Every October, I love watching all of my favorite Halloween movies on Freeform and Disney. (In case you live under a rock, Freeform is doing 31 Nights of Halloween this year!) One of my favorite Halloween movies is Halloweentown, and I like the first three movies in its series.
I don’t like the fourth movie, Return to Halloweentown, that much, so when I watch it, I’ll only make an attempt to watch it once. I’ve been a little sour about the fourth movie for only giving Aggie Cromwell a few minutes on screen and changing the actress who played Marnie. In the interest of revamping the Halloweentown series, Disney needs to re-release a fourth installment or add a fifth movie to the series. The way to do that is to bring back Kal, the son of Kalabar.
In the second movie, Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, Marnie is excited that she will be living in Halloweentown next year and helps her mom throw a party in their house. Both mom and daughter find love interests at this party while Aggie knows something is wrong at home when her bottomless bag empties of candy and prizes. When they investigate, they find out that Halloweentown has been turned into a parody of the Mortal World, all thanks to Marnie’s love interest who happens to be the son of Kalabar, her mom’s spurned lover from the first movie. (Yes, that’s creepy.) For the rest of the movie, they’re trying to save Halloweentown and the Mortal World while Kal tries to persuade Marnie to join him. When she defeats him at the end of the movie, the living-vine magic sends him away, and Luke, Marnie’s goblin friend, warns, “He’ll be back.” Marnie promises, “And we’ll be waiting.” Then he never returns.
Besides the limited screen time of the original actresses who played Cromwell grandma and granddaughter, the fourth movie is ruined for me by making magic performed at midnight on Halloween permanent. This seems to break every rule of magic because nothing was ever made permanent at midnight in the previous three. The only thing that was ever a problem was the portal between the two worlds, which was resolved at the end of the second movie.
I think the problems with the first movie can be resolved by bringing Kal back. I have a couple of thoughts about it. My first proposal is to remake the fourth movie. Here’s how to do it:
- Bring Kimberly J. Brown back to movie as Marnie. It’s too late to bring back Aggie Cromwell, so she could be recasted or just not be in the movie at all.
- Get rid of the Gift (that amulet that can control everyone) and that permanent magic rule at the university. They’re unnecessary.
- You can keep Witch U and its new rule of banning magic from being practiced at the school.
- Have the Dominion still want control over Halloweentown and still want to involve Marnie as a piece of their plan.
- Then have Kal reenter as one of her classmates who is also a member of this Dominion in another bid for revenge and power. It can also bring up the old romantic interest, or it could be total hatred for each other. Whatever works.
- Then have them fight each other again with good winning over evil, since that has been Disney’s MO.
Or something. That’s just an idea.
Since I doubt Disney will remake this movie any time soon, they can recover it by making a fifth installment (with the same actors). In some way bring Kal back to the series. Have him try to get revenge on the Cromwells and try to gain control of Halloweentown. He could even be an antagonist for Sophie to fight. Just bring him back for a final Halloweentown movie to bring the whole thing full circle. That’s my second proposal.
Considering that the fourth movie was released in 2006, I don’t believe that there will be another installment in the series any time soon. In fact, I think Disney would be more likely to remake the whole series in 20 years. So, I took to checking out what exists in the way of Kal fanfiction. FanFiction.Net has only 3 stories with Kal as a listed main character, and one of those is cross-posted on Archive of Our Own. We need more Kal fanfics, if not a replacement for the fourth movie where Kal is a major villain again. If someone wants to write a Halloweentown fanfic, here are a few plot bunnies to run with:
- Bring Kal back at some point after Halloweentown II. This could be a rewrite of the third or fourth movies. Or you can make a fifth installment if you like the fourth movie.
- Make Marnie change her mind, in truth or as a ploy. Make her go with Kal in the second movie.
- In some way, tell us about who Kal’s mother is.
Feel free to use any of these ideas for a fanfic.
In the meantime, you might enjoy the video by Kimberly J. Brown that does a “Where Are They Now?” with Kal. Or you can enjoy my conspiracy theory about where Kal’s mom went and where Mal’s father went.
https://twitter.com/MissCarrieLA/status/1043665279161491456
Happy Halloween this month, and I hope this post brought back some Halloweentown nostalgia.
Do you think Halloweentown should have another installment added to the series?
Cat on the Bookshelf 
I love the HalloweenTown movies but I agree that the last one is not as good as the others. I’d love a remake.
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