Review

Haul Out the Halloween: When Pumpkin Spice Invades Evergreen Lane

If you thought Hallmark movies were only about small-town Christmas tree lightings, misunderstandings at the town bakery, and one woman realizing her big-city fiancé just doesn’t “get” snow... think again. “Haul Out the Halloween” asks the bold question no one dared to utter in a Hallmark holiday movie: what if we swapped Santa for skeletons and tinsel for tombstones?

Lacey Chabert returns as the queen of seasonal overachievement, this time trading in her usual gingerbread apron for a bedazzled witch hat. She plays Emily, who—alongside her husband Jared (Wes Brown, who’s clearly cornered the market on “handsome, slightly exasperated HOA president”)—must defend her cul-de-sac’s title as America’s Most Festive Neighborhood when new neighbors arrive with enough Halloween decorations to make Tim Burton weep.

The result is a heartwarming war of inflatables. There are jack-o'-lanterns, ghosts, and a ten-foot animatronic vampire that’s somehow still less scary than a Hallmark deadline for cookie judging. The film’s tension builds around who can out-decorate whom—think “Home Alone” but with fewer burglars and more pumpkin spice candles.

True to the Hallmark formula, no one actually gets mad for long. Rivalries dissolve over cider, love conquers competition, and by the end, the whole neighborhood learns that maybe—just maybe—there’s room in their hearts (and their lawns) for both Halloween and Christmas.

“Haul Out the Halloween” proves that Hallmark holiday movies don’t have to stop when the snow melts—they just need a little cobweb, a few orange lights, and the eternal optimism that love can bloom even next to a fog machine.