Halloweentown (1998)
Being normal is vastly overrated
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On her 13th birthday, Marny Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) finds out she's a witch after her grandmother Aggie Cromwell (Debbie Reynolds) visits on Halloween night, and now she's starting to get her powers just like her Mom and grandma. Her mother doesn't want her to use them or even have them, so she tries to keep the fact that the family are witches a secret from the kids. But later that same night Marny, Dylan and Sophie stowaway on the bus to Halloweentown with Grandma, the magical burg where the family used to live before moving to the human world and where witches, goblins, vampires, and the like lead very normal lives. But then an ugly creature known only as The Evil freezes mother and grandma, because he wants a talisman to complete his control over Halloweentown. The kids battle The Evil by themselves. After getting together the items needed for reenergize the talisman, the Evil turns out to be Calibar, the mayor (and mother’s ex-boyfriend). Marnie places the talisman in a magic pumpkin, which then defeats Calibar and restores everyone. Calibar retrieves the talisman, so the whole family combines their power to defeat him. TV Guide classifies this 1st one as a comedy. About the closest it gets to scary is when a skeleton cab driver tries to kidnap Dylan and when Calibar attacks several people with balls of energy. The sequels are classified by TV Guide as scifi/fantasy.Additional Cast:
Joey Zimmerman: Dylan Piper
Emily Marie Roeske: Sophie Cromwell
Phillip Glenn Van Dyke: Luke
Shannon Day: Aerobics Instructor
Judith Hoag: Gwen Piper
These are the most recent movies of Debbie Reynolds, who survived the sinking of the Titanic in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (a musical that included “Belly Up To The Bar Boys”) and got her start “Singin’ In The Rain”. She doesn’t sing any witchy songs as far as I know in this one. I'm not sure cause it was on the same videotape as Casper The Friendly Ghost and Joe Bob “accidentally” erased it last Superbowl Sunday.
Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge (2001)
Additional new cast:Blu Mankuma - Gort
Disney.com description:
Grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) sweeps Marnie and Sophie off to Halloweentown to investigate a series of strange occurrences. When they arrive, the vibrant community seems to have lost its magic. The citizens, including the gargoyles, are gray and boring. It isn't long before Aggie discovers that her spell book is stolen and the trio decides to set out to find it. They discover that an angry warlock has taken the book and plans to permanently turn every human into whatever costume they are wearing at midnight on Halloween. It's a race against time, as Marnie must use her skills to defeat the young warlock threatening to change Halloweentown for eternity.
Halloweentown High (2004)
This is Disney Channel's 2nd Original Movie to turn into a trilogy, the first was the Zenon films set in the mid 21st century (Xenon: Z4 came out in 2008).
Marnie asks the Halloweentown Council to keep the portal open between Halloweentown and the human world she opened, and to allow Halloweentown's students to visit her high school to learn more about the human world. What Marnie doesn't know is that she unintentionally agreed to give up her magical powers if any harm comes to her Halloweentown visitors on the human side. When strange things begin to happen, Marnie suspects someone is trying to sabotage the effort. Filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah
Additional Cast:
Clifton Davis: Principal Flannigan
Finn Wittrock: Cody Trainer
Michael Flynn: Dalloway
Todd M. Swartzman: Pete the Werewolf
Official press release from MickeyNews.com °o°:In the third installment of the popular "Halloweentown" movies, the portal has been opened, much to the chagrin of some in Halloweentown, so Marnie sets up a sort of exchange program bringing a group of Halloweentown students to attend her human high school. She inadvertently bets the Cromwell magic that no harm will come to the students and when strange things start happening, Marnie and her family must get to the bottom of things and protect the students from the legendary Knights of the Iron Dagger -- at the same time, save their own powers. Halloweentown High premiered October 8, 2004. A fourth Halloweentown movie premiered on the Disney Channel in 2006, and a fifth will be called "Halloweentown 5: She's The Witch" (title subject to change)
Return To Halloweentown (2006)
With the huge success of High School Musical (over 7,000,000 viewers on Disney Channel, a record), Halloweentown 4 was rumored to be a musical with all your favorite Halloweentown characters, including Lucas Grabeel (as Ethan Dalloway) in a leading role By the way, High School Musical 2 finished in the ratings ahead of network-TV programs for that week, so Disney plans to release High School Musical 3 in theaters first). Directed by David Jackson, who denied it would be a musical when asked by IMDB.com. So why didn't they let Debbie Reynolds (Agatha Cromwell) sing and dance through the first three? When she makes an appearance at the Witch U. dorm she may seem a bit absent-minded, but she knows more about the importance of the 1000th anniversary than anyone there thinks
Working titles were "Halloweentown 4" and "Witch University." Filmed in Utah. Sarah Paxton most recently was in the teenage-mermaid movie Aquamarine. Paxton replaced Kimberly Brown as Marnie due to Brown's filming conflicts with her upcoming film, Big Bad Wolf. Since Sara is blonde, she had to dye her hair brown to look more like Marnie (Brown is naturally brown). An official movie poster for Return to Halloweentown can be seen back in the Oct. 2006 issue of Disney Adventures magazine.
Return To Halloweentown seems to have been influenced by some of Harry Potter's hogwarts!
Additional cast:Sarah Paxton (Marnie)
Julie Hoag (Mom, Gwen Piper)
Christopher Miller (Troll)
Summer Bishil (Aneesa the Genie)
Katie & Kellie Cockrell (Sage & Saphire Sinister)
Robin De Santis (Fairy)
Darren Ewing (Morose Cashier)
Kristy Wu (Scarlett Sinister)
Dan Young (Dominion)
Joey Zimmerman (Dylan Piper)
Eliza Wren appears in her first credited role here, her previous film this year was "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer" (3rd in the infamous slasher series, in an uncredited role)
Return To Halloweentown official website is at Disney.com
First air date: Friday, Oct. 20, 2006 (originally Friday the 13th, but pushed ahead one week to avoid confusion with that other movie series)
Debbie Reynolds broadcasts this week:
Lightning McQueen