Adaptations and remakes are all Hollywood is pumping out these days, and it’s felt like we’re getting closer and closer to scraping the bottom of the barrel. Well, they’ve found it. In what can only be considered a last-ditch attempt to find a recognizable brand to base a movie on, the Spirit Halloween chain of stores is getting a film adaptation. You know, the cheap costume stores that pop up every October in empty storefronts and then disappear the first day of November? That’s going to be a movie. Strike Back Studios, Hideout Pictures, and Particular Crowd are planning to make a family-friendly movie called Spirit Halloween and have already landed Christopher Lloyd and Rachael Leigh Cook to star in it.
“When a new Spirit Halloween store appears in a deserted strip mall, three middle-school friends who think they’ve outgrown trick-or-treating make a dare to spend the night locked inside the store Halloween night,” the official plot description states. “But they soon find out that the store is haunted by an angry evil spirit who has possessed the creepy animatronic characters. The kids embark on a thrilling and spooky adventure in order to survive the night and avoid becoming possessed themselves.”
It isn’t clear what roles Christopher Lloyd and Rachael Leigh Cook will be playing. But it’s pretty easy to predict that Lloyd will be the creepy store owner/janitor who gives a knowing wink to the camera at the beginning and end of the movie and that Cook will play a mom of one of the kids. Also in the cast are Donavan Colan, Dylan Frankel, Jaiden Smith (not Jaden Smith), Marla Gibbs, and Marissa Reyes. First-time feature director David Poag will direct.
All snideness aside, the premise for the film is basically every coming-of-age adventure movie we’ve ever seen, and setting it at a Spirit Halloween does little in itself to elevate the scenario. The script also claims to be inspired by the likes of The Goonies and Gremlins. Hopefully, it can overcome the ephemeral nature of Spirit Halloween stores and be something that actually sticks around.
Filming has already completed, and it is intended to release this October.
