The Halloweentown series is one of Disney’s most enduringly popular kids horror-comedy franchises, but how do the movies rank in comparison with each other? Halloween is on the way, and for many readers, the holiday brings with a nostalgic reminder of the Halloweentown franchise. Beginning in 1998 with the director (and bizarrely, frequent David Lynch collaborator) Duwayne Dunham’s Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown, the Halloweentown series grew over the proceeding decade to include a trio of sequels. Unfortunately, not all of these follow-ups lived up to the original movie’s promise.
The original Halloweentown was a big hit with younger viewers and arrived at the perfect time for Disney, with kid’s horror media being a massively profitable trend during the ‘90s. The popularity of Goosebumps creator RL Stine’s many movie adaptations meant the House of Mouse was bound to cash in on the trend, and Halloweentown’s goofy charms balanced campy fun and occasional scares without alienating younger viewers. However, as the series wore on, the novelty of Halloweentown wore off, and by the final movie’s 2006 debut, the sub-genre of kid’s horror was no longer the commercial behemoth it had been.
However, the waning popularity of kid’s horror was not enough to keep young viewers from loving Halloweentown’s first sequel, Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge. That movie brought back the first film’s titular villain for more spooky shenanigans while the second sequel, Halloweentown High, shifted the focus of the series to the eponymous high school. Making the third movie a high school horror-comedy was a wise move, but unfortunately, Return To Halloweentown’s decision to recast heroine Marnie was a bridge too far for many viewers. Unlike other recasting controversies, such as George Miller recasting Charlize Theron's Furiosa, Disney never offered a reason for the choice, leaving many fans dismayed as a result. Here are the Halloweentown movies ranked from worst to best.
Return To Halloweentown
2006’s Return To Halloweentown was never going to have an easy time winning over fans, but the final sequel in the series did itself no favors by adding a complicated, convoluted plot to a franchise that thrived on simplicity. Where the earlier movies stuck with straightforward stories, Return to Halloweentown brought time-shifting into its tale of Marnie (Sara Paxton) heading to Witch College in the titular burg. Not only is the heroine unable to use her powers in this institution, but she also soon becomes embroiled in a knotty time-twisting story that eventually sees Paxton playing a de-aged version of Debbie Reynolds' lovable grannie, Agatha Cromwell, alongside Marnie herself. This 2006 sequel does manage to mine some fun from Return To Halloweentown's magic school setting, but it is territory better explored in Harry Potter’ and the campy Vampire Diaries spinoff Legacies, where schools for witches and wizards give rise to more memorable moments than can be found in this sequel.
Meanwhile, the confounding choice to center the action of the sequel around Marnie traveling to the past and meeting another character played by the same actor is too weird for the franchise to pull off, and the action drags as a result of this odd choice. With such a confusing central story there is little screen time for the fun, silly subplots that made earlier movies in the series shine, and Return to Halloweentown regrettably proves that the last thing a Disney Channel sequel needs is a complicated storyline that takes up much of the movie's runtime. Add to this the inscrutable decision to recast Halloweentown’s original Marnie actor for this outing and viewers are left with a movie mostly only known for its poor reception.
Halloweentown High
Released in 2004, Halloweentown High made the canny decision to relocate the action of the series to the town’s high school and allowed the franchise to transition into teen comedy territory as a result. The new setting does facilitate some fun sight gags, but ultimately Halloweentown High suffers from the same issue that most Disney Channel outings set in high school have. Namely, the target audience of preteen kids keeps this sequel’s humor too anodyne and safe for older kids to enjoy, while very young viewers will be put off by most of the cast being well into their teens. As a result, the target audience is unclear on this sequel, and while there are inspired moments here and there, viewers going into Halloweentown High expecting PG-rated comedy-horror like The Simpsons' 'Treehouse of Horror' specials will be sorely disappointed. This one is strictly only of interest to smaller children despite its aged-up setting and may disappoint even them.
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Halloweentown
The original Halloweentown remains the most famous of the franchise and for good reason. Screen veteran Debbie Reynolds is a campy delight as the witchy grandmother of three adventurous kids who travel to the spooky town, and the setting is imaginatively realized with plenty of fun one-off gags and clever riffs on famous movie monsters. That said, the plot is paper-thin, the acting is uneven, and upon a rewatch, Halloweentown is visibly cheaper than its first two sequels, both of which were likely granted a bigger budget thanks to the movie’s unexpected success.
There is still plenty to like about Halloweentown, including some surprisingly effective scary moments that can go toe to toe with Goosebumps in terms of seminal kid-scarring jumps. Despite being one of Disney’s best Halloween horror offerings, Halloweentown is more tonally uneven and limited in its ambition than many viewers may remember, and the limitations of the movie’s scope make it a lesser outing than its superior sequel. Without the snarky sardonic edge of Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown is not quite Disney at its spookiest strength. It is, however, a solid setup for the best movie of the series.
Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge
Released three years after the success of the first movie in the series, Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge brought back the cast of the original movie as well as its memorably freaky titular villain. No longer trying to pose as a cloying good guy, Kalabar (Robin Thomas) is free to be a hammy, over-the-top, yet undeniably effective antagonist in this stronger sequel, which ups the stakes, increases the role that Reynolds plays in proceedings, and altogether improves on the already-solid original. Like fellow macabre kids comedy franchise The Addams Family, this sequel ranks as the strongest of the series and proves to be a rare follow-up that bests the first film in the franchise. The humor is goofier, the plot is less predictable, and the pacing is faster in Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge, the best Halloweentown movie of the series so far.
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