Barbecue's Bonfire 10/16/2020: More Halloween Fun Edition

 

   What's up all you spooky people out there? It's Friday so it's time for another installment of Barbecue's Bonfire! I've been consistently doing these since the end of August now, so I think this is a record for me. What have you been doing to get a daily dose of Halloween this October? With a 7 year old who is doing remote learning and who loves for me to read to her for hours at night (we're almost done with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) it's often not possible for me to watch "real" horror movies throughout the week, so this week we ended up watching a lot of family friendly spooky movies together. I've also been finding up fun, short videos and so her and I watched some Youtube videos about the history of Disney's The Haunted Mansion, which lead us to watch the Eddie Murphy movie from the early 2000s. Let's start with a look at that one...

  When Disney's The Haunted Mansion came out in 2003 I had little interest in seeing it. It seemed like too much of a family comedy for college aged me to bother with. After watching a documentary and a ride-through video of the popular attraction (which I did ride on my one trip to Disney World in 2002), we decided to give the move a watch. It's actually not bad. It's not the Haunted Mansion movie I would make but it was fun for an October family movie night. Eddie Murphy and Marsha Thomason are husband and wife realtors who get the opportunity to sell the titular mansion but it's really a plot by one of the ghosts, the evil Ramsley (played by Terence "kneel before Zod" Stamp). With lots of references to the ride, Eddie Murphy's humorous rambling, some actual frightening parts, and Jennifer Tilly as Madame Leota, The Haunted Mansion isn't a bad movie at all and you should have at least a little fun during your stay. My daughter particularly loved the singing busts in the graveyard.

More hokey Halloween horror after the break...

   Let's talk about another non-horror movie that ended up being a pretty good Halloween movie: Hubie Halloween. Hubie Halloween is a Netflix original comedy starring Adam Sandler as Hubie DuBois, a socially awkward but extremely friendly man from Salem, Massachusetts who loves Halloween. He also loves safety, though, and appoints himself as the town's official Halloween monitor. When Hubie discovers an actual threat to residents on Halloween night the local sheriff (Kevin James) is reluctant to beloieve him, causing Hubie to handle the crisis on his own. I haven't seen an Adam Sandler film since Big Daddy but this one was a real treat. Great Halloween decorations, a smooth voiced DJ, some real crazies on the loose, costumes galore, and a heroic lead with a swiss army thermos  who is  startled by everything makes this great Halloween viewing. My wife and I watched this on our own and it's definitely a PG-13 film, so not for the little kids. With a solid range of Sandler regulars and SNL alumnae (Tim Meadows, Maya Rudolph, Julie Bowen, Steve Buscemi, Rob Schneider, Kenan Thompson) this was a fun watch. Incredibly good, but fun.

   On Columbus Day/ Indigenous Peoples' Day my wife and I dropped the kiddo off with the grandparents and got out of the house for a bit. We stopped by Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and ended up with a box of Halloween doughnuts, mostly for the kiddo. Funny how that works out! Anyways, these are really cool and are worth masking up and heading into a Krispy Kreme for. Drake, the vampire, is raspberry filled. Frank, the monster, is cream filled with pretzel-piece neck bolts. Inspired! Lastly, and the best, is Wolfie. Wolfie is a chocolate doughnut with chocolate icing fur, a candy face (it's one of those sugary cake decorative items) and, get this: Cinnamon Toast Crunch ears! How adorable and delicious. I actually don't usually like chocolate doughnuts but I really wanted to eat the werewolf and he was pretty good. My daughter got the other ones while my wife ate all three of the pumpkin doughnuts (one of which was supposed to be mine). Well, she ate 2 and a third of them. She dropped one and our Jackabee ate it. 

   While flipping through Disney+ recommendations after watching The Haunted Mansion we found another Disney family Halloween movie: The Scream Team. From 2002, The Scream Team was directed by Stuart Gillard (who directed TMNT 3) that kind of feels like a kid friendly version of Beetlejuice. Two siblings discover that their late grandfather's soul has been captured by the spirit of a town legend who was infamous for arson and for burning his own home while his wife was still inside and thus they must recruit the help of the Soul Patrol, a group of friendly spirits who essentially work for a terminal that processes souls into the afterlife. That sentence probably sounds pretty crazy but this movie is, too. Again, it's a Disney Channel original movie so except some low budget effects and some cheesy fun. It's not something to go out of your way to watch but if you've watched all of the Halloweentown movies with your kids this one wasn't terrible. It doesn't really have many scares but there is a Halloween festival and some fun to be had.

I haven't played it much at all yet but I did pick up the new video game G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout on Nintendo Switch (it's also on X-Box One and PlayStation 4). Take a look at the cover and you'll realize that it's based on the Classified Series line. My daughter and I are playing together and so far it's a very generic and simplistic 3rd person shooter with some cool Easter eggs thrown in. I'll talk more about it as I go on but definitely don't run out and buy this one yet. It seems pretty average so far...

Last, but not least, let's check out the most popular stuff this week. Starting from the top we've got...

Barbecue's Bonfire 9/18/2020: Scareglow Birthday Cake Edition is on it's fourth week and is still staying popular! Do y'all love Scareglow that much that you just like to stare at cakes bearing his likeness? Is it because I covered American Ninja 2: The Confrontation? Do people like one paragraph non-reviews of 1980s Stephen King books?

P-1000 from the Fortnite: Legendary Series is on his third week on the list. This is a variant version Peely after he was turned into a smoothie and rebuilt as a robot. And no, I didn't make that up. The Fortnite releases seem to be pretty popular, don't they? I was a bit disappointed in this guy due to his limited articulation and inability to hold his accessories but he sure is cool looking.

Horde Zombie He-Man from Masters of the Universe Eternia Minis by Mattel is on his fourth week and he staying strong.. He's the "chase" variant for the series 1 figures and is a really cool minifigure. Translucent green minis are just super cool! If you need one for your set hit me up. I might be able to help.

Profit Director Destro from G.I. Joe: Classified Series makes his debut on the list at number 4. The Classified Series is insanely popular and Profit Director Destro is one of my favorite figures in the line. He's smooth, savage, and ready to ...direct some profits, I guess. I can't wait for a themed Baroness to go with him!

 

Gung Ho from G.I. Joe: Classified Series is another G.I. Joe figure on his first week. I really want to like this guy but I found him kind of disappointing. Still pretty fun, though. He's the first series 2 figure I've reviewed. I've got Cobra Commander (review coming soon!) but I'm still looking for a Red Ninja.

Mighty Max Slays the Doom Dragon is one of my reviews from The Dawn of 31 Days of Toy Terror and it's really exciting to see the enthusiasm for this one. I loved Mighty Max as a kid and I still love adding more sets to my collection. If you dig Mighty Max too, please let me know! I'd love to pull out more for future reviews...

   This week I promise I'm going to watch some actual horror movies! Don't lose faith in ol' Barbecue yet! What have you been up to this week? Share in the comments and stay spooky, kids!