Chabert Hallo-Watch: Haul Out The Halloween (2025)

Watched: 10/12/2025

Format:  Hallmark+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Maclain Nelson

Job: Copywriter/ Children's Book Author

Location of story:  Evergreen Lane - which I think is in Salt Lake City

new skill:  it's an old skill remembered - how to draw and write kid's books

Man:  Wes Brown

Job of Man:  Architect

Goes to/ Returns to:  stays in same place (this is the 3rd installment)

Event:  Halloween street fair

Food:  Cookies

Well, Ms. Lacey Chabert has released a new movie upon the Hallmark channel, and so we're back!

This is the third installment in the Haul Out the Holly Saga, a movie series which is about people who are absolutely nuts for holidays, their HOA and rules.  We've abandoned Christmas for Halloween this go-round, which - given the first movies are about going over the top with traditions - seems appropriate.  

This is, I should mention, a wacky comedy series with everything about the 'burbs heightened and zany, so don't take it too seriously.  It's a departure from Hallmark's usual "the characters are all smiling to let you know a joke happened" style of comedy, and, instead, works more like an 00's-era comedy - complete with joke-every-15-second pop culture referencing and a rap by Octogenarians.  

Hallo-Watch: Hereditary (2018)

Watched:  10/12/2025

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ari Aster

I really liked Midsommar by the same director, and I'd heard about 75% good things about Hereditary (2018) and maybe 25% meh to bad.  

Alas, the only scary thing in this movie is the pacing.   I get trying to build a mood, but holy cats, the mood should not be "for the love of Mike, get on with it".  The two hour run time felt like more than three.  And it just wasn't my bag, baby.  

I guess maybe if I hadn't already seen Midsommar, this might have been more effective, but that is not how things transpired.  Frankly, I was shocked at the audacity of Aster to have two movies with such similar endings back to back.  

The premise is fine, I guess.  Weird, controlling mother dies.  Daughter is accidentally killed.  Whoops, there's a secret cult worshipping an off-brand demon who has inhabited the daughter/ is merged with her? and now, in a ghostly fashion, slowly bothers this family to death.  And it's one of those movies where the evil wins (dramatic music).  Which would mean something if I cared what happened to any single character is this movie.  Temu Satan is going to take over the world because of these dopes?  I guess we got what we paid for.

I think the thing we're supposed to be impressed by are moods and the kooky connections we see, like Charlie, the girl, meaningfully cutting the head off a dead bird.  And oh boy, will decapitation ever be a motif.  Or her wanting to build effigies (much as her mother does in her own way).  

The selling point is supposed to be the family trauma.  Which, okay.  But... I didn't know these people at any point when they weren't brooding or gnashing their teeth or both.  So that's it - that's how I know them.  Unhappy people who become increasingly unhappy.

Meanwhile, the music is doing a lot of heavy lifting to insist scenes are intense or scary as we just kinda sit there as an audience waiting for the next piece of movie plot track to get laid down.  

I dunno, I just feel like I've seen one too many cult movies, and this one sort of just was that mixed with the 2010's horror trend of "the unknown" bothering nice white folks in their semi-rural house.  I didn't care about what was happening at any given moment, which is a weird way to feel when you're watching a movie.  If I'd turned it off and read the Wikipedia synopsis, I think I would have gotten the same amount out of the experience.