All Hallows’ Eve 2 (2015)

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I don’t go in to movies wanting to dislike them, which pleases me when a movie manages to surprise me the way “All Hallows’ Eve 2” did. It’s still a mixed bag of horror, but when you get down to it, it’s still a solid anthology film that corrects a lot of the original film’s errors. Plus the mascot is just so much more appealing this time around. I won’t say “All Hallows’ Eve 2” is a masterpiece, but it’s strong enough to recommend to horror fans looking for a good time. Director Jessie Baget recruits a group of really interesting indie filmmakers to lend their shorts for this sequel, and while some of them are mere tricks, others are absolutely wonderful treats.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein (1999)

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The mythical Doctor Frankenstein spent years perfecting his monster which was tragically chased in to the maniacal doctor’s castle for all eternity. Hoping to escape the hatred from the villagers, the doctor travels to Hollywood in hopes of finding a way to perfect a formula. They accidentally cross paths with Alvin and the Chipmunks who are performing at a theme park very similar to Universal and Disney. While there they accidentally interrupt the Doctor who is performing experiments on his monster.

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Alvin and The Chipmunks: Halloween Collection

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No better way to celebrate Halloween than with David, Alvin, Simon and Theodore. As usual, the Chipmunks dynasty is always on point to celebrate any occasion. This time out they celebrate Halloween with five Halloween and horror themed animated shorts that I had a really good time with. It’s tough to dislike the Chipmunks, and even in modern times there’s just something about their misadventures and brotherly dynamic that makes them charming and entertaining. Alvin is still Alvin, and his family is still the lovable characters that either put up with his antics, or match wits with him.

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Ranking The “Home Improvement” Halloween Episodes from Best to Worst

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There are very few shows that have Halloween based episodes, let alone Halloween based episodes every year. Beside “Roseanne,” Tim Allen’s show “Home Improvement” celebrated Halloween almost every year, and it was almost always memorable. “Home Improvement” is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time, a family oriented laugh aloud comedy about accident pseudo-celebrity Tim Taylor, his very patient wife Jill and their rambunctious trio of sons. “Home Improvement” in its golden age was often hysterical and heartfelt, and reveled in devising new ways to put the characters in to scary situations involving the holiday.

The writers genuinely came up with interesting ideas almost every year, and it was fun watching Tim pull pranks on his family, and watching the pranks unfold in to hilarious reactions. From a head bursting through a wall, to Tim losing an arm while dancing with wife Jill, no one took on the holiday like Tim Taylor. To celebrate an often too overlooked sitcom from the nineties, here is a ranking of the Halloween episodes from the series from the absolute best, to the utter worst. What are some of your favorite “Home Improvement” episodes?

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R.L. Stine’s Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls (2015)

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I don’t know how they keep recruiting these Disney stars to headline the RL Stine movies. Disney always seems to have such a tight grasp on them. In either case, “Cabinet of Souls” is the very definition of an RL Stine story, except with a much longer format. It surely sports the same mold and aesthetic with a small town, teen protagonists, and evil villains that seek to ruin their innocence somehow. It stumbles on occasion, and there’s a clear lack of wit that you can usually find with Stine’s yarns, but it’s a pleasing movie; especially if you’re a fan of Dove Cameron, Katherine McNamara, or Ryan McCartan.

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Hellions (2015)

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It’s pretty sad when you sit through a horror movie and the only thing you can take away is the delight of seeing another talented “Degrassi” alum taking on the horror genre. Chloe Rose was one of my favorite characters of the series, and its fun to see her tackling more complex material. “Hellions” is ultimately a mixed bag that presents brief glimmers of greatness, but constantly stumbles in to sheer mediocrity and incoherency. To make matters worse, the film ends without any real clarification of what we’d just seen. Bruce McDonald seems to be building up to something, but then just shuts the film down before we can make sense of anything we’d just seen.

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Voices of October: Diary of a Halloween Haunt (2015)

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For some people Halloween is a state of mind and not just a holiday. For the Counelis family, it’s a yearly ritual that begins in the middle of the year and ends when November finally rears its head. It’s refreshing to see a documentary that’s more grounded and down to Earth, and much like films like “American Scream,” Paul Counelis documents his family’s journey to build and construct a haunted house mainly because they want to give their neighbors some memories. Surely there’s a profit to be had by a haunted attraction, but that’s not what the holiday means to Paul Counelis and his large family.

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