Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge
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| Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge | |
|---|---|
 Promotional advertisement | |
| Based on | Characters by Paul Bernbaum and Jon Cooksey & Ali Matheson |
| Written by | Jon Cooksey Ali Matheson |
| Directed by | Mary Lambert |
| Starring | Kimberly J. Brown Debbie Reynolds Judith Hoag Daniel Kountz Joey Zimmerman Phillip Van Dyke Emily Roeske |
| Theme music composer | Mark Mothersbaugh |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producer | Peter Lhotka |
| Running time | 81 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | Disney Channel |
| Release | October 12, 2001 |
Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge is a 2001 Disney Channel Original Movie released for the holiday of Halloween. This is the second installment in the Halloweentown series.
Plot
Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) has just spent two years with her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds). While hosting a mortal neighborhood Halloween party at their house, Marnie tries to impress a cute new boy, Kal (Daniel Kountz), by showing him Aggie's magically-hidden room. Unbeknownst to Marnie, Kal is actually the son of Kalabar and takes the opportunity to steal Aggie's spell book. Soon Aggie notices unwelcome magical symptoms. She and Marnie travel to Halloweentown to investigate and to fix the problem before the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world, open only on Halloween, closes at midnight.
They discover that the whole town has been turned into a made-to-match black-and-white world, and that the inhabitants have been turned into dreary, discolored, monotonous humans. The victims include Marnie's goblin friend Luke (Phillip Van Dyke). Aggie diagnoses this as the "Grey Spell." Aggie contacts her grandson Dylan (Joey Zimmerman) back home for a spell from her spell book. Dylan and Sophie (Emily Roeske) discover the book is missing. Marnie and Aggie learn that Kal is actually a warlock and the son of their enemy Kalabar (from the previous film). They learn that Kal stole Aggie's spell book to limit her ability to hinder his attempt to complete his father's revenge on both Halloweentown and the mortal world. Aggie searches for a spare copy of her spell book at her house in Halloweentown, but it is missing and she despairs. During a conversation with Aggie, Marnie inadvertently reverts Luke back to his goblin form. Unable to explain the spell's reversal, the group soon believes that it is temporary.
The trio travel to the lair of the well-known junk magnet of the universe, Gort (Blu Mankuma), who acquires lost items from both realms. He had been discolored by the Grey Spell and sold most of his junk. The group is trapped in Gort's house. Aggie loses her color as well and sorts through socks with Gort. Marnie uses time travel to go back to Gort's house before the Grey Spell happened. When Marnie and Luke arrive, they learn that Gort had sold the spare spell book to Kalabar about 50 years prior. By remembering what things Marnie had been hastefully saying back when Luke returned to his normal goblin form, they realize that the Grey Spell can be reverted by saying "Trapa", which is "Apart" spelled backwards.
Kal, having enspelled Halloweentown into a monochrome caricature of the mortal world, is now at work enspelling the mortal world into a monster movie caricature of Halloweentown. Sophie and Dylan realize that Alex (Peter Wingfield), believed to be Kal's father, is actually a golem intended to distract their mother Gwen (Judith Hoag) at a high school Halloween party. Kal puts his spell into effect, turning the party guests into the monsters they are dressed as, resulting in chaos. Dylan and Sophie hide from the monster humans including their mother.
Marnie frees Aggie, but they are too late as the portal to the mortal world closes, trapping them in Halloweentown. Marnie refuses to accept they are locked in. She contacts her siblings and they create a new spell that forces the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world to reopen permanently. Kal angrily confronts Marnie, who mocks him and demands the spell book. Kal produces vines and uses them to take both spell books in an attempt to prove his own superiority, which fails when Marnie takes them from him. Kal is sent away by the vines and the family breaks his spells in the mortal world and in Halloweentown.
Cast
- Kimberly J. Brown as Marnie Cromwell, a teenage witch who goes on a journey to undo Halloweentown's gray spell.
- Debbie Reynolds as Splendora Agatha "Aggie" Cromwell, the grandmother of Marnie, Dylan, and Sophie. She is a witch.
- Judith Hoag as Gwen Cromwell, the mother of Marnie, Dylan, and Sophie.
- Joey Zimmerman as Dylan Cromwell, the brother of Marnie and Sophie. He tries to be normal, but he gets dragged into Halloweentown's situation.
- Emily Roeske as Sophie Cromwell, the sister of Marnie and Dylan. She is smart and loves her powers.
- Phillip Van Dyke as Luke, the goblin. He helps Marnie on her journey.
- Daniel Kountz as Kal, the Son of Kalabar. He destroyed Halloweentown with a spell from Aggie's spell book. He wants Marnie to fall for him, but she rejects him after learning the real him.
- Xantha Radley as Astrid, the elf.
- Peter Wingfield as Alex, a golem made of frogs.
- Blu Mankuma as Gort, the garbage collector.
- Richard Side as Benny, the skeleton taxi driver.
Production
- This film is much darker and more serious in tone than its predecessor and its following sequels. Despite this film's success, its sequels have been more comedy driven.
- The film references academic thought such as Arthurian legend and even the advanced physics of Stephen Hawking
- It was known by two other names during production, Halloweentown II and Return To Halloweentown. The latter was used later for the 4th film in the series.
- It should also be noted that in the first movie, the closed-captioning spells Kalabar's name as "Calabar". However, the name is spelled "Kalabar" in the title of the movie even though the ending credits spell the character's name out as "Calabar" as well.
See also
- Halloweentown series
- Halloweentown (1998)
- Halloweentown High (2004)
- Return to Halloweentown (2006)
