Last year I wrote about Halloweentown, a Disney channel favorite of mine. You can find that here: http://themanholecover.blogspot.com/2022/10/halloweentown-1998.html This year I wanted to take a look at the sequel Halloweentown 2: Kalabar's Revenge. Halloweentown 2 is set one year after the original film and features nearly the same cast as Halloweentown. Back as Agatha Cromwell is Debbie Reynolds, the elder of the family, Kimberly J. Brown is Marnie who began her witchcraft studies in the first film. She is now nearly 17 years old but doesn't seem very adept yet. Playing her younger brother Dylan is Joey Zimmerman with Emily Roeske playing younger sister Sophie. Finally, starring as Gwen, the children's mother, is Judith Hoag. Also back for a second go is Philip Van Dyke who plays Luke, a goblin, and Marnie's friend. Daniel Kountz plays Kal a teenage boy who just moved in next door to Marnie and her family.
Agatha is still living in Halloweentown but can visit he family on Halloween when the portal between the worlds is open. Marnie and Agatha decide to take a trip back to Halloweentown. When they get there they see all the color has been washed out of the town. Everything and everyone has turned grey. To make matters worse someone has stolen Agatha's spell book and is using it to get revenge on the entire Cromwell family as well as Halloweentown. Halloweentown 2 is directed by Mary Lambert who has also directed Pet Sematary, Pet Sematary 2, and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary. This time besides Halloween and witchs, which are two of my favorite themes, we also have an element of time travel added in. And I'm a sucker for time travel stories. When Agatha begins to turn grey it's up to Marnie, Luke, and the rest of the family to stop Kalabak's Revenge. While that is going on in Halloweentown things in the mortal world aren't going well either. A spell has been cast on everyone at the local Halloween party, including Gwen, that has turned them all into whatever creature costume they are wearing.
Not as good as the original but still full of fun and charm. Lots of CGI both bad and not too bad. OK, fine it's all sort of bad. I had a theory in the first one that even though this stories big picture is Marnie learning to become a powerful witch, the real witch with real power is Sophie. Even at her young age, I'm not sure how old she is supposed to be but easily preteen, she is quite strong with her natural abilities that can only get stronger as she grows. Even Dylan uses some of his powers in this one. He's a witch too not a warlock. Warlock means "oath breaker" inferring that only those who use their powers for evil are warlocks. Anyway, I will give this three frog golems out of five. I believe the Halloweentown films work best as a trilogy with the fourth one being an after thought. As always, your mileage may vary. YMMV.
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