A Halloween Puppy (2012)

Directed by Mary Crawford

Viewed on Amazon Video

You probably have a question about the heading for this review (if you haven’t read it please look up there now) and that is, who is Mary Crawford and why does it matter if she didn’t direct this movie? Someone directed this movie and used Mary Crawford as their alias, a director whose distinct stylings may be recognizable to some of you. I’ll just list some hallmarks of this director before I tell you who they are, maybe you can figure it out before I reveal the truth. This movie features a dog, who is not a puppy, prominently on the poster but the dog is barely in the movie. The two leads are a young man and a young neighbor lady who is trying to get the young man to realize that she is interested in him. Montages and stretched out, opening and closing credits sequences pad the film. It inexplicably takes place in a California mansion and a cabin in the woods. Eric Roberts is there. If you haven’t figured it out yet the director is David DeCoteau, the “director” of An Easter Bunny Puppy, which I covered several weeks ago and it drove me to the brink of insanity with its endless montages and inane story lines. Is his Halloween themed outing any better? Do you even need to ask that?

The Curious Case of A Halloween Puppy.

I’m going to be very up front here. This is barely even a movie. I can’t think of a movie that I’ve reviewed for this website that has less creative integrity than A Halloween Puppy or less effort put into it. Movies like Clown Footage come close but I have to curve the grade a bit just for production budgets, and while I don’t know the exact figures for Clown Footage’s budget I have to assume that their budget was far less than the estimated million dollar budget that A Halloween Puppy had. I don’t believe that a million dollars was spent on A Halloween Puppy though, because it looks like it was shot over a weekend. Hell, they clearly only had Eric Roberts for one day but we’ll get to that in a moment. I should stop talking about the background and get into what happens on screen.

Why Do I Keep Complaining That There is Less Movie to Watch?

Which for the first three and a half minutes is the opening credit sequence. Yay. A trite sequence filled to the brim with stock spooky music and ‘classic’ monsters that drones on and on and on but at least when you watch that you don’t have to see any of the characters of hear the dialogue so I’ll just call this a wash. To continue this riveting beginning, immediately after the credits stop we see several shots of a mansion that is mildly decorated for Halloween and then we cut to a POV shot of a character slowly walking down a dark hallway at “night”. I say that in quotes because it is clearly the daytime with an incredibly blue faux nighttime filter over it.

Please ignore the beams of light. Blue means night.

Linda Doesn’t Know When To Wake People. Also She Has Relationship Issues.

The person slowly walking is revealed to be the mom of the movie who wakes up her son for some reason and then tells him to go back to sleep. Why would you wake him up in the middle of the night just to tell him that you’re here and he should sleep? He was already sleeping! Just leave him alone! Then we cut to the next morning where the two are having breakfast together and discussing things that confuse me, like how the son, Adam, doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life career-wise but then moments later mentions that he is waiting to hear back from film school. Now this may be presumptuous but if you want to go to an art school doesn’t that mean you kinda know what you want to do? You go to film school to learn how to make movies, right? So he knows what he wants!  Then somehow the topic of the relationship between the mom, Linda, and her boyfriend, Ted, comes up. Adam comments that Ted is predictable and proves that by guessing everything that Ted will do and so after he arrives. Ted arrives and everything Adam guessed is proven right. What a creative and original joke.

Not the most exciting man on earth.

How Could A Horror Fan Botch This Reference?

Adam finds himself in the front yard working on the outside decorations for Halloween. Which is a little strange because Adam loves Halloween and it is presently the 30th of October. Why wait so long when Adam won’t stop going on about how much he loves Halloween and everything about it? While working on his procrastinated fun, Adam’s neighbor, Molly, approaches with a strange old book in tow. While discussing nothing of substance, Adam mentions that the old book carried by Molly resembles the Necrohmican. Not the Necronomicon. The Necrohmican. Because apparently a horror buff can’t get the name of one of the most iconic books in pop horror culture straight. Also this book looks nothing like the Necronomicon!

Maybe It Would Be A Narwhal Horn? Also Flies Buzzing Everywhere.

After that odd gaffe Molly continues trying to impress Adam by telling her that tonight they should use the book, which they think is a spell book, to try and cast a spell. Adam quickly points out that they don’t really know how to do that and judging by the pictures in the book one of the spell components is a “horn of a unicorn”. Ever quick witted, Molly immediately responds that most of these components have “modern equivalents”. What could POSSIBLY be the modern equivalent of a unicorn horn? A quick note to make here. During this bit of dialogue a fly starts buzzing around Molly’s face. It is clearly visible and she swats at it. This is all in the final cut of the movie. I shouldn’t have to explain to someone who has been making movies for decades that when your actors swat at flies during the first take that you should maybe shoot a second version. Or was this just the best version of this scene? I don’t know which of those scenarios is worse.

That ain’t no mole on her cheek. Man, what happened in those other takes?

The Incredible Instant Generic Bullies.

Sensing that her magical prowess is about to be discovered, Molly leaves just in time to avoid the neighborhood bullies, who shake down Adam for spooky supplies so that they can build a haunted house. The bullies make fun of Adam and grab his box of spooky stuff, which Adam reveals to have only contained lame decorations and moldy newspapers. These guys couldn’t notice the difference between a box full of actual Halloween props and a box full of moldy newspapers. Even though they spent half a minute rooting through the box.

You Should Definitely Bring Your Kid Along To Discuss Your Relationship With Your BF.

After this series of odd interactions, Adam’s mom goes to talk with him about what they are going to be doing on the truly greatest holiday, Halloween. Worried that her relationship with Ted isn’t moving along like she had hoped, Linda tells Adam that she and Ted are going to take a trip to Molly’s family’s cabin in the woods to have long intimate discussions with Ted about the future of their relationship and what she needs from him, emotionally. I’ll just be honest here, I have no idea why Linda wants her son to be there for this or why they have to do it in a cabin an hour away. I could understand Linda wanting to take a romantic trip with Ted, that is pretty reasonable, but wouldn’t making Adam (and Molly for some reason) go with you kind of undermine that purpose? Maybe Ted wouldn’t be comfortable having these kinds of discussions with the kids around, I mean he makes it clear that talking about his emotions makes him very uncomfortable. But he has to agree. Because plot.

More References! Also Molly is a Witch.

So even though this trip would take place on High Holy Halloween Adam eventually relents and agrees to go with Linda, just in time for he and Molly to set up a spell. She was very serious about this actually and has a circle of candles and unidentifiable spell components, though they never do say which one is supposed to be the modern equivalent of unicorn horn. They perform this spell with Adam clearly not taking it seriously at all and Molly taking it WAAAAAY too seriously. Molly instructs Adam to say the magic words, Klaatu Baratta Nikto. No. I’m not joking. Those are the words he is instructed to say. Fine. Reference Army of Darkness. The Army of Darkness references continue as Adam says the words but does the exact bit that Ash does and flubs ‘Nikto’ several times. I’m not sure if I can call direct plagiarism a joke but…hey wait a minute. How is it that someone who is able to quote lines from Army of Darkness doesn’t know that the evil book that is central to the series is the Necronomicon?

Time For A Reference Of My Own.

While this confusing bit of maybe comedy goes on, Ted has awoken from his ancient slumber and finds himself in a hellish blue dimension. The spell must have gone wrong and plunged Ted into a horrible void where only the color blue exists and all other colors have been banned! Oh wait no, it is just a terrible day for night shot.

I just blue myself.

This blue barrier doesn’t protect Ted very well after he accidentally finishes the spell by saying the word ‘neato’. An old white guy reacting to a couple of teenagers performing a magical ritual the night before Halloween by saying ‘neato’ is the most amusing thing in this entire movie. Oh and then a magical orb shoots out and transforms Ted into a dog. This is less visually exciting than it sounds.

This is where that million dollar budget went.

The Mystery of Ted’s Car. Also I Can Sneak In One More Reference.

Ted is now a dog. The eponymous Halloween Puppy. Except he is not a puppy. He is a full grown dog. Why must all these movies lie about puppies? Adult dogs are good too, but I would have preferred that the title not lie to me. Linda is initially curious as to why Ted is gone and not returning her calls but when Adam and Molly explain that Ted simply went to pick something up from work and will meet them there. Linda immediately accepts this with no further questions. I have one question though. Where is Ted’s car? He mentioned that he drove over the day before and they don’t see the car as everyone is leaving, so where is it? Was the car also transformed by this spell? What would the dog equivalent of a car be? If only Ted was transformed into a cat, then I could make a joke about his car turning into the Catbus. If only…

Linda Makes A Questionable Decision.

Back on track, Linda finds Dog Ted (Teddog?) on the couch and reacts…a little strangely. Instead of reading the dog’s tags, which are clearly on the collar, or taking the dog to her own veterinary office to check if its chipped or even just go next door and ask if anyone is missing a dog, Linda just decides that they have to take the dog with them to the cabin! A very reasonable course of action.

Please ignore the collar with tags.

Attack Of The Montages!

Thank god they’re leaving because now we can get to the bulk of the film, the numerous montages used to pad this movie up to just past 80 minutes. And that first montage is a SICK driving montage of Adam, Molly and Linda driving for minutes to the cabin. Nothing better than  a scene that is just a car on the highway overlayed with meaningless dialogue! And what better follow up to that montage than with ANOTHER montage of Linda taking the dog for a walk and playing with him? I mean it’s not like we really have anything more important going on than Linda playing with this dog. Eventually though we do get back to the plot and Molly brings Adam to her witch friend who lives next door. Its so nice when the solutions to all your problem are just next door to the place you were already going to!

I guess she used her magic to make the plot as convenient as possible?

Magic and Montages.

They have a lovely discussion about how Halloween is sacred and all the very subtle foreshadowing about Molly’s magic is realized when the witch lady reveals that Molly has skill with magic! Which we kind of already knew because she setup the spell earlier but hey whatever, as long as things are happening that are not montages I am happy. Proving my point this scene is followed by a deluge of montages of Linda playing with Teddog. I guess this is supposed to be sweet because Ted did really meet her at the cabin and have new experiences with her! While that is happening neighbor witch informs our heroes that they must reverse the spell to return Teddog to his Ted form…which I thought was just kind of obvious? I mean, I would be pretty shocked if I magicked someone into a dog but wouldn’t anyone’s first reaction be to try and find a reverse spell if this bizarre series of events happened?

Gotta Work That Haunted House In Here Somehow.

Everyone then heads home, which means, you guessed it, another driving montage! With Teddog in tow they all rush back to reverse the spell before Linda figures out what is going on, but once they get back our heroes run into those old bullies again. Wanting another prop for their haunted house, the bullies take the old spell book so they can use it as a centerpiece. Which is strange because the book doesn’t look particularly old or spooky. It just looks like a moderately old book, so really they take it just to be dicks. And to stretch the movie a little bit more by making our heroes go through their ‘haunted house’ to get the book back. The trip through this haunted house is…less than eventful. On top of it just being a way to pad the movie a bit more, this scene has a really strange tone to it where most of the movie is just kiddy and silly while this scene has the two bullies threatening to beat up Adam and Molly. It is a really strange tonal shift, but it’s fine because nothing bad happens. Molly just realizes her full potential as a witch and throws a magic ball at them.

Sadly this magic does not turn them into dogs.

Everything Is Resolved Neatly.

They then grab the book and perform the ritual, transforming Teddog back into Ted, who reunites with Linda and agrees with her that he must break out of his comfort zone and do spontaneous things with her so they can both be happy. And to have the most predictable outcome they also have the bullies reappear and fearfully apologize to the group, and then to have the icing on the predictable cake we have a wonderful poolside scene where Molly and Adam admit their romantic feelings to each other. Yay.

Why Use This Shot?!?

While the story here is pretty bad it pales in comparison to the technical flaws that dragged A Halloween Puppy into the dirt. On top of that it is really clear that they only had Eric Roberts for a day, the terrible day for night is a dead giveaway, especially because they only use it in scenes with him, and even moreso because that scene where he is in the blue dimension? We see that scene in a flashback later and see it without the filter where it is clearly day!

They just didn’t care.

A Halloween Puppy. Not. Even. Once.

There is just this litany of issues, audio problems sometimes pop up, takes with clearly flubbed line reads are left in and there is a seven and a half minute closing credits sequence. Though that last one is kind of a positive in a movie this bad. The only good thing I can say is that the actors who aren’t Eric Roberts are at least trying. They have nothing to work with but they give their all to try and make the material fun. It doesn’t work but I appreciate the effort. As with An Easter Bunny Puppy this movie is terrible but not really in a way that makes it a good bad movie to watch, so I have to give A Halloween Puppy a recommendation to avoid.

I do not own any of the images used here. They belong to their respective owners and are used under Fair Use.