My Review of "The Curse of Bridge Hollow"

The Curse of Bridge Hollow is Netflix's latest family Halloween movie of 2022. It's timing couldn't have been better as everyone is starving for Halloween content lately. This is a great ensemble cast for what it's trying to do. Though it might not blow your minds it is still a fairly competent movie.

It all starts off with the introduction of the Gordon family. We have Howard who is the patriarch of the family, Emily is the matriarch of the family. Sydney is the lone daughter of the small family. They've all moved to a small little town called Bridge Hollow from New York.

The relationship with Sydney and her dad isn't the best. Gordon had forced her into a lot of things that she never wanted to get into. A lot of those things will come into play later on in the movie. She has reached an age where she wants to branch out on her own and learn more about herself. Her father's clingy and protective ways are preventing her to achieve this goal. Hopefully in this new town Sydney will be able to reinvent herself.

It just happens to be Halloween season and Gordon is a very practical guy. He doesn't like the concept of Halloween or any references to supernatural existence. This makes for a fun guy to be around during this spooky season.

Through a series of rebellious decisions Sydney inadvertently unlocks some spooky spirit upon the Bridge Hollow. Now it's up to her and her skeptical dad to save the day.

Initially, I had a lot of reservations about this movie. It could have been really bad but for the most part it works. This movie plays more upon the relationship between Sydney and Gordan than it focuses on the supernatural element of the movie. That in a way kind of saves this movie because we kind of grow to like these characters. There's more vested interest in these characters in this horrifying situation.

No this movie isn't very scary. It might have a jump scare or two that might frighten a child but nothing serious. It's more for laughs than scares. Unfortunately a lot of the jokes might be outside the generation that it's trying to focus on. I know it's for all ages but there are specific generational jokes that I don't think everyone will understand. There are also a lot of nods to the Wayans family in general that are kind of lost in translation if you're not of a certain age. I guess is to appease the parents that are watching but not all parents may grasp these jokes.

Special effects are all right. There's nothing terribly exciting about the effects. They did do a good job in some of the creative ideas they added to the art direction of the spooky beings. For a Netflix exclusive they did pretty well but they didn't totally rely on the special effects for this movie. Again that's more focused on the relationship between the father and daughter.

The cast does a good job in animating all of the characters however in a Nickelodeon kind of way. Each of the kids are obviously directed to kind of overact all of their lines to get their emotions across. In a surprising event I didn't think that Marlon Wayans who plays Gordon overexaggerated anything. Usually he's the wild and wacky one and he played it pretty straight in this movie.

Overall, I liked this movie. It was a serviceable Halloween movie that the whole family can enjoy. I had a few laughs but don't think that some people will understand some of the jokes that they throw at you. Still there's enough for the whole family to enjoy here. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It's a nice an short watch so if you're looking for something to kill time this could be it.