In Hubie Halloween, Adam Sandler stars as Salem's self-appointed Official Volunteer Halloween
Helper, whose job it is to make sure that everyone has a safe and fun Halloween. That's easier said
than done. All kinds of sinister characters are wandering around, abducting Salem residents and
causing some not-so-good-natured mischief. If the city is going to survive this Halloween,
Hubie has his work cut out for him. "Hey I'm home."
Not only does Hubie Halloween have plenty of unexpected plot twists and more surprise cameos
than you can possibly imagine, but it's also crammed full of small details that bring its
absurd version of Salem, Massachusetts to vibrant life. If you're a diehard fan of Sandler's work,
or if you just love All Hallows' Eve, Hubie Halloween has lots for you to enjoy. Here
are a few spoiler-filled examples. From the Ghostbusters theme song to Sheb
Wooley's "The Purple People Eater" to Warren Zevon's classic "Werewolves of London,"
Hubie Halloween's soundtrack is crammed full of spine-tingling tunes that'll get
you in the mood for Hubie's signature day. Still, "Monster Mash" deserves some special attention.
Not only does Bobby Pickett's novelty hit open and close the movie, but you'll see Pickett's
1962 record, The Original Monster Mash, hanging on the wall of Salem's local radio station, WTCH.
The Original Monster Mash isn't the only Halloween-adjacent album displayed at WTCH,
either. Hanging next to that record, you'll find a copy of Jackie Wilson's Higher and Higher,
the title track of which features prominently in Ghostbusters 2.
You know the song that makes the Statue of Liberty come to life and walk down the
streets of Manhattan? Yep, that's the one. Of course, given Hubie Halloween's setting,
it makes sense for the local DJ to keep a few Halloween-themed tracks on hand.
All witches, all the time If you're going to make a movie
about Halloween, you'd be hard pressed to find a better setting than Salem, Massachusetts.
Hubie Halloween pays a lot of attention to Salem's troubling real-life past. Look closely, and you'll
see witches all over the place, from the local radio station to Hubie's high school yearbook.
That's not just a Hubie Halloween creation, either at the real-life Salem High School,
witches have been the official mascots for years. Hubie Halloween doesn't just take place in Salem,
though. It was also filmed there, and a few prominent Salem landmarks ended up making
their way into the film. The Salem Witch museum is probably the most notable. Established in 1972,
the museum is dedicated to educating the public about life in colonial America,
clearing up some of the misconceptions surrounding the Salem witch trials' history.
So yes, that's the actual museum you see when Hubie and Violet reunite. If you study
the scenery, you may actually learn a little history. As the museum's displays show, men were
tried for witchcraft in addition to women, and the victims were hanged, not burned at the stake.
Hubie Halloween isn't a horror movie, but it's structured like one, and it has a lot of fun
playing on traditional horror movie tropes. As such, it's only natural that Hubie
Halloween also pays tribute to some of the classic horror movies that inspired it.
The kids who torment Hubie wear Ghostface masks, as made famous by the movie Scream.
Violet's oldest daughter watches The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Mayor Benson's refusal
to cancel Salem's Halloween festivities which would deprive the city of sweet tourism cash,
even while there's an emergency unfolding recalls the behavior of Mayor Larry Vaughn from Jaws.
"You yell shark, and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."
And when the residents of Salem take to the streets to party, many of them are dressed
like Frankenstein's monster, or vampires, or countless other horror movie creatures.
Hubie Halloween's best horror movie reference, however, is one that's remarkably easy to miss.
After a person goes missing, Hubie gives the sheriff the address of Walter Lambert,
his mysterious next door neighbor. "Where does he live?"
"59 Elm Street. Check on it. There's your killer."
Anyone who knows anything about slasher movies could catch the nod immediately.
Elm Street is also the haunting grounds of one Freddy Krueger, who made his feature film
debut in 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street and who went on to become one of the most
iconic horror villains ever. This time, though, Freddy better watch out: With Hubie on the case,
not even supernatural dream-hunters are safe. "What are we screaming at?"
You don't need to be familiar with Adam Sandler's past work to enjoy Hubie Halloween
this holiday-themed comedy was made for everyone. But if you're an old-school Sandler fan, you'll
find plenty of references to the comedian's past work scattered throughout the movie.
Not only is Hubie Halloween's cast stacked with Sandler's past collaborators,
but many of the jokes in the film recall classic moments from the
actor's past projects. "O'doyle rules."
In fact, there's even a bit of Sandler's stint on Saturday Night Live baked into
Hubie Halloween's DNA, especially when it comes to Hubie himself. In a 1993 episode of SNL,
the comedian debuted Canteen Boy, a 27-year-old man who's still
inexplicably in the Boy Scouts. Canteen Boy was a big influence on Bobby Boucher,
the hero of The Waterboy, and his legacy lives on in Hubie DuBois, too.
It's not just both characters' permanent state of arrested development, their HEAVY accents,
or their fondness for beverage containers, either. Early in Hubie Halloween, Hubie mentions that he
built his thermos while he was a Scout, and his high school yearbook photo shows him in full Boy
Scout regalia. He still has the uniform, too in a montage, a middle-aged Hubie bursts into the
police station, still wearing his Scout get-up. Hubie and Canteen Boy aren't the same, of course.
Hubie is kinder, more heroic, infinitely more self-aware, and has much more psychological
depth. Still, if you want to close your eyes and pretend that Hubie is Canteen Boy, all grown up?
It works surprisingly well. "To me that's a great deal
but it's also a riot waiting to happen." Eventually, Hubie's investigation leads him to
the local drive-in theater, where many of Salem's residents are enjoying a spooky double feature.
Hubie isn't there to watch a movie, of course. He's looking for the person who
abducted Mike Mundy. Still, when the scene begins, we get a quick glimpse
of the movies playing at the outdoor theater, and one of them is very much an actual film.
Well, sort of, anyway. The version of I Was a Teenage Zombie that appears in Hubie Halloween is
a parody starring sketch comedian Martin Herlihy as the titular undead teen, frequent Adam Sandler
and Happy Madison collaborator Allen Covert as his father, and Sandler's longtime assistant
J.D. Donaruma as the ill-fated milkman. However, a real feature with the same name came out in 1987.
That film begins like a typical '80s teen comedy about some kids trying to buy marijuana, only to
take a more horrific turn when their drug dealer dies. They dump his body into a river overflowing
with toxic waste, thus bringing him back to life. I Was a Teenage Zombie is a mostly amateur effort,
and is mainly notable for its soundtrack. Still, if you like no-budget horror-comedies, it's worth
checking out. Just don't go looking for the other half of the Salem drive-in's double-feature,
My Hairy Baby. That one, alas, is pure fantasy. Hubie Halloween is a comedy first and foremost,
but there's more than a little mystery baked into its plot, too. As Hubie tries to figure
out who's abducting Salem's residents, he runs across a number of suspects. There's
his next-door neighbor, Walter Lambert, whose proclivities tend towards the lycanthropic.
"Safe Halloween, Mr...Walter." There's Hubie's childhood friend Richie Lambert,
who recently escaped from a nearby asylum and has made his way back to his hometown.
There's Hubie's longtime crush, Violet Valentine, who shares the kidnapper's love of chardonnay,
and there's also Hubie himself. After all,
the people who go missing all love to bully the self-proclaimed Halloween monitor.
Ultimately, those are all red herrings. The real criminal ends up being Hubie's mother,
who's simply trying to protect her sweet little boy. It's a twist ending, but there are a few
hints throughout the movie that Ma DuBois is behind the whole thing. Early on, Hubie
needs help opening a jar of frosting. His mother handles it with ease. Yes, that's a joke about how
weak Hubie is, but it's also an indication that Hubie's mother is phenomenally strong for her age,
a trait she needs if she's going to abduct multiple full-grown adults.
You can also see that her mask is different from Richie Hartman's. While the asylum resident wears
a pig mask with round eyes, the point-of-view shots that appear during the abduction scenes
feature triangle-shaped eye holes, letting us know that Hartman isn't the culprit.
For longtime Adam Sandler fans, it's a real treat seeing him reunite with Ed and Modern
Family star Julie Bowen, who plays Hubie's love interest, Violet Valentine. Twenty-four years ago,
Bowen starred with Sandler in Happy Gilmore, which was her feature film debut. In that movie, Bowen
played Virginia Venit, head of the Pro Golf Tour's PR team and love interest to Sandler's Happy.
Bowen also joined a tradition that's followed Sandler through many of his movies,
including Hubie Halloween: Quite often, Sandler's onscreen romantic partners have the initials V. V.
There's Violet and Virginia, of course, but that's just the beginning. In Billy Madison,
the first movie that Sandler headlined, Bridgette Wilson plays Veronica Vaughn, a teacher who helps
Billy when he re-enrolls in elementary school as an adult. In The Waterboy, Fairuza Balk
stars as Vicki Vallencourt, an ex-con and Bobby Boucher's longtime crush. Patricia Arquette shows
up in Little Nicky as Valerie Veran, a design student who falls for Sandler's son-of-Satan.
Hubie Halloween is a very funny movie with an appropriately happy ending, but it hits a
somber note right before the credits roll. If you watch the movie through to the very end, you'll
find a brief but extremely heartfelt tribute to Cameron Boyce, a young and very talented actor
who passed away unexpectedly in July 2019. If you're familiar with Boyce, it's probably
through his work on the Disney Channel, where he was already a major star. Some of Boyce's earliest
roles included guest appearances on Disney sitcoms, and he later spent four seasons on
Jessie, where he co-starred alongside fellow Disney Channel mainstay Debby Ryan and Hubie
Halloween's very own Peyton List. Boyce went on to lead Disney XD's Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much
Everything, in which he played a former esports pro known as Kid Fury. But it was Disney's
Descendants franchise that really put him on the map. In that series, Boyce appeared as Carlos,
the son of 101 Dalmatians big bad Cruella de Vil. In addition to all of the Disney work,
Boyce was also part of the Happy Madison family: In Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2,
Boyce appeared as Keith Feder, son of Adam Sandler's Lenny and Salma Hayek's Roxanne.
Even with a cast as stacked as Grown Ups', Boyce managed to steal every scene he was in.
"That was awesome!" It's only fitting that
the Happy Madison crew pays tribute to the young actor. He's greatly missed.
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