Original Air Date: Sunday, October 22, 2017 'The Sweets Hereafter' Opener In a Halloween candy themed opening sequence, we're given a solid CG interpretation of Simpsons characters as various Halloween treats. The "Barterfinger" has a fear of being taken, and is consoled by the "Marge Bar" while the "Oh Homer!" bar adds that even the raisins will be taken before him ( a pretty humorous jab at Bart's former lifestyle as a Butterfinger spokesperson). Meanwhile an apple, representing Lisa, complains that no one ever wants the apples. So, I dunno if that's some weird vegetarian flip where healthy food wants to be taken while sweets don't, or what, but that's what I'm gonna go with. Anyway, the whole family gets left behind after the trick-or-treaters do their thing, and set up on a shelf with a forgotten chocolate Easter Bunny at the end of his rope. Homer suddenly starts eating him, and soon the rest of the family joins in (I think that counts as cannibalism). It pans to the wall where 'The Simpsons Easter Special' is splattered over with chocolate goo, fairly representative of blood, dripping down the words 'Treehouse of Horror XXVIII'. It looks really good, but the execution is just okay. 'The Exor-Sis' Now this is more like it! A farce on a well-known horror movie that flows rather well, this one tackles 'The Exorcist' - a personal favorite. It all starts when a Pazuzu (the demon from 'The Exorcist') statue is dug up, and sent to the Simpsons house through Amazon. It turns out Homer ordered it, thinking "Pazuzu" was "pizza". Maggie's fear factor is cranked to eleven when the statue possesses Homer, and he sings an incredibly disturbing lullaby before putting her to bed, along with the Pazuzu statue in her crib. Much like in the film, the next day, the demon makes its presence known at a cocktail party downstairs. As the segment unfolds, it leads to the eventual exorcism from a priest played by Ben Daniels (who plays Father Marcus Keane in the 2017 reboot). It ends on a funny note involving Bart that I won't spoil, but it got a good laugh. By far the best part of this segment for me was Maggie's possessed voice (done by Bart's Nancy Cartwright). Some of the stuff that came out of her mouth got a good laugh, especially her demonic interpretation of what a duck says. The segment is further punctuated by a great score, reminiscent of the film, and maybe even a bit more intense at times. It fits the Halloween theme perfectly, and another great example of 'Treehouse' at its best. As an 'Exorcist' fan, I really enjoyed their take on it. 5/5 'Coralisa' This one opens with a visual gag that god a solid genuine laugh from me, where Maggie still has a touch of Pazuzu and vomits the pea soup that was missing from the previous segment. You kind of have to see it for yourself, but the timing was perfect. Anyway, it continues to be a parody of 'Coraline' where, in Lisa's room, the family cat Snowball V comes across a secret passage. Snowball V soon also gains a voice by none other than Neil Gaiman, and he takes her through the secret passage into a world that mimics a perfect version of her family. The catch is that they have button eyes, and in order to stay there forever, that implies sewing buttons onto Lisa's eyes as well (much like in the movie). I won't spoil what happens, but it definitely takes a different route than 'Coraline' did. It does have a pretty damn weird ending though, and once again we have a segment that starts out really good, but sort of falls apart as it goes. I will give it strong credit for the animation above all else. They really did a good job here of making the characters look almost like plastic toys, and they even added a bit more style to their details. I've always considered 'Coraline' a very Halloweenish movie as well, so it works well in that regard. It's not exactly perfect, but still does the parody pretty well with that does of 'Simpsons' humor. I do think it could have been executed better, but in the long run, I enjoyed it for its overall style and the reference to the previous segment. 4/5 'MMM... Homer' We are given a rather humorous warning as this one starts, with Lisa coming onto a stage to warn us about how gruesome the following segment is. She mentions that it's so gruesome that we'll want to tune into 'Game of Thrones' to calm down (something that is completely untrue, but funny to think about). This one is a loose parody of Stephen King's 'Survivor Type' in which a man resorts to eating his own body parts to stay alive. It starts with the rest of the family going away on a vacation with Patty and Selma while Homer is left alone with the house to himself. At first, he lives like a king, eating whatever and wherever in the house he pleased. It doesn't take long, however, until he's left with a whole lot of nothing, save for a single hot dog wiener in the back of the freezer that he brings outside to barbeque. But while cutting the wiener, Homer cuts off his finger, which lands on the grill, and his hotdog goes to Santa's Little Helper. Out of options, Homer decides to try eating the finger, and finds a whole new world of flavor he didn't know existed. This leads to a montage of him cooking various different parts of himself and eating them. Eventually he's caught by Marge, however, and taken in for help. This one brings in another very out of the blue guest appearance by Mario Batali. But interestingly, it gets balanced with 'Exorcist' director William Friedkin as the voice of Homer and Marge's therapist, thus bringing that 'Exorcist' theme sort of full circle. As cool as that is, however, the segment itself is far from being my favorite. It's not even that it's gruesome, it's just not very funny, and the previous two segments were more entertaining. I think this one's really just weird more than anything else, but an A for effort on the whole "gruesome" thing, considering that apparently this segment did get to some people - which might mean it did its job. It just didn't quite hit with me, personally. 3/5 Once again it ends with no real closer, so there's nothing really to add after this segment's review. But I will at least leave off in saying that to the episode's credit, I haven't given a rating this high in a little while. 'The Exorsis' segment alone might very well be a new favorite.
Overall Episode Rating: 80%
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