The plot of the newest Halloween film on Netflix, The Curse of Bridge Hollow, is as old as time. Meant to be a horror flick, this 90-minute film is anything but. The twists lack conviction, the surprises don’t jolt, and the entire premise of the film fails to impress.
Soon after their move to Bridge Hollow, the protagonists Howard (Marlon Wayans), his wife Emily (Kelly Rowland) and daughter Sydney (Priah Ferguson) are told that their house is haunted, and unsurprisingly, the revelation is not a deterrent. It only makes them curious.
The resurrection of the ghost of Halloween past is a concept made famous in the Goosebumps series, and this film just lumbers past the finish line by using old tropes and scares. Howard and family are somehow convinced to use the Ouija board to call the spirit of the previous owner, who was a spirit-conversing medium herself. They hear the creaking floorboards and opening doors, and when a suspicious-looking old cobwebby box turns up, they obviously open it. But then, if common sense prevailed in these films, they wouldn’t exist in the first place.
The sub-plot of father-daughter bonding too is unoriginal. Sydney expectedly isn’t entirely chuffed about becoming a Bridge Hollow girl after being a Brooklyn girl, and has a fractured relationship with her father, who forces his opinions on her. Her ballet classes get swapped for karate classes; she’s forced into the science club at school because he is a science teacher. Can these two come together for a bigger purpose?
The performances of Wayans and Ferguson might help you sit through the film, even if it does badly by its stellar supporting cast, including Rob Riggle, Lauren Lapkus and John Michael Higgins, but it is not enough to redeem it.
The only thing that The Curse of Bridge Hollow lives up to is the feel-good fervour of this genre. It stays true to the spirit of Halloween, a festival about having fun with your family, and that is perhaps what the makers were going for––a simple afternoon film for families to sit around their television sets while planning what ghoulish costumes to wear, and what pranks to pull-off when the neighbourhood kids come knocking.