Halloween is here, and with young kids in the house it can sometimes be a challenge to find something seasonal that we can all watch together. Without long continuing psychological ramifications, I mean. I thought The Blair Witch scheme The horror Before Christmas. Tim Burton The Corpse Bride and Coraline.
Monsters Vs. Aliens is a fun, computer-animated twist on the campy horror and sci-fi fare found on drive-in screens across the country throughout the '50s and into the '60s. Here the movie monster archetypes are the heroes of the film trying to ward off an alien invasion instead of scaring teenage coeds. The above median script is executed by a deep talent pool of voice acting, with the four original characters, The Missing Link, Dr. Cockroach, B.O.B. (Not the rapper- it stands for Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate) and Ginormica, being voiced by Will Arnett interesting Away a Halloween kind of movie. Maybe it's the witches, the assorted spirits, or the citizen turning into pigs. Or it could be the masked ghost thingy that eats people, which as it turns out, is undoubtedly not as scary as it sounds. Whatever it is, there's no denying that legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki interesting Away, as well as Howl's interesting Castle, Ponyo, and most every other Studio Ghibli Peter Pan Alice In Wonderland, or The Wizard of Oz; A capability that reminds me of childhood adventure and wide-eyed wonder in a place where Whatever can happen.
Another family movie that reminds me of Halloween, although it may not typically be carefully a Halloween movie, is The Goonies. Sure, the quintessential advent of age adventure doesn't highlight an ax wielding maniac, but it does have pirates (dead ones if that's scarier for you), a piano made out of bones, and a misunderstood monster addicted to Baby Ruths. And while it may not have a lot of jump out of your seat moments, I think that we can all agree that the Truffle Shuffle Ghostbusters. I was worried it might be a wee intense for him the first time we watched it together (he's only recently turned five), but it swiftly became a staple in his viewing requests. So much so in fact, that I bought a copy of the first season of the interesting show The Real Ghostbusters. As it turns out, he found the cartoon to be far scarier than the original 1984 classic. Same was true about the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters Ii Gremlins, someone else well known 1984 comedy/horror movie, is one that I do want to share with the kids eventually. I say eventually, because I was seven when I begged my parents to let me see that movie in theaters, and when they ultimately relented I chickened out about halfway through. Those wee green dudes with their snake-like eyes undoubtedly gave me the heebie-jeebies at the time. As a father, I do feel a sense of duty to impress upon my kids a respect for the classics, but I think that one will have to wait.
Another example of something I'd like my kids to like is It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. I may have played the card a wee early however, as neither my son nor my two-year-old daughter had the desire to sit through the whole film. The dialogue-heavy Peanuts cartoons aren't undoubtedly what one would call operation packed, and at this stage in the game where my son's popular operation is building things out of blocks for the sole purpose of destroying them, and my daughter's popular operation is hitting her brother, neither undoubtedly has the patience for the understated genius that is Snoopy. We've only made it two-thirds of the way through the movie.
And there you have it, 6.66 family-friendly Halloween movies you can enjoy with your loved ones without giving them emotional scars. Probably.
