The Curse of Bridge Hollow

The musical score was genius! My teens and I loved it. Great little Halloween flick. Not too grotesque while still playing on many people's fears. There's some good humor thrown in. You'll find good music, some fear, plenty of action, magic, well-done costumes, massive sets, and humor... this movie has it all. Oh and a fun cast. Wayans, Riggle, Lauren Lapkus, John Michael Higgins, Nia Vardalos, Jonathan Kite, and many more familiar faces. The new faces nailed it, too! There references to stuff such as "Homie don't play that." That got a big laugh from me. It was perfect to watch with my kids of 13 and 16 years.

I should probably admit up front that I'm not a big fan of Halloween and all the "spooky" mumbo-jumbo that we are bombarded with every October. Needless to say, that means I have extremely low expectations when sitting through Halloween films for kids. When my wife convinced me to watch The Curse of Bridge Hollow, I'm sad to say it lived down to those expectations. The story here is extremely straightforward and feels familiar, like one you've seen in a hundred other movies like this one. It's the familiar trope of an evil spirit brought to town by an ancient curse, and a magical spell that must be cast to stop the attack. In fact, it has a lot in common with Hocus Pocus, so fans of that movie might have a good time with this one as well. I'm not one of those people, but I'm married to one. My biggest struggle with this movie is that it lacks humor. It is fighting for some laughs, and only got me chuckling a few times. Most of the humor that worked for me was exclusively because I like Rob Riggle's goofy personality, and some of John Michael Higgins' schtick. Nothing Marlon Wayans did was even slightly humorous to me. Priah Ferguson plays his daughter and she ends up being more of an annoying nag than anything else. I don't really understand why we're expected to laugh at Kelly Rowland making vegan treats that everyone finds disgusting, or at the paranormal kids club, or even at Lauren Lapkus and her exaggerated accent. The film has some slightly scary images (in particular some homicidal clowns) but it's not enough to satisfy real horror fans, just enough to make it a tough sell for young kids. I can't really recommend The Curse of Bridge Hollow, but I will say if it looks like something you'll like then you're probably right, and if it looks bad to you then just skip it.

Look, this movie is a whole lot like others of it's kind, ehm Goosebumps. So what? You can like them both. This is a fun, family Halloween movie that does better than most and is worth a watch. The performances are good and most of the visual effects look pretty cool. It's got a little lag in the middle, but it's still not horribly grinding. It's creepy enough but still fun and most of the humor lands. It's not going to do anything you haven't already seen before, but if you're like me and always looking for new, quality family flicks to add to your Halloween watchlist, you could do a whole lot worse.

Why does the dad feel the need to constantly make stupid racist comments?? Why is some of the acting the worst I've seen in my life?? Why is the stereotyping so bad?? This is a horrible movie for kids to watch... it encourages bullying your child bc they don't agree with you. That is not something that should be joked about or even referenced in "family friendly" shows/movies. It's disgusting. Dear Todd, Robert or John, please stop interpreting your insecurities and doubts into hateful characters if you're going to be creating content rated low enough for children to appropriately watch. I wanted so badly to like this movie, but unfortunately I feel nothing but disgust for how hateful the father character was written to be. Do better Sincerely, An extremely concerned viewer.

Tried watching this with my two sons. I thought it sounded like a fun family movie to watch with the kids. One of the first lines in the movie is white privilege? Keep your critical race theory out of children and family movies. Absolutely ridiculous. Outside of the racism the movie was overall meh. The humor was kind of bland and hard for a young kid to really understand. For adults the humor just seemed pretty dry and bland. The parts that were to be scary really wasn't very scary. They could've done a better job making the creatures a bit more scary looking. It's a shame movies with great potential are ruined like this with lack or creativity and politics.