Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Haul Out The Halloween’ on the Hallmark Channel, A Truly Funny Comedy About Neighbors Who Go All Out For The Holidays

Haul Out The Halloween on the Hallmark Channel reunites viewers with the residents of Evergreen Lane, the most festive street in America, as they gear up for Spooky Season. The film stars Lacey Chabert, Wes Brown, Stephen Tobolowsky and many others as neighbors who go a little overboard when it comes to getting in the holiday spirit.

HAUL OUT THE HALLOWEEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “For those of you who have had the pleasure of visiting Evergreen Lane, you know what I mean when I say this is the most festive street in America,”

The Gist: Emily (Chabert) and Jared (Brown), now newly married, live on a street where holiday decor is not just tradition but competition. Among the many neighbors in their HOA, there are spies and nosy nellies who all try to one up each other when it comes to decorating. Usually the competitiveness is reserved for Christmas (as you may have seen in Haul Out The Holly) but this season, a new couple, Luna and Marvin Balmer, who have just moved in are turning Evergreen Lane into Everscream Lane with their lawn full of skeletons and gravestones.

Jared, the head of the homeowner’s association, is appalled. See, this neighborhood only does Christmas, not Halloween. It’s written in the bylaws! But soon, Emily and Jared are informed by Emily’s parents (former residents of Evergreen themselves) that the anti-Halloween crusade was a rule implemented because Emily’s dearly departed grandmother was obsessed with Halloween, and after her death, they felt it was too painful a reminder to celebrate. When Emily hears this and realizes this rule was put in place mainly to protect her own emotions, she changes it, vowing to use Halloween as a celebration of her Gram-Gram’s life. Let the festivities begin.

Emily, as chair of the Evergreen Lane events committee, tells all the residents that Halloween decor is now required, every house must have a lawn display, and on top of that, there will be contests in the week leading up to Halloween: pumpkin decorating, baking competitions, and a costume contest. Tensions arise, not entirely because of everyone’s competitive streak but also because Jared learns that his mom has been secretly seeing their neighbor Ned (Tobolowsky), and because Emily realizes that maybe, in Evergreen’s quest to be so festive, they’ve actually created an exclusive, alienating kind of community rather than a welcoming one. With all of that going on, they use the holiday, and the spirit of Gram-Gram, to turn Halloween into a festive party for everyone, not just the residents who live there.

Photo: Hallmark

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Haul Out The Halloween is the latest in the Haul Out series – for more festive holiday action, check out Haul Out The Holly and Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up.

Our Take: Like its predecessors, Haul Out The Halloween‘s greatest strength is its truly funny, fast-paced script. The neighborly banter that peppers the film pretty much nonstop is witty, full of pop culture references and lighthearted and loving personal jabs that make the Evergreen Lane community feel like a community you’d want to hang out with. Tobolowsky and Melissa Peterman stand out as the most opinionated and quippy of the bunch, but you have to love new neighbors Marvin and Luna (Daniel Kountz and Kimberly J. Brown), who are the slightly morbid types who love to creep people out but are real softies at heart.

We’ve raved about Haul Out The Holly and Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up when they were released, and we’re happy to report that Haul Out The Halloween is every bit as good as those films that came before, perhaps because it focuses almost entirely on being a comedy, more than anything else. (The references planted throughout the film run the gamut; keep an eye out for Pamela and her daughter dressed as the twins from The Shining, Jared dressed as “Chaddy Krueger,” an amalgam of Freddy Krueger and Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger, and, if you’re familiar with the Swig soda chain, prepare to laugh at the neighbors who chug massive “Swigalicious” sodas – the film takes place in Utah, so IYKYK.) While there’s certainly some romance (and tension) between newlyweds Emily and Jared as they find their footing and learn how to exist as a married couple, the ensemble of residents on Evergreen Lane fire on all cylinders when they’re together thanks to the snappy script and impressive chemistry.

Parting Shot: Emily and Jared dance with each other – while wearing a couples costume – under a portrait of Gram-Gram, the woman who imbued them with the spirit of Halloween in the first place.

Performance Worth Watching: Stephen Tobolowsky, who plays Ned (not Ned Ryerson, though) is one of several genuinely funny, quirky characters living on Evergreen Lane, but his performance as a “Bard Card”-holding Shakespeare obsessive with a fixation on crullers is laugh-out-loud funny at times.

Memorable Dialogue: “This is Evergreen Lane not the Globe Theater, and our HOA president would never allow this level of theatrics!” say Pamela, the most irritable resident of the cul-de-sac, after listening to her neighbors nerd out over their love of Shakespeare. (Cut to Jared, the HOA president, arriving to the meeting in full costume, emerging from a theatrical plume of smoke.)

Our Call: STREAM IT! Haul Out The Halloween is great fun – here’s hoping the franchise doesn’t end with this one.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.