The Renegade Spoopy Halloween Special! - Renegade Animation #38
Tonight, on a HORRIFYING episode of Renegade Animation, The Animation Guru and Captain Kaye return just in time for the spooky season, as they review The Jellystone Halloween Special, The Night of the Living Dead animated remake, The Ghost and Molly McGee, and... *gasp* BATMAN!!!
How’s it going, fellow Renegades? It’s my honor as The Director to welcome back the return of Renegade Animation with our beloved Captain and the Animation Guru here to talk about the scariest things that hit the world of animation in recent years! Bad remakes… Legos… THE ADDAMS FAMILY!!! Remember the Addams Family animated movie?!?
Well, I’ll go ahead and kick everything over to the Captain for his thoughts on today’s subjects, but you don’t want to miss a thing for this episode!
THE JELLYSTONE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL (2021)
“The Jellystone Halloween special ‘Spell Book’ is great! My favorite episodes from season 1 were those that focused on the kids, and the hijinks they get into this time are hysterical! Plus, that opening musical number is a bop, with some fun easter eggs sprinkled throughout.” - Captain Kaye
LEGO STAR WARS: TERRIFYING TALES (2021)
“Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales is cute, about as good as the Lego Holiday Special. I just hope this isn't the only time that Star Wars gets to lean into horror, because this is something I've wanted for a very long time! Still, I like the voice cast, and the anthology structure.” - Captain Kaye
THE GHOST AND MOLLY MCGEE (2021)
“I love The Ghost and Molly McGee! It feels like a throwback to cartoons from my childhood, but with modern sensibilities and a pretty dark sense of humor. The titular protagonists have great chemistry for an odd couple pair, and the animation each episode gets wildly creative with the visual gags.” - Captain Kaye
NIGHT OF THE ANIMATED DEAD (2021)
“I've been saying for a while how badly I wanted to see more animated horror media, but it feels like I brought this project to life through a monkey's paw. Seriously though, this movie isn't just bad because it's a lazy direct to video cash grab, it's bad because there's literally no reason from an artistic perspective that this needed to be animated. If you want to see a great zombie movie, go back and watch the original, it's a classic for a reason. This movie, however, is a husk. The character designs are lifeless, the animation itself is janky as hell, and the best thing I can say about the actually pretty great cast they assembled is that the voice acting was ‘fine, I guess.’ Honestly, if not for the fact that Cameron and I were reviewing this for the next Renegade Animation podcast, I wouldn't have even fucking bothered with this. I'm not even in the mood to give this movie a pass for being the feature film debut of the third party production team The Long Game, so I'm just calling it as I see it. Night of the Animated Dead is the worst movie I've seen this year, and if you value your time I'd stay as far away from this as possible!“ - Captain Kaye
THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2 (2021)
“In case you couldn't tell by the credits, the biggest problem with this movie is that there are WAY too many cooks in the kitchen. Not only that, the turnaround time between the original film and its sequel is at least a year too soon to not have cut a corner or two in the production. But I'm not ‘mad,’ per se, because while this is definitely a step down from the first film, the good parts are still consistently good. This voice cast would have been perfect for another live action take on the material, specifically Isaac and Theron as Gomez and Morticia. There were a handful of jokes that earned genuine chuckles. But at the end of the day, neither one of these movies lives up to either the original Charles Addams comics or even the Barry Sonnenfeld movies. The edges have been sanded off, and the vacation plot is as generic as any other modern family film. ‘Objectively,’ Wednesday has the best character arc, but I also hate the implication that she might be adopted, as that kind of goes against her personality. Despite my lukewarm reception to this film, the good news about its apparent success at the box office is that it proves this property is here to stay. Between Tim Burton's Wednesday Addams live action Netflix series and whatever comes next, there will always be a place for The Addams Family.“ - Captain Kaye
BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN (2021)
“It's been about a decade since I read the original comic, but The Long Halloween has always been one of my favorite Batman stories for a couple of reasons. One of them is Tim Sale's incredible art, and this is probably the first time in a while that the current house style for these DC animated films has come the closest to matching the panels of its respective source material. The reason, of course, is the story. Batman has become such an overexposed character over the last 20 years, that certain core traits are easily taken for granted. For example, they don't call him The World's Greatest Detective for nothing, and in a story that's set during the early years of his crusade, we get to see the development of his detective skills. Even if I had never read the original comic, I still would have loved this as a stand alone murder mystery. The voice cast is terrific, specifically Jensen Ackles as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, and the late Naya Rivera as Catwoman, to whom the film is dedicated. Ackles' casting is especially cool, because he had already voice Jason Todd in Under the Red Hood about a decade ago, yet his voice fits the character like a glove. I'm hard pressed to find any major flaws with the film, except for the occasional reminder that ‘oh yeah, we're on the direct-to-video budget.’ As I said earlier, it's been a while since the last time I read the source material, but I'm unbothered by any of the changes. All I ask is that eventually we see this story continue in an adaptation of Dark Victory.” - Captain Kaye
That’ll do it for this episode! Special thanks to Cameron for trudging through the editing graveyard to bring this episode to life! Keep yourself safe when strolling through the moonlit moors, and keep the lights extra low at night, as you never know when a new episode will strike next…
