Author Spotlight
Campbell Wood
Kids parading the streets dressed up as werewolves, mummies and vampires, the shy kid who gets picked on more than usual because he’s scared of Halloween and, of course, the spooky supernatural creature that just so happens to arise on Halloween — these three things are key ingredients in the Halloween movie formula, which has been overworked so much that it’s gotten old. And Netflix’s “Hubie Halloween” is no exception.
Despite having every one of these cliché plot points, it was somewhat redeemable in the way the exaggerated nonsense takes you back to your childhood, reminding you of all the frivolous things you’d joke about.
“Hubie Halloween” follows Hubie Dubois, a grown-man played by Adam Sandler, who’s an avid Halloween fan and falls victim to the bullying of everyone in Salem, Mass. Declaring himself as the “Halloween Monitor,” Hubie spends Oct. 31 on the streets protecting the citizens of Salem from the culprit behind the disappearances of people. While Hubie’s sleuthing around haunted houses and corn mazes, images of romance, bullying and a suspicious neighbor are also present.
From the moment you press play, the maturity of the movie is evident. My head fell into my hands out of desperation when Hubie projectile vomited down the street and when his mom obliviously thrifted shirts with phrases like “boner donor” on them.
The biggest appeal of the movie was its well-known cast, made up of an oddly perfect mix of Disney Channel stars and past and present SNL cast members — with stars like Kenan Thompson, Maya Rudolph, Karan Brar and Paris Berelc.
Along with a well-known cast list, the trailer’s advertised suspenseful tone and cliffhanger mystery gave me high expectations. But to be frank, it was misleading. The thriller-comedy I was expecting ended up being a slapstick comedy with no blanket-over-the-face moments for me — except when it was out of embarrassment for the characters.
Those embarrassing moments mainly strained from Hubie’s love interest, Violet Valentine — voted “most friendly,” “most popular” and “best looking” by the senior class of ‘84. By now, we’ve all felt the pain of watching movie characters our parents’ age flirting with each other only to drag on the inevitable plot of them ending up together. As for Violet and Hubie, they’re two 40-something-year-olds who’ve liked each other since elementary school, yet they never came around to telling each other in all that time — so much for Violet being the “most friendly.”
Another overdone movie trope, being the “bullying” that the main character had to face — I’m talking kids throwing flaming stakes at Hubie. The bullying is so outlandish that it eliminates the sympathy factor for Hubie, as it’s more diminutive to these kids and adults dedicating all their energy to picking on Hubie in the dumbest ways — like, get a life.
These half-baked plotlines spoke for the movie’s entirety in how they focus more on the extremity of the situations and less on actually developing the story.
However, the many headaches of this movie were part of what saved it. You get to a point when watching, where you know it’s too late for the movie to save itself, and you lose all expectations and just laugh about the lunacy of it.
One of my favorite things was the infamous pumpkin-orange thermos. Hubie is always carrying around this thermos full of hot soup, but you quickly learn the thermos is for more than soup transportation, it also serves Hubie as an inhaler holster, telescope, blender, flare gun — you name it, the thermos has it. Adding to the comedy, Hubie would whip out these thermos tools at the most punctual times — like digging up a grave at a funeral.
It was this ludicrous comedy that made the movie laughable — not at the jokes themselves, but at the stupidity of them.
Even the ending was moronic and as cliché as it gets — guy gets the girl, sappy life motto, hero overcomes their obstacles — but the execution of it was out-right hilarious.
It’s one of those movies that’s so bad that it’s good — I can see it becoming a classic just for the laugh it brings. After dragging my feet through the first 30 minutes, I’m already anticipating another go-around, this time trying to figure out how to incorporate a pepper spray feature on my thermos.
*featured image photo courtesy of imdb.com
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