Review: Smiling Friends “Curse of the Green Halloween Witch”

Overview

A Halloween witch puts a curse on Smiling Friends office on Halloween.

Our Take

The seemingly simple act of deciding on lunch took an intensely dark and surreal detour in a recent segment of Smiling Friends, showcasing the show’s unique ability to pivot from cheerful absurdity to genuine horror in the blink of an eye. What began with the everyday office squabble over what to eat culminated in a disturbing vision of murder, transformation, and vehicular mayhem.

The initial setup is classic Smiling Friends: the team is contemplating lunch. Pim, ever the eager yet overlooked enthusiast, suggests pizza, only to be repeatedly ignored by his colleagues. This foundational slight—Pim’s suggestion being dismissed—proves to be the psychological trigger for the later horror.

The mundane office scene is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious green-skinned witch. She enters the office not to cast spells, but to simply ask for change. Pim, perhaps trying to prove his worth or driven by kindness, attempts to give her the money, but the other Friends swiftly refuse. This refusal—a small act of collective stinginess—is the spark that ignites the episode’s central conflict. Enraged by their dismissal, the witch places a curse upon the group.

Immediately after the curse, the lights go out, and the Friends undergo disturbing, chaotic changes and torment. This is not just a bizarre transformation; it’s a deep, psychological dive into their anxieties and character flaws.

Amidst the pandemonium, Pim’s initial feelings of being ignored boil over. Encouraged by demons who viciously insist the others do not respect him, Pim snaps. He goes into a blind rage and, in the ultimate act of pent-up frustration and demonic suggestion, murders the Friends.

Just as the horror reaches its peak, the narrative sharply pulls back. This entire gruesome sequence is revealed to be a vision shown by the witch through her orb. It was a cautionary demonstration of the dire fate that awaits them if they continue to deny her request for money.

The reaction is immediate and surprisingly blunt: Mr. Boss chokes the witch, proving his own volatile nature. In a small moment of emotional growth and regret, Charlie apologizes to Pim for his earlier dismissiveness, acknowledging the slight that fueled the vision’s horrors.

The episode then spirals back into the absurd: Spider Allan—the mutated version from the vision—returns with the long-sought pizza, confusing his regular self and the others. The segment ends on a final, sudden note of black comedy as both Spider Allan and Mr. Boss are run over by cars.

The show’s dark humor continues in the post-credits scene. The witch is back home, crying about her day, being comforted by her boyfriend. The moment of empathy is instantly undermined when the boyfriend, in a classic Smiling Friends move, asks if she will still perform oral sex on him later, injecting one final moment of uncomfortable, crass reality into the surreal chaos.

The fact that this special episode airs closer to Halloween than what the show’s second season did definitely helped add the aura of what creators Zach and Mike were trying to do here, but I want to give a special shout-out to David Hootselle whose technical brilliance is certainly on display here with a Hellraiser of an episode that should please both casual and hardcore fans of the franchise.