Save your money for something good and enjoyable

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

"The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special" is a very recent Halloween special from this year and it aired just 2 days ago in fact the day I am writing this. The director here is Emmy winner Don Roy King and this shows already how closely it is connected to the successful long-running Saturday Night Live. I don't know too much about SNL, so no further elaboration in that area. It got some attention especially because the title character is voiced by Tom Hanks and we also see him in costume of his animated character very early and very late during these slightly over 20 minutes. The other well-known name in the cast here is Peter Dinklage who narrates the whole thing. Oh yes I forgot to say it is an animated movie and it unites aspects of several long-running shows into this thingey here. The title character acts and reacts a bit like Bender from Futurama, the moral at the end reminded me of South Park and a lot of the slapstick comedy had a touch of Simpsons to it. And these are only the ones I know. I am sure you will find more parallels, also in terms of the animation style for example. Anyway, I struggled a bit with the main character early on from a comedy perspective, but in the second half I liked him more. The boy and his little sister in the center of it all were nice from start to finish. I am surprised many of the other reviewers hated it so much because at least as a one-time project I think it worked and was a fun watch. The focus on Halloween and several plot points makes it basically impossible to turn this into a recurring series, but that's perfectly fine. I am not sure if it could work as such. But I would not say no to another 20-minute-sequel for Halloween 2018, 2019 or 2020. This was never a scary watch, so it is also a good watch for the little ones. If they are old enough to trick'n treating, they are old enough to watch this television special. I give it a thumbs-up.

Who is Halloween Santa? It has to be David S. Pumpkins (Tom Hanks). The narrator (Peter Dinklage) recounts his meeting with Pumpkins as teenager Kevin. His little sister Dotty picks the dumpy pumpkin which comes with David S. Pumpkins who tells them that he's theirs for Halloween. The Ditmeyer brothers are bullies. Kevin likes Paige. The neighborhood boogeyman Raincoat Man has taken everybody's candy.It's a silly SNL skit that Tom Hanks does with Bobby Moynihan and Mikey Day. It's fun for a stupid two minute break but it struggles to be more than that. It has rudimentary animations with the trio doing the wrap around. It's not quite kiddie level but also not subversive enough to be adult. It's a light mixture of both. While it's watchable, it's not rewatchable.

What a gross disappointment. All of the saccharine of a Charlie Brown holiday special and none of the charm. Trite script and animation, no laughs.This might have been appropriate in an 8:00pm time slot for 7 year olds...but in Saturday Night Live's Time slot? No. Lorne Michaels should be embarrassed.

Saturday Night Live has been awful for several years now so it's no surprise that this special is not funny. If you are familiar with the Tom Hanks sketch, you know that it was a thin premise that should have been quickly forgotten. Sadly it wasn't and now you will see this every Halloween and ask why.