Waste of time

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Excellent but underrated film

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Fifteen year old Sklar (Olivia Holt) is fearless. She can jump high and lip sync. It is Halloween and her parents are "ghost busters" trapping projections of our fears. On Halloween, Skylar, not knowing what her dad does in the basement, lets the things loose. Now with the aid of other clean faced teens, she must re-capture them ghost busters style and face her fear.The film is for kids. The vocals are overly cut and it appears no one actually sings or plays their instruments...like Monkees on steroids. The cemetery is clearly a stage set.I can easily see how young girls 5-15 may love this film, but as an adult I couldn't get into it.

This came out when I was 10 and I loved it so much, I am going to go re-watch it asap just for some memories of childhood. I would recommend this title to anyone who had children that are into defeating monsters or who are excited by futuristic devices, as this will fulfill their imagination as it definitely did to me. I loved this movie!

The pattern I find with a lot of these Disney Channel movies (and shows) is that they usually have a charismatic, talented performer to build around, but the writing is incredibly flimsy. In this case, Olivia Holt's performance wasn't enough to redeem the terrible choices the filmmakers made. Although my elementary age daughter enjoyed it, I had a big problem in that there were almost NO monsters. The title made me think it was going to be like an episode of Buffy with all different kinds of monsters coming at her. Then, the design and costuming of the three villains was so underwhelming that they alone pretty much sucked any interest out for me. Also, you get a lame reworking of Ghostbusters for a story, and some really dismal performances. Sometimes, in spite of these shortcomings, Disney's made for TV movies still somehow turn out to be watchable and fun. I didn't think so this time. It's too bad, because they have some talented kids on their roster, but they don't put nearly as much care into these quickly made productions as they do their theatrical features. These could do better if they really wanted to.

Trying to keep a rival from her crush, a teen's attempt to sneak out to a party frees the captured monster spirits collected by her monster-hunter parents and must round them up before they overtake the town during the Halloween party.This here managed to be a pretty enjoyable and entertaining children's horror effort that has a lot going for it. By starting off with all the usual teen drama over the wishful relationship, the friendships between each other and their ability to almost be superheroes by accomplishing anything no matter the situation or solution presented gives this a rather easy integration into the horror scenes, watered-down as they are for such a release format as this one has, that come later on. Those aren't bad, with a creepy graveyard stalking, a rather enjoyable confrontation in the woods between the group and a pretty creepy creature as well as a rousing hunt for the creatures inside the mansion party when they get released and begin wreaking havoc with the guests, only to be saved by another dose of the super-teen lifestyle mentioned earlier. It's also got a lot of good by showcasing the monsters mostly as practical effects instead of CGI only for minimal use, plus it has a lot in the overcoming of your fears which is a good message to spread and does nicely in managing to mix the two genres together nicely. As usual, the comedy's hit-or-miss but it's not enough to hurt it much overall for the lame joke or pratfall doesn't hurt it as much as it could have.Rated Unrated/PG: Mild Violence.