Review For Treehouse of Horror 24

The Simpson TreeHouse of Horro XXIV. 20th Century Fox. Gracie Films.

With Halloween just around the corner it comes time for another Simpson Halloween special. Thankfully this time it was actually aired before Halloween.

There was a lot going on this special and the opening itself deserves attention by itself. Now I'm sure you've seen your share of couch gags but this one really stood for me. Like most of the Halloween Special's the usual high jinks are Halloween themed but the animation crew really went all out this time. Through the whole opening gag they touched on every horror story ever. I mean ever. I saw references to horror literature from Poe, Lovecraft, and even Stephen King. There were characters and monsters from every horror film I knew like The Fly, The Birds, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and the Day The Earth Stood Still.  There things like the Walking Dead, Godzilla and even things form past Halloween Specials. There also things like Hellboy and Blade along with monsters from Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. That is to expected since Del Toro's team was the one behind the opening with Del Toro Directing it himself. If you are even barely aware of the horror genre you would still spot something you knew. It was wonderfully done and really in the Halloween setting. If you don't like The Simpsons but like horror you will get a thrill from the opening.

Some of the Many Cameos during the opening. 

The rest of the episode was kind a miss. Now there is some expectation that Halloween specials are darker and scarier than normal episodes but it just seemed dark and not all that funny. Though the characters are often reinvented to tell these stories they really all seemed off the mark and not like the character at all. The first of three stories was a parody of the Cat in The Hat. The Cat in this one was played by Homer and was the Fat. The Fat seemed psychotic and besides taking the kids on a robbery spree he seemed to randomly kill people all while in Dr. Sues like rhymes. I found that in bad taste and more than a little unnerving. 

The second story had Bart loosing his head, literally, which is on par for Halloween specials. He ends up attached to Lisa's body to survive. They get closer because of the process and while Lisa sleeps Bart finds out that he can take control of the body. So Bart goes on a quest to kill Lisa and take control of the body permanently. There was a scene where Skinner is in his car that Bart rigged up to kill Lisa when he drove off, it ended with Skinner not starting his car and just having a panic attack because of his mom. That scene was not needed and it actually made me sad to see her berate her son, even berating him about having a panic attack. That just seemed wrong. It started off well but it went pretty again near the end. It seemed far too easy for the kids to decide to kill one another for control.

The last episode takes place years ago in traveling circus. There are some laughs and chuckles before the story gets started. Homer is the strong man, Marge is acrobat and Moe is part of freak show and looks exactly the same. Again the character start acting really off. Moe seems to be genuinely a nice guy instead of the grump we're used to. Homer on the other hand persuades his fiancée Marge to marry Moe just so he can kill him in secret and inherit a value ring Moe posses. It was weird to see the dumb but kind hearted Homer planning to kill and use Marge like that. Marge gives us the obvious lesson that looks don't make someone a monster. The lesson was heavy handed and overall the story wasn't that entertaining.

I can't say that much for this episode. It was much darker than I have come to expect from the Tree House Specials. I don't know if they were trying to edgy but it just felt wrong coming from the Simpson. It wasn't that funny and the opening was really the highlight of the episode. They focused far too much on killing and not any real scares and not any of the usual laughs. The joys of these specials have often been how they twist the expected horror norms on themselves but this time they seemed to try to go for horror itself and failed. If they were going for a straight horror story they lacked any real substance or suspense or real scare. They did better when they used to parody horror stories and ideas. Overall I give the 24th Tree House Horror a 1.5 of 5. The opening was really great, there were a few chuckles, the stories were unique and that was about all that was working for it.