Upon selecting “Hubie Halloween” on the Netflix app, I was promised a horror-comedy, as that was what the movie was tagged under. However, after watching the movie, I can’t say I got either out of the film. Once again, Adam Sandler tries and fails to deliver a meaningful product, and instead leaves me utterly disappointed.
The movie opens with a scene in a psych ward, where a patient has seemingly escaped. While I thought this was the central conflict of the movie, you’ll see later how I’m proven completely wrong. The scene then cuts to modern-day Salem, MA — the home of the infamous Salem Witch Trials. As a setting for a Halloween movie, I do have to give them props, as the entire town has quite a history of bewitching.
There, we meet our main character, Hubie Dubois, played by Adam Sandler. Hubie is the typical weirdo, except they dialed up every character trait to eleven; Sandler delivers all his dialogue with a very pronounced lisp, he carries around a thermos full of soup (among other things) at all times, and his preferred method of transportation is an old bike. And, it is in this scene where one of my main issues with the movie shines through – the general mean-spiritedness.
A common visual gag in the movie was increasingly larger and increasingly more dangerous items being thrown Hubie’s way, in an attempt at comedy and showing just how much the town ostracizes him. Where the movie fails miserably, is in the delivery of the comedy, as all the scenes with the townsfolk mistreating Hubie just came off as mean. Another repeated visual gag was Hubie’s seemingly endless-function thermos, which also didn’t quite land for me. The comedy falling flat was probably the movie’s greatest transgression, as it used it as a crutch quite often.
Another gripe I had with the movie was the overreliance on gross-out and bathroom humor — I barely went ten minutes without hearing some sort of excretion joke. Frankly, this just set the tone of the movie as immature. The plotlines were contrived as well, with the villain being one of the most random “subversions” ever, and the romantic side-plot being very underdeveloped.
Something, however, I did enjoy about the movie was “spot the Disney Channel star.” This movie is full of ex-Disney actors, so it was fun to see them throughout the movie. Plus, the entire film was a tribute to the late Cameron Boyce, something I found both heartwarming yet heartbreaking.
Overall, I would not recommend “Hubie Halloween.” But, if you’d like a movie where you can turn your brain off and just watch, it will be a welcome addition to your movie library.
Rating: C-
