Halloweentown High

Plot synopsis:
Two years after the previous movie, 17-year-old Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) prepares to begin a new school year. She asks the Halloweentown Council to work toward openness between Halloweentown and the mortal world. She proposes bringing a group of Halloweentown students to her own high school in the mortal world. The Council is initially apprehensive, mostly due to the legend of the Knights of the Iron Dagger: a fanatical knighthood who wanted to destroy all things magical. The Halloweentown Witches' Council, however, agrees to accept the plan after Marnie mistakenly bets "all the Cromwell magic" that her plan will work. If she does not prove she is right by midnight on Halloween, then her entire family will lose their magical abilities. Marnie, regretting what she said to the Council, wants to cancel the program she has made, but her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) opposes, saying that they have nothing to fear.
The Halloweentown students arrive and are magically given human appearances to disguise their true non-human natures. School begins with Marnie acting as a tour guide for the exchange group, claiming they are from Canada. Aggie substitute teaches so she can be available in case of need. Cody (Finn Wittrock), a new student, shows a romantic interest in Marnie.
While Aggie proves unable to teach any subject effectively, the Halloweentown students keep to themselves, hiding in the refuge that Aggie magically creates for them in a remote student locker. Marnie gradually encourages the students to join sports teams, school activities, and to make new friends.
Marnie's progress is interrupted by a warning that appears to be from the Knights of the Iron Dagger, then by a magical incident at the mall that results in the Halloweentown students assuming their natural appearances in public. This is followed by a break-in at the secret magical locker and the disappearance of one of the students.
Meanwhile, Marnie's developing relationship with Cody parallels an unexpected romance beginning between Aggie and the school's principal, Phil Flannigan (Clifton Davis). Aggie suspects Cody of being the cause of the trouble, and tries to convince Marnie to halt their relationship, but Marnie in turn suspects Flannigan. They eventually discover that Flannigan is the Knight in question; he was told prior to the students' arrival that he was the last of the Order.
Edgar Dalloway (Michael Flynn), head of the Witches' Council and father of one of the students, is the real root of their problems. He wants to keep Halloweentown isolated from the mortal world, and used Flannigan to ensure the failure of Marnie's project. This, he hoped, would cause a negative reaction in Halloweentown and keep the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world closed.
The Halloweentown students use the school's Halloween carnival to improve mortal attitudes toward magical folk. Their haunted house depicts the ordinary lives of creatures that have typically been seen as monsters in the mortal world, including displays like the "Monster Tea Party" and ogres "picnicking in their natural setting", which winds up boring the carnival goers. Meanwhile, Marnie's mother, Gwen (Judith Hoag), uses a Witch's Glass to hunt down the missing student imprisoned by Dalloway.
At the school carnival, Dalloway launches magical attacks against the mortal students by bringing the inanimate monsters in the haunted house to life. The ensuing panic spirals beyond Marnie's and Aggie's ability to contain the monsters. Flannigan incites a mob to corner the Halloweentown students. Cody shames the crowd, the students reveal themselves, and the crowd accepts them for who they are. Flannigan also renounces being a knight and accepts Aggie.
Dalloway claims the Cromwell magic, and explains that his son Ethan (Lucas Grabeel) helped with most of the things that happened, but Gwen has shown the evening's events to the Witches' Council. They return the Cromwell magic, Gwen returns with the imprisoned student, and the Council imprisons Dalloway in another Witch's Glass.
The portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world opens inside the haunted house, and crowds of children from Halloweentown cross over to enjoy the carnival together with children of the mortal world. Marnie flies off for a romantic broom ride with Cody. While flying over the carnival, they kiss.

Tags: horror

Review:
This Halloween Town was again worth the time.
Lucas Grabeel stood out in this debut as Ethan, a warlock worth watching.
He has much to offer the acting world and is going to go places in Hollywood and his newest release, High School Musical may be the launching pad.
The show was fun and the Disney audience loved it.
The Halloween Town High premise of creatures disguising themselves as high school students and trying to fit in when their peers find it hard to fit in themselves is a refreshing twist from the other roles available.
Disney once again found a new vehicle for some talented young actors.
Halloweentown High, just premiering last week on the Disney Channel was a lighthearted family feature.
Watching it, anyone would realize that this film was not out to grab a best picture nomination at the Oscars.
However, for what it's supposed to be, Halloweentown High proves to be a film that children will enjoy to watch.
With a wide fan base of children of all ages from the first two films, you can see why the Disney Channel is playing the movie several times all month.
While I read over a few of the comments made on the movie, I was perplexed at how some young girls went completely crazy over it, while others took out enough time to write a full essay on how horrible it was.
As a movie for children, it's supposed to be cheesy; so expect that and you will find yourself pleasantly surprised..
I watched this movie knowing how much of a chance it had to be awful.
The most recent Disney Channel original movies have been complete crap (case and point, The Cheetah Girls).
And this movie is the third of two great movies already, and I was shocked to find that it was actually good!
Brown) and her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) are planning to bring kids from Halloweentown, disguise them as humans and have them attend a high school in the mortal world, to prove monsters that live in Halloweentown aren't dangerous.
But of course, there is a problem, if Marnie can't prove to the humans that the monsters are harmless, she, and her family will lose all their powers.When the monsters start attending the school, they all stick together and aren't interacting with their fellow human schoolmates, so Marnie suggests they do different extra curricular activities.
Then, they sign up to make a haunted house for their school Halloween Carnival, but they make it so it is a wax museum with wax monsters sitting, drinking tea, and eating cookies trying to how that monsters mean no harm.
This Disney Channel movie has surprisingly good computer special effects.
Considering their latest effects-laden original movie, Zenon: Z3, had the worst computer effects I've ever seen.
Another thing great about this movie is that Disney seems to have a knack for getting the same actors back for their sequels to their original movies.
Brown, Debbie Reynolds, Judith Hoag, Joey Zimmerman, and Emily Roeske are all back, and have been in all three Halloweentown movies.
If you haven't seen the original Halloweentown movie and its sequel, I would see those first, because there are some things that might not make sense.
All in all, this is the best original movie Disney Channel has produced in quite a while.
Good movies!.
I really enjoy all three Halloweentown movies though the only thing missing from Halloween High was Marnie's friend Luke.
Maybe he's too old to be in High School anymore but that doesn't mean he couldn't have come over to give some moral support.
;-) These movies maybe intended for kids but I really enjoyed them!
A Halloween movie that's not at all scary is something I enjoy.
:o)I am having someone I know who lives in the U.S. pick up a copy of each movie for me and mail it to me.
Though I'm the only with a VCR copy of Halloween High and one day hope to pass the third installment onto all of my neighbourhood kids since I know they enjoyed both Halloweentown one and two..
I love all the Halloweentown movies because of their plots!
In every Halloweentown movie, there is a new villain.
It had more characters i.e. Cassie, Natalie, Chester, Pete, Ethan and more, they are all students from Halloweentown come to the mortal world to see what it's like to live like a human.
Lucas Grabeel is such a good actor, and this was his first acting job ever, and he was excellent.
We were also joined by Cody, a new student at Marnie's high school, who happens to like her, she likes him too!
It's a real cool movie, the best one out of all, so check it out!.
Halloweentown III: Halloween High, though not a stunning piece of cinema, held much more talent and savvy than that of the first two.
Brown has grown into a beautiful and talented young actresses.
If Disney continues to make them like this...I'll keep watching with my Daughter.
this movie is a must for any Disney fan, especially if you (as i am) a fan of High School Musical, some of the cast choices were not as you expected but they all shine, a brilliant story line and is very unpredictable, some corny lines but if you love Lucas Grabeel you will melt, as they are all said by him a very well used budget for a DCOM and use of sets effectively.
the special effects are very amateur but it was never going to be a blockbuster, high earnings movie, which is probably appealed to me.
i cannot wait until i see the next installment of the movie, and any others in the future.
I love this movie, must watch it every October.
Those three generations of Cromwell women, Debbie Reynolds, Judith Hoag, and Kimberly Brown are once again fighting some evil forces that are trying to keep the world of Halloween away from the human world.
This time it's a world exchange program that's at stake.Young Kimberly Brown has the bright idea to have some Halloweentown kids come to the human world incognito as humans, the better not to instantly shock people to foster greater understanding.
Of course the powers that be in Halloweentown remembering their experiences with humankind before are very skeptical.But Kimberly believes so much in the project that she bets the family magic powers on it.
The Magic Kingdom has developed its own nice little franchise in the Halloweentown movies to go along with the various incarnations of High School Musical.
Debbie Reynolds and the rest of the cast are as enjoyable as they were in the first Halloweentown film.
And Lucas Grabeel of the High School Musical films is also part of this cast as one of the Halloweentown transfer kids.Halloweentown High is good viewing during goblin season..
I was never a huge fan of the first two Halloweentown films - the first one felt clumsy and choppy, and the second was just plain dull.
I actually prefer Halloweentown High over the others.
First of all, the plot is executed without any awkward dragging bits (think about the long time travel sequence in Halloweentown II, or the anticlimactic ending of the first film).
The Halloweentown setting is a good idea that was not used to its full potential in the previous movies.
Brown delivers another fabulous performance, and I wish she could have been in the fourth movie as well.
Lucas Grabeel, of High School Musical fame, steals his scenes (although I laugh whenever I see his cowboy costume) as the troubled and somewhat annoying Ethan.
Many critics of this movie have pointed out inconsistencies such as Gwen using magic, or their last name changing.
To set things straight, Piper is the last name of Marnie's human father, so she and her siblings bear that name.
All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot.
The film was really good.
I think "Halloween Town High" was really good.
I have all the Halloween Town movies recored.
I look forward to the Next Halloween Town movie.
These movies are very good movies for kids to watch.I am a very big fan of Kimberly J.
I hope Disney keeps on putting these movies on.
I really hope they make a Halloween Town 4.
These are the kinds of movies that I love to watch.
If people would watch the movies very carefully they would realize that these Haloween Town movies are good for kids to watch.
It's rare that sequels are better than the original, and this movie proves that in many words.
Halloweentown was a blast to watch, and I knew at once that the other 2 sequels would be good, but I was wrong.
The entire movie is like repeating one scene over and over and over and over with different lines, it's not exciting at all.
A lot of the Halloweentown citizens aren't as believable as they were in the first, they look more like costumes had just been slapped on them.
It just seems like it's an entirely new movie and not a sequel.
I loved this movie, I watched all 3 of them over Halloween last year I now have them on order although there could of been a better script I have equally enjoyed all of the movies & Finn Witrock who plays Cody is absolutely GORGEOUS.I would of liked it to of contained some of the cast from the other movies but nether the less it was still enjoyable to watch it was a mild horror movie for children & they (my kids) enjoyed it very very much & they can not wait to see if the next one comes out.
i just wish that they did movies like this for adults as I am not overly keen on adult horror films.
Halloweentown High is terrible, not nearly as good as the first or even the second one.
For the first hour and a half of the movie absolutely nothing happens.
By the end I didn't even care about this movie, The one thing it did have was good special effects, for a Disney movie.
My advice skip this movie, unless you have absolutely nothing to do and there is nothing on the television,and you want to watch this movie to see if it's really as bad as my review says.2/10.
This movie was awful it had no story.
I mean Halloween town wasn't even in the movie why name it Halloween town high when Halloween town is not even in the movie.
O.k. it was in the movie but only that council room thing with those guys.
But i mean there was no point to the movie.
But other then that, really bad movie i don't know why they keep on making sequels with different directors kinda stupid don't you think.
All the monsters that come from Halloween town was retarded they all stunk at acting.
I don't want to be harsh but if you make a good movie don't make a bad sequel that kills the whole series the second one was o.k. but the first one was good see what Disney does to movies.
Name changes in Movie.
In the next movie Return to HalloweenTown, they are now known as Pipers and they got rid of Kimberly J.
Brown in Return to Halloweentown.
Also, the movie changed Halloween Town dramatically.
So many people that got rid of in this movie.
In halloween Town High...
A third movie with the Halloweentown name does not a trilogy make (Spoilers included).
As both a fan of the first two Halloweentown movies and a student of Communication Arts, I was very much looking forward to the third movie in the Halloweentown series, especially since said series is supposed to end as a trilogy.
However, the movie's narrative proved that this is not the case.The first problem one encounters is that the flow of the story doesn't match up with that of the previous two movies.
Sure, the flow of the trilogy goes from a childish good and evil narrative in the first move, through a revenge plot in the second movie that fits Marnie's status as teenager, into a reasonably adult diversification theme that metatexturally speaks of Marnie's selfishness.
The problem, however, lies in the fact that our young protagonist goes about this in a way that is not structured in the exchange students' best interests.SPOILERS BELOW!Furthermore, Gwen, Marnie's mother, uses magic.
This may not seem like a big thing to a first-time watcher, but throughout both earlier movies, it has been proven that Gwen actively *chooses* not to use her powers, especially while in the human world.
The frivolous use of magic in a scene where Gwen and Marnie interact isn't only odd, it's actively confusing.
The only times Gwen used spells in previous movies was as self-defense.Also, certain characters who had a strong presence in the first two movies were noticeably absent.
One can understand the under-use of Emily Roeske's Sophie, because the character is noticeably younger than her siblings and therefore probably still in middle school, but the absolute absence of Luke is inexcusable.
This is a character that not only plays a major role in the first two films and is a fan favorite, but also the character who throughout the first two movies was positioned as having a crush on Marnie and, in the second movie, being her friend.
While one can understand that contract negotiations and so on may have prevented Phillip Van Dyke from appearing in the movie, to completely forget the character's presence and importance is unforgivable.
That would have explained why the parents and other more sophisticated viewers of DCOM didn't get any sort of triangle between Marnie, Luke, and Marnie's human boyfriend, which would have been infinitely preferable to the plot we were presented.In conclusion, while the story is good enough on its own, and the costumes and special effects are magnificent, the movie's shortcomings handicap its impact.
The movie is skewed, and appears to have nothing to do with Halloweentown so much as Marnie's selfishness in particular.
This is, by far, the weakest of the three movies, while it had the potential to be the best.
The name of this film is misleading by make it seem like the high school is in Halloweentown.
the plot does not make sense and this seem out of tune with the other films in series .
Where in the world is Halloweens town?.
This movie is no were near as good as the rest of the series.
Now, right away they start talking about Marnie's "punishment" for opening the halloweentown portal, this is impossible since it happens almost two years after.
Lastly not going to halloweentown or having a big magical confrontation killed the fun of this world for my friends and family.
In the story Marnie had to "fight this magical knight, they never fought and the story had almost nothing to do with halloweentown.
But after Halloweentown II, I expected more, more magic, more kalbar or evil warlock/witch things.
I must say that this third installment of Halloweentown was a huge disappointment.
I loved the first one, and enjoyed the second, but Halloweentown High doesn't even come close.
This makes no sense because she made it clear in the earlier movies that she chooses to live as a mortal.
They even show her using magic for stupid mundane things like making hot chocolate.
Sophie, who played such a major part in the two earlier movies, is almost nowhere to be seen in this film.
Also noticeably missing is Luke, Marnie's best friend from Halloweentown who helped her deal with the villains of both earlier movies.
Overall,though, I think that the writers lost track of what made the first movie so enjoyable - Halloweentown itself.
Like Narnia, like Diagon Alley and Hogwarts - the fun of stepping through to a magical, adventurous world so near to our own and the potential that it represents is what keeps me coming back to the first movie for more..
My daughter and I loved the first three Halloweentown movies.
They have become a tradition with my household, and being born on Halloween I look forward to the creativity without the pure evil that is often in other theme based movies.
After this many movies, the characters should have stayed consistent at all costs!!!!Shame on your company for leaving these winning actresses out of the fourth movie.
This movie was horrible.I really liked the first two halloweentown movies and I was exited when another one was coming out but this had to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
It was just a huge waste on a good movie.
Nobody would just accept monsters into the world so easily.The movie tries to hard for laughs and tries to be scary when it is definitely not.Unlike the other two movies they do not show halloweentown all they show is a courtroom and that is another bad thing about it.
I would not recommend this movie to anyone because they should not waste an hour and a half of their lives to see this..
This movie was awful.
OK, so why did they call it Halloweentown High?
The school is not in Halloweentown, its in our world.
And then with the whole knight thing, that doesn't make sense, and with the sappy ending where "everyone lives in peace with the freaks" was so stupid.
There is countless things about this movie that are stupid, including the principle and the grandmothers love affair, and Marnies and that boys love affair, and brothers and the trolls love affair, and the statement at the end where the grandma says something about "who heard of football(or some other sport) without flying monkeys?) What?
In the earlier movies, there was NOTHING about "flying monkeys" thats just stupid.
the other movies were stupid, but this is horrendously dumb.