REVIEW: OUT THERE ‘SPRINGOWEEN’

Spoilers Below

Halloween is a holiday that has many different distinct forms. It starts out super awesome, eventually gets lame (and almost dies), and then finally rises from the ashes as a mighty phoenix of FUCK-YEAH-HALLOWEEN. Springoween is able to showcase all three periods of hallo-progression throughout Out There‘s cast of characters who vary in age from the young “I super glued my fingers together” Jay, all the way up to his keepin-it-square poppa Wayne.

After a snowstorm ruins October 31^st for the citizens of Holford, the town’s city council decides to postpone the kibosh’d Fall festivities until the Spring – hence ‘Spring’-oween [was born]. The only downfall for Chad in this new scenario is that by the time Spring hits he has already become 15 and is thus breaking the unwritten social code of ‘being too old for be trick-or-treating’ (which in Holford is exactly 15 – a rule that everyone seems to know all too well). Undeterred from the threat of becoming a social outcast (even further), Chad suits up for candy panhandling anyway and even offers to lead Jay and his bright-eyed friends towards sugar fueled glory.

It is at this point that Chris wriggles his way into the plot and tries his best to poach Chad from trick-or-treating in order to whisk him away to an ever enticing boy/girl party (as they are colloquially known around the youths types these days). Eventually Chris wins out (as usual) and drags Chad away in an effort to chase down some lucky ladies and general adult-centric debauchery.

Before leaving, Chad assures Jay that he will be safe from [local maniacal legend and suburban terror] Johnny Slade as long as he stays with his group of friends (“he only targets singles”). Johnny, a hallmark of Holford’s Halloween (alliteration out the ass), is known not only to kidnap stray children but to also eat them in his haunted sewer layer (so the stories go). Predictably (after Chad’s warning), Jay eventually finds himself nabbed and dragged back to the Slade lair temporarily before making a mad murky dash for freedom through the sewer muck (which actually ends up saving his brother and Chris from the clutches of embarrassment later on in the story — I’ll let you find out how on your own).

All the while during Jay’s imprisonment, Chad and Chris end up dragging their sorry selves around from supposed party to supposed party (which all end up fizzling out before they even begin) until eventually catching a break, getting themselves invited to a cemetery soiree by local hottie, and Chris’s kryptonite crush, Henrietta Miller. All that glitters turns out most definitely not to be golden babes as this too-good-to-be-true party ends up being another Chips A-Troy scheme (at the boy’s expense). Not to worry though– as this sticky situation eventually ends up being narrowly averted for the gruesome twosome and all ends well in Holford (for those who deserve it) on Springoween.

Having lived through all the stages of Halloween on showcase here, and also having dodged a few Johnny Slade’s of my own throughout the years, I can attest that this episode portrayed Halloween in suburbia fairly accurately. The only two drawbacks to the plot here were that I fully expected Jay’s capture and that by the end of the episode everything worked out for our heroes. I just don’t enjoy stories that end well for characters [all the time] that are supposed to be down-on-their-luck outcasts (socially). If Out There manages to end a few episodes on a down note for Chad and Chris I will be far more surprised when things do work out for boys. If you are going to make a show off-beat, then you need to follow all the way through and mix things up more– things most certainly don’t always work out for the best in real life for these types of dudes. Trust me.

@Achilles_Word