Living in a small town, a group of friends goes through a series of trials and tribulations before Halloween that is soon revealed to be a ploy by dark forces conspiring to ruin the holiday season forever and set out to figure out the clues about what's going on to save the town from the dangerous figures.
On the whole, this was a massively enjoyable and likable genre effort. One of the better elements present with this one is the incredibly fun setup that provides a great chance for a lot of fun to be had throughout here. Offering a great idea involving the kids trying to go about their normal lives preparing for the holiday and being thrust into a strange mystery involving mysterious creatures appearing in the town, a strange legend about the town's history celebrating the holiday through a bizarre ritual, and the strange plot to now keep the town from celebrating, this is a generally solid start to the story. As we soon get to see that the adults are being taken over and brought under the ploy of the Mayor who's in the pocket of a dark figure leading the charge to cancel the holiday, it's got a fantastic base to launch into the group's mission to look into what's going on. As this goes along and the friends come together to look into the series of clues about the strange situation, this one moves into a nice mixture of clue-solving and encounters with the diminutive creatures that are shown under the control of the leader. These scenes manage to bring about some fun scenes where the town goes crazy while under the influence of the slime distributed by the leader or the adventure scenario presented to get the kids around town battling the different creatures out to stop them and make sure everything is fulfilled. With a fantastic family-friendly approach that makes everything suitable for just about any age to enjoy things and plenty of practical effects that help to add a fantastic holiday aesthetic this all creates a fantastic genre effort of the style. There's not a whole lot to hold this one down as it does have a minor issue. The main factor present here is the family-friendly approach doesn't allow this one to take the kind of chances it wants to do and keeps it tame when it could've gone much further with a harsher rating. With the kids never going to be in trouble based on their ages and the setup that keeps them front and center as the primary driving factors of the storyline, there's never going to be the kind of genuine thrills or fear to be gathered by the creatures or the mysterious figure at the center of everything that makes them almost bulletproof and lowers the thrills to be gathered from them. As the meltdowns never get graphic and all confrontations take place off-screen, these are potentially bound to disappoint if you're expecting anything harsher which is the main fallback.
Rated Unrated/PG: Violence, Language, and adult references.
