While everyone recognizes the "High School Musical" Disney Channel original movies, that actually wasn't the most prolific Disney Channel original movie series. It's actually this lesser known one called "Halloweentown". The title is quite misleading as Kalabar doesn't even appear in this. He died in the last one and actually stayed dead. This movie instead tells the story of his son trying to get revenge by turning the inhabitants of the monster world into humans and vice versa. The monochrome effects are done quite well.
The downside is that we don't get to see many of the monsters and they usually just stay in the same location. I haven't seen the first film in ages, but I at least remember that it was more creative with more variety. These movies are by no means great, but I'd still choose them over the "High School Musical" films. Okay, that's not much of a compliment but at least they made more of them. The grandmother Aggie is probably the most likeable character. Apart from being a witch, she's depicted very realistically. **1/2
The downside is that we don't get to see many of the monsters and they usually just stay in the same location. I haven't seen the first film in ages, but I at least remember that it was more creative with more variety. These movies are by no means great, but I'd still choose them over the "High School Musical" films. Okay, that's not much of a compliment but at least they made more of them. The grandmother Aggie is probably the most likeable character. Apart from being a witch, she's depicted very realistically. **1/2