Return to Halloweentown

**Return to Halloweentown** is a 2006 American live-action film directed by David Jackson. It is the fourth instalment in the Halloweentown series and is a Disney Channel Original Movie.

The focuses on Marnie Piper going to college at Witch University in Halloweentown, where dark forces try to control her magic.

The film was released on October 20, 2006.

## Plot

One year after the events of the last movie, a now eighteen-year-old Marnie is offered a full scholarship to Halloweentown's Witch University for her good deeds and help in the previous years. Much to her mother Gwen's dismay, Marnie decides to forgo her original college plans and instead attends the Halloweentown school. Gwen forces Marnie's brother Dylan to accompany and keep an eye on her. The school is not what it seems, as witches and warlocks cannot use magic; instead they learn about Shakespeare and old magic history. Marnie had thought she would learn how to use her magic and is now crestfallen.

Marnie runs into her old friend Ethan and makes a new friend named Aneesa the Genie. She also makes three new enemies in the Sinister Sisters: Scarlett, Sapphire and Sage, a triad of malevolent, extremely snobby, spoiled, and manipulative witches who are the daughters of Silas Sinister and with whom Dylan is immediately infatuated. Marnie discovers that she is responsible for the university's restriction of magic. The university was originally established exclusively for warlocks and witches to learn how to use magic. But when the portal between Halloweentown and the human world was opened permanently instead of just on Halloween, most of them went to college in the mortal realm. Since then, Witch University has allowed other magical creatures to attend. The classes are boring for Marnie until she uncovers within the dungeon of the college, a box, with the name "S. Cromwell" inscribed on it, magically appearing in front of her. However, the box is locked and has no key with it.

Marnie meets with one of her professors, Miss Periwinkle, and asks for an explanation. Periwinkle only tells Marnie that the S. stands for Splendora and that she and her were very good friends. Marnie and Dylan learn that the box contains the Gift, a magical power only a Cromwell can use, which Splendora locked in the box centuries ago. Meanwhile, the Sinister sisters use Dylan's infatuation with them to make him do their homework and use as bait for Marnie. Later, Ethan tells Marnie about a mysterious group, his father was part of, known as the Dominion that will try to use Marnie to open the box, but Marnie does not believe him. Marnie later travels to the past to meet Splendora and learn about the true nature of the enigmatic gift. Splendora explains that the Gift is an amulet that bestows the wearer with the power to control anyone, a power that witches are forbidden to use. Marnie realizes that her principal and Dr. Grogg are in the Dominion and Splendora bestows upon her the key to the box containing the Gift. Splendora is revealed to be Marnie's grandmother Aggie. Agatha is her middle name and she hates the Splendora part so she eventually dropped it. Marnie returns to the present with the key to open the box.

Chancellor Goodwin steals the Gift for the Dominion and the Sinister's to take over Halloweentown. Knowing that only a Cromwell can use the Gift, the Sinister Sisters transform Dylan into a Border Collie to compel Marnie to comply with their demands. If Dylan is not turned back by midnight, he will stay that way forever. They agree to return him to his natural form if Marnie controls Halloweentown for them. Marnie falsely agrees to aid them in their plot, initially using the Gift to control the people at Witch University. However, she turns on them once she has Aneesa trap the Gift in her lamp. With the Gift trapped in the lamp, Marnie, Dylan, Gwen, and Aneesa destroy the lamp, which destroys the Gift. The Dominion attempt an escape, but are apprehended by Periwinkle who is revealed to have been undercover for ten centuries as a detective of the Halloweentown Anti-Dominion League. She imprisons them in a Witch's Glass where she has stripped them of their magic and arrested them for treason.

The malevolent Sinister Sisters lose their powers as well, but Marnie learns that Ethan willingly gave his powers up after his father was found guilty in the previous film. Marnie and Ethan begin a new relationship and leave on a date. The movie ends when Dylan discovers that Marnie did not destroy the Gift, but instead left it for him in a book. Since spells cast on the grounds of Witch University become permanent at midnight, the Gift belongs to him, as he is the only person Marnie trusts with its power. Saving the power of the Gift for important uses only, he puts the book away, and it shows a glowing red S at the end of the film.

## Cast and Characters

* Sara Paxton as Marnie Piper / Young Aggie Cromwell
* Lucas Grabeel as Ethan Dalloway
* Joey Zimmerman as Dylan Piper
* Summer Bishil as Aneesa
* Judith Hoag as Gwen Piper
* Kristy Wu as Scarlett
* Katie Cockrell as Sage
* Kellie Cockrell as Sapphire
* Keone Young as Silas Sinister
* Leslie Wing as Chancellor Goodwin
* Millicent Martin as Professor Priscilla Persimmon Periwinkle
* Debbie Reynolds as Splendora Agatha "Aggie" Cromwell
* Scott Stevenson as Dr. Ichabod Grogg
* Christopher Robin Miller as Burn-Urp-Snurt-Pfsfsfsfst III

## Music

On October 27, 2020, Kenneth Burgomaster who composed, orchestrated, and conducted the soundtrack for the film uploaded the full score to his YouTube channel.

## Production

In a 2017 interview with E!, producer Sheri Singer said the recasting of Marnie, "was not something we wanted to do. We could not come to terms that we felt were fair. We just weren't able to. We couldn't make the deal work. That was why [she was recast] and we didn't want to not do it. I know people didn't like it, but it's not like people haven't been recast before. I always was sorry that's how it went."

## Reception

In a 2017 interview with E!, producer Sheri Singer said the recasting of Marnie, "was not something we wanted to do. We could not come to terms that we felt were fair. We just weren't able to. We couldn't make the deal work. That was why [she was recast] and we didn't want to not do it. I know people didn't like it, but it's not like people haven't been recast before. I always was sorry that's how it went."