Once Upon a Halloween (2005)

Director: unknown | 53 minutes | animation, family

Once upon a time… Halloween 2005. And the much-loved Disney studios decided to release a special Halloween DVD, starring the worst villains in Disney history together. Nice, thought the children, all the villains together in one story, that will be exciting! But the DVD turned out to be more of a trick than a treat and didn’t last until midnight.

The story starts promisingly, with how could it be otherwise, a book and the well-known, “Once upon a…” (“Once upon a time”). Then the viewer is swept into the deepest, darkest dungeons of Snow White’s castle, while enjoying a menacing poem, and becomes acquainted with the evil witch’s schemes. Unfortunately, computer-animated images take up half the frame and later the rest, leaving only shadows of the queen of evil to be seen.

What follows, all clips and scenes from various old and new Disney films and a rhyming cauldron that talks it all together. Disney makes it very easy for itself by recycling old films and brewing a weak story (with an obvious, unmissable moral) around it. Especially if the total length of the film is less than an hour and the stolen fragments last more than 48 minutes.

The (just too long) fragments themselves are of course very nice, tastes like more: to watch the complete original film. Which is of course a good move by Disney, as more films are sold and certainly around the upcoming December period. Too bad they have to use such a movie or compilation promo DVD for that.

The ending, after about 45 minutes of watching fragments, comes suddenly, but not unexpectedly and is also not very surprising. One does not get to see the fate of the evil witch, but is treated to an extra collection of film fragments laced with the sweet morals one is used to from Disney films. Presented by, there it is again, the sealing cauldron.

This Halloween does not enchant Disney with her otherwise so good animated films. The studios could have gotten more out of it with a (good) story, but that didn’t happen.