Honourable Mention: Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge

This was the sequel to Halloweentown and was set a couple of years on, and indeed was released a few years after the first film, in 2001. This time Mary Lambert directed.

Like the first it began on Halloween, though this time around the Cromwell household was hosting a large Halloween party rather than avoiding Halloween altogether. Mum Gwen (Judith Hoag) and grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) were still bickering and eldest sibling Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) was well in with her witch training. We do get a mortal (Jessica Lucas) dressed as a vampire at the party.

suddenly she's a real vampire

The crux of the film is that son of the enemy from film 1, who is called Kal (Daniel Kountz), seeks to avenge himself against the Cromwells and turn Halloweentown into a grey facsimile of the mortal world and introduce monsters into our realm. The spell to do the latter turns those at the high school Halloween party (which followed the Cromwell party) into the monsters they dress as and so our vampire from earlier becomes a real vampire (for all of a minute of screen time, if that).

Less vampire appearance than the first film, but still there. The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Halloweentown High

This third instalment was from 2004 and was directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé. It followed on from the second film and the fact that Marnie opened the Halloweentown portal so that it worked all year round. The council of Halloweentown congratulate her and look to the proposal that some Halloweentown kids go to the mortal world on exchange. When there are reservations about this, Marnie bets the Cromwell magic that it will be successful.

This leads to a group of kids (in human suits) going to the high school and posing as Canadian exchange students. It also leads to the resurrection of the fear of a group of knights sworn to destroy monsters and protect the world from the denizens of halloweentown.

vampire

Now, if one of the students had been a vampire this might have warranted a review. In actuality there is even less vampire involvement in this than the other two films, hence the mention being tagged on after film #2. One of the council members is a vampire (Mowava Pryor) and we know this because of the fangs. The credits confirm it but she gets no real screen time and does nothing particularly vampiric.

The imdb page is here.

For information, the fourth film – Return to Halloweentown – had a different actress playing Marnie and no noticeable vampire element.