late and the portal shuts tight with a big, strong, metal, bulletproof door, trapping Marnie in Halloweentown.

Kal, having enspelled Halloweentown into a monochrome talkie caricature of the mortal world, is now at work enspelling the mortal world into a Super Technirama 70 monster movie caricature of Halloweentown. Sophie and Dylan realize that Alex, believed to be Kal's father, was actually a golem intended to distract Gwen. To make their mom believe that, Sophie creates a fly. Alex, being made of frogs, eats the fly and ends up getting dispelled by a furious Gwen. Being informed of Kal's plot to turn humans into the creatures they "mock" on Halloween, Gwen tries to take off her mask, but it doesn't work. Kal has made the mask stick to her face. He then continues his spell; they are to late as chaos as endured through out the mortal world. Dylan and Sophie hid from the monster humans .

Marnie, trapped in Halloweentown, frees Aggie, but refuses to accept they are locked in. She contacts her siblings through a shrunken head, and they create a new spell that forces the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world to reopen permanently. an anger Kal confronts Marge who mocks him and demands for the book. Kal produces vines and takes both spell books in an attempt to prove his own superiority, which fails when Marnie takes them from his hands. Kal then is sent away by the vines, apparently according to his own desire, and the family breaks the spells. Aggie undoes all the damage then after a talk with Gwen head to head, setting things right in both the mortal world and Halloweentown.

Halloweentown High (2004): A year after the previous movie, Marnie Piper prepares to begin a new school year in her new home. She asks the Halloweentown Witches' Council to work toward openness between Halloweentown and the mortal world. She proposes to bring a group of Halloweentown students to her own high school in the mortal world. The Council is initially apprehensive about this, mostly due to the legend of the Knights of the Iron Dagger: a fanatical knighthood who wanted to destroy all things magical. The Council, however, agrees to accept the plan after Marnie mistakenly bets "all the Cromwell magic" that her plan will work . If she does not prove she is right by midnight on Halloween, then her entire family will lose their magical abilities.

The Halloweentown students consisting of a witch, a warlock, a werecat, a werewolf, an ogre, a pink troll, a fairy, a zombie and a gremlin arrive. They are magically given human appearances to disguise their true non-human natures. School begins with Marnie acting as tour guide for the exchange group ("from Canada"), Aggie substitute teaching so she can be available in case of need, Cody, a new student, showing a romantic interest in Marnie, and a possible threat to the school from the Knights of the Iron Dagger. She encourages the kids to join sports teams and clubs.

While Aggie proves unable to teach any subject effectively (she keeps letting her magic take over: she conjures up a parrot in science class, and later we learn that a llama was produced, one kid was turned into a lamp post, and another lost one of their ears), the Halloweentown students keep to themselves, hiding in the refuge that Aggie magically creates for them in a remote student locker. Marnie gradually encourages the kids to join school activities and make new friends.

Marnie's progress is interrupted by a warning that appears to be from the Knights of the Iron Dagger, then by a magical incident at the mall that results in the Halloweentown students assuming their natural appearances, by a break-in at the secret magical locker, and finally by the disappearance of one of the students.

Meanwhile, Marnie's developing relationship with Cody parallels an unexpected romance beginning between Aggie and the school's principal, Phil Flanagan. Aggie suspects Cody of being the cause of the trouble, and tries to convince Marnie to halt their relationship, but Marnie in turn suspects Flanagan. They eventually discover that Flanagan is the Knight in question; he was told prior to the students' arrival that he was the last of the Order.

Edgar Dalloway, head of the Witches' Council and father of one of the students, is the real root of their problems. He wants to keep Halloweentown isolated from the mortal world, and used Flanagan to ensure the failure of Marnie's project. This, he hoped, would cause a negative reaction in Halloweentown and keep the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world closed.

The Halloweentown students use the school's Halloween carnival to improve mortal attitudes toward magical folk. Their haunted house depicts the ordinary lives of creatures that have typically been seen as monsters in the mortal world, including displays like the "Monster Tea Party" and ogres "picnicking in their natural setting", and winds up boring the carnival goers. Gwen meanwhile uses a witch's glass to hunt down the missing student whom Dalloway imprisons.

At the school Halloween carnival, Edgar Dalloway launches magical attacks against mortal students by bringing the inanimate monsters in the haunted house to life. The ensuing damage and panic spiral beyond Marnie's and Aggie's ability to contain them, including a reanimated skeleton which grows 30 feet tall. Flanagan incites a mob to corner the Halloweentown students. Cody shames the crowd, the students reveal themselves, and the crowd accepts them for who they are. Flanagan also renounces being a knight and accepts Aggie.

Dalloway claims the Cromwell magic, but Gwen, accepting her magic abilities, has shown the evening's events to the full Witches' Council. They return the Cromwell magic, Gwen returns with the student whom Dalloway had imprisoned, and the Council imprisons Dalloway in another witches glass. (At this point the series diverges from real history quite dramatically, with the existence of Halloweentown and its inhabitants becoming known to the population of Earth).

The portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world opens in the middle of the haunted house, and crowds of kids from Halloweentown cross over to enjoy the carnival together with mortal world kids. Marnie flies off for a romantic broom ride with Cody and, while flying over the carnival, they kiss.

Return to Halloweentown (2006): Marnie and Dylan are going to follow their dreams to go to college, at Halloweentown University, which is also known as Witch University. Marnie is offered a full scholarship for her good deeds and for her work in the previous movies. Much to her mother Gwen's dismay, Marnie goes, and her brother Dylan reluctantly forced along by Gwen to keep an eye on her. The school is not what it seems. At the school, witches and warlocks can't use magic, instead they learn about Shakespeare and old magic history. Marnie had thought she was going to learn how to use her magic and is now crestfallen. She runs into her old friend Ethan (Lucas Grabeel) and makes a new friend, Aneesa the genie (Summer Bishil). She also makes three new enemies in the Sinister Sisters, a triad of malevolent witches with whom Dylan is immediately infatuated.

Sadly, Marnie discovers that she in fact is responsible for the restriction on the use of magic at the University. The University was originally established only for Warlocks and Witches to learn how to use magic, but when the portal was opened, most of them went to college in the mortal realm. Because of that, Witch University had to let several different creatures come to the school so that the teachers would actually have students to teach. Since then the school has allowed mortals and other magical beings to attend. The classes are boring for Marnie until a box, with the name "S. Cromwell" inscribed on it, magically appears in front of her. Most people at the school believe that Marnie used her magic to conjure up the box, but it was brought to her by fate, and was therefore out of Marnie's control. Marnie meets with one of her professors, Miss Periwinkle, and asks for an explanation. Miss Periwinkle tells Marnie that the S. stands for Splendora, but not a word more about it is mentioned. Chancellor Goodwin tells Marnie that she believes that she did not conjure up the box, and that it was indeed fate which brought it to her.

Marnie and Dylan attempt to discover the secret of the box, and he reveals that he used magical speed reading at home to skip a grade. He uses it again secretly and learns that the box contains the Gift, though the Gift itself remains unknown to them. Meanwhile the Sinister sisters use Dylan's infatuation with them to make him do their homework for them.

Also in the shadows, a mysterious group known only as the Dominion, realizes that the Gift is near and tries to use Marnie to open the box. Marnie decides to go into the past to meet Splendora and learn about the true nature of the enigmatic gift. Splendora explains that the power of the Gift is the power to control anyone by force of will, a power that witches are forbidden to use. Marnie realizes that her principal and Dr. Grogg are in the Dominion and Splendora bestows upon her the key to the box containing the Gift. Also, Splendora is revealed to be Marnie's grandmother Aggie. Agatha is her middle name and she hates the Splendora part so she eventually dropped it. Marnie returns to the present to open the box, but before she does, she creates the Halloweentown giant pumpkin for Splendora, telling her she'd need it. Surprisingly, stated by Splendora, Marvin, (Merlin's cousin), is Marnie's great-grandfather. This is given as a hint when Splendora tells Marnie, "...even King Arthur said that the whole royalty thing was harder than it looked."

Chancellor Goodwin steals the Gift for the Dominion and the Sinisters, in order to use it to take over Halloweentown. Knowing that only a Cromwell can use the Gift, the Sinister Sisters (working with the Dominion) transform Dylan into a dog to compel Marnie to comply with their demands. If the Sinisters and the Dominion don't turn him back, he will stay that way forever after Halloween passes. They agree to return him to his natural form if Marnie controls Halloweentown for them. While it seems that she has agreed to aid them in their heinous plot, she is really fooling them, and turns on them once her brother is released from the dog transformation spell. Together Marnie, Dylan and Gwen destroy the Gift with help from Aneesa, Marnie's genie friend. The Dominion, having been discovered for the evil ones that they are, attempt an escape, but are betrayed by none other than Professor Periwinkle. Professor Periwinkle is revealed to be an undercover detective and apprehends the group.

The malevolent Sinister Sisters lose their powers, but Marnie learns that Ethan willingly gave his powers up. Marnie and Ethan begin a new relationship and leave on a date. The movie ends when Dylan discovers that Marnie didn't destroy the Gift, but instead left it for him in a book. Since spells cast on the grounds of Witch University become permanent at the stroke of midnight, the Gift belongs to him, the only person Marnie trusts with its power. Saving the power of the Gift for important uses only, he puts the book back, showing a glowing, red S at the end of the film.