The Curse of Bridge Hollow

This is definitely a film for the younger generation (with adult supervision), but saying that, I actually enjoyed it. I watched it with no expectations and I'm glad there were no reviews that could potentially put me off watching this before giving it a chance.

They matched the new family to the area, perfectly. Part of the film incorporates father and daughter bonding. There are a few chuckles along the way. It's entertaining, but stupid. Hardly anything is realistic, the graphics aren't great, but the actors played their parts, brilliantly. On a number of occasions throughout the film, the colour of the skin was mentioned and also white privilege. There was no need for it and it has no place in a film that is meant to be fun.

I should probably admit up front that I'm not a big fan of Halloween and all the "spooky" mumbo-jumbo that we are bombarded with every October. Needless to say, that means I have extremely low expectations when sitting through Halloween films for kids. When my wife convinced me to watch The Curse of Bridge Hollow, I'm sad to say it lived down to those expectations. The story here is extremely straightforward and feels familiar, like one you've seen in a hundred other movies like this one. It's the familiar trope of an evil spirit brought to town by an ancient curse, and a magical spell that must be cast to stop the attack. In fact, it has a lot in common with Hocus Pocus, so fans of that movie might have a good time with this one as well. I'm not one of those people, but I'm married to one.

My biggest struggle with this movie is that it lacks humor. It is fighting for some laughs, and only got me chuckling a few times. Most of the humor that worked for me was exclusively because I like Rob Riggle's goofy personality, and some of John Michael Higgins' schtick. Nothing Marlon Wayans did was even slightly humorous to me. Priah Ferguson plays his daughter and she ends up being more of an annoying nag than anything else. I don't really understand why we're expected to laugh at Kelly Rowland making vegan treats that everyone finds disgusting, or at the paranormal kids club, or even at Lauren Lapkus and her exaggerated accent. The film has some slightly scary images (in particular some homicidal clowns) but it's not enough to satisfy real horror fans, just enough to make it a tough sell for young kids. I can't really recommend The Curse of Bridge Hollow, but I will say if it looks like something you'll like then you're probably right, and if it looks bad to you then just skip it.

A family arrive in a small town on the eve of Halloween, and discover a community with a love of Halloween, and an interesting history.

Despite some of the less than favourable reviews, I really did enjoy this, it plays exactly as you'd expect, it's super camp, it's outrageous, but it's funny and heartwarming, and there's some really nice moments between Sydney and her dad. Some nice light entertainment for a change.

It's not afraid to poke fun of the usual horror stereotypes, it even dares to take the Mickey out of vegan food.

Marlon Wayans was great I thought, Kelly Rowland was sweet, nice acting in general, character wise I thought The Mayor and Victoria were fun.

They've definitely left this open for a second, and after this, bring it on. Don't go into this expecting horror, expect an entertaining comedy caper.

8/10.

I watched the trailer and was hyped because I thought it was giving The Haunted Mansion comedy vibes... well it is light hearted and coded for family watch but the comedy just didn't hit me right.

The dad in this was just forcing his character of "Hey look at me I hate anything not explained by science and if you don't agree I'm judging you" that he came out overly one dimensional and preachy. Which I can digress don't always come out bad but for this one specifically, the dad was just doing the bit over and over and over (for the good 60 minutes of a 90 minute movie) that it quickly got stale.

They did give him some backstory for why he acted the way he did but it was very last minute in feel so it didn't really excuse anything.

The vibes reminded me of Me Time movie featuring Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg, I think if you liked that sort of comedy then you might like this?

Warning: There's some mild profanity in this for those who care about that bit in family movies.

Look, this movie is a whole lot like others of it's kind, ehm Goosebumps. So what? You can like them both. This is a fun, family Halloween movie that does better than most and is worth a watch.

The performances are good and most of the visual effects look pretty cool. It's got a little lag in the middle, but it's still not horribly grinding.

It's creepy enough but still fun and most of the humor lands. It's not going to do anything you haven't already seen before, but if you're like me and always looking for new, quality family flicks to add to your Halloween watchlist, you could do a whole lot worse.