The Dog Who Saved Halloween (2011)

 

There are times when I am up in the air about if I want to see it or not.  When I was looking around at some streaming Halloween films that aren't horror (I like to throw one or two of them in the countdown every year) I saw The Dog Who Saved Halloween.  I really didn't know how to feel about it and for a few moments I was leaning towards "No".  It has Lance Henriksen in it so it had that going for it.  It also had Joey Lawrence and Mayim Bialik so a little Blossom reunion was in the works.  I've never seen an episode of Blossom but I like Mayim so that was a little more of a reason to see it.  Now some of the bad points for the film is it's actually the third film in a film series about this dog who talks.  That might mean there are plot points I would be missing since there are two movies prior.  So that's no good.

 

It stars Gary Valentine (King of Queens and Here Comes the Boom) who is in just about everything Kevin James does.  He is annoying in King of Queens but he's not in every episode and when he is in an episode it's not for too long.  But here he's the lead actor playing George Bannister the owner of Zeus who is the dog that will be saving Halloween.  Joey Lawrence is the voice of Zeus who is a former police dog turned family pet of the Bannister's. The issue with Valentine is here he is in just about every scene so he's even more annoying than he usually is in a thirty minute TV sitcom.  Zeus is a talking dog but who can actually hear him talk?  See this is probably a plot point in one of the first two films that is actually addressed.  Can the wife and kids hear Zeus?  Can anyone actually hear him?  Can everybody?  So frustrated.

 

 

Dean Cain (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and The Broken Hearts Club) and Joey Diaz (Analyze That) play Ted and Stewie who are two small time crooks that Zeus knows from his police dog days.  The two of them are also in the other films in the series.  Diaz gives off Big Pussy from The Sopranos vibes; only dumber.  Now there are some good dog scenes and lots of fart and poop jokes so it has that going for it.  Yes, I am actually going to "poop jokes are funny" to not completely pile on the hate for this one.  Lance Henriksen plays Eli Cole a mysterious man who just moved into the neighborhood.  The Bannisters and Zeus suspect that Eli is hiding some dark secrets in his creepy house.  There's something in here about missing turbine engines they also think he stole and get this, the place he supposedly stole them from was in a town called, and I think this is the name anyway, Semen Neck.  At least that's how everyone pronounced it and now I wish I had put closed captioning on just to see what the name really was.  Maybe emphasize the word differently, maybe just change the name!  Now I know this is aimed at kids and maybe it is fine for them but I'm not sure.  I don't know if kids over seven would find this funny but I'm it thinking it couldn't hold a five year olds attention for long either.  I'm so confused by this one in so many ways.  I'll give this one and a half kids bumblebee costumes out of five.  I should have just skipped it!