In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Friday 11 September 2015

The Halloween Tree (1993)

An animated adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s children’s book (1972) of the same name. Small changes were made but there’s justification for them, Most are an attempt to make the visuals do the work of the unspoken written word. Halving the number of kids was obviously for time purposes, and adding a girl to the line-up addresses something that was sorely missing from the text. The mystery surrounding Pip is more clearly defined. I really wish they’d kept the Samhain scene, though, because it could've been a highlight.
It was a Hanna-Barbera TV production, so it doesn't look spectacular, but the voices are good. A croaky, unrecognisable Leonard Nimoy gives life to the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud. The narrator is Ray, sometimes reading passages directly from his own novel.

3 varieties of darkness out of 5

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