User Reviews

The episode that established a long tradition of Halloween-themed Simpsons specials is also the first episode of the show in which the writers/directors/animators/musicians/etc. tapped into their creativity and artistic ambitions to such an extent. "Bad Dream House" is very funny ("Oooh, a vortex! Catch!"), "Hungry Are The Damned" is slightly weaker, but the real treat is "The Raven": just listening to James Earl Jones' voice reading Edgar Allan Poe's lines is enough to give you continuous shivers (of the good kind), even if it is impossible to follow / catch all the words from the poem (Dan Castellaneta also does fantastic work). This story could actually inspire people to go look for more of Poe's work! *** out of 4.

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs. The opening features Marge Simpson on an Opera / theater stage platform "warning" the audience about the show's content, much in the fashion of the original 1931 Frankenstein.

The plot centers around Bart, Lisa, and Maggie in a treehouse where Lisa is telling a story about someone in a house where the police call and say "we've traced the call it's coming from the floor below you, get out of the house..." (Black Christmas, 1974 / When a Stranger Calls, 1979) But Bart doesn't think that's scary so Lisa dares him to tell her a story that is scary.

He tells a tale of the Simpsons moving into a great big old-looking house which is a steal at the price they paid (Burnt Offerings, 1976). But immediately, ghostly happenings take place when books start stacking themselves (Ghostbusters, 1984) and the house tells them to "get out!" (The Amityville Horror, 1979) but they just ignore it. In the kitchen, the walls are dripping with blood (Amityville Horror) and there's a portal (Poltergeist, 1982) to another dimension (Phantasm, 1979) in the wall. Marge wants to leave but Homer convinces them to just try staying the night. In the night, Homer, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie (whose head spins around while in her cradle - The Exorcist, 1973) get impulses to kill one other (The Shining, 1980) but Marge stops them just in time. The house is not happy about this and starts telling them how they will die if they don't leave but Marge gets angry and starts yelling back at the house (The Legend of Hell House, 1973). The house asks for a moment alone in private and destroys itself (Phantasm) so it won't have to live with this family.

Back in the treehouse, Lisa is not scared, so Bart surprises her with a severed finger in a box (Phantasm) and another story. This one features the Simpson family yet again as they are abducted by aliens during a barbecue. While in the spaceship, the aliens Kang and Kodos appear friendly and offer to take them on a journey to their planet of origin while feeding them elaborately cooked meals. However, Lisa grows suspicious as the aliens begin weighing them on scales and saying things like "grow large with food" and "when we arrive there will be plenty of time to... Chew The Fat," so she decides to investigate the kitchen and finds a book titled- How to Cook Humans. As she runs to tell her family of her discovery, the alien shows her what the book really says - How to Cook For Forty Humans. The aliens are insulted that Lisa and the Simpson family would be suspicious of them and they return them to their backyard and fly away.

For the third story, Lisa decides to try a school book and reads the immortal Edgar Allen Poe poem, The Raven, in which Homer is alone in his chamber reading when he suddenly becomes frightfully paranoid. He has flashback dreams, hears someone knocking at his door who isn't there when he opens it, and finally opens his window as a raven flies in his chamber and sits on a bust above his door. The Poe story doesn't make much sense to most modern viewers since it's recited in its poetically proper form and would require a lot of trips to the dictionary to figure out just what's going on. As for the images - Homer yells at the raven but it won't go away. He tries to get it but it instead pelts him with books until he falls on the floor, where his soul shall not be lifted.

This is pretty much the only Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where all three tales are outstandingly smart and funny at the same time. Not that other lesser tales weren't smart, but they don't all have the right combination of horror and humor and can just get boring. But not these 3. I guess it's first-timer's luck. I think further Treehouses of Horror may have just tried too hard. At any rate, the first tale is the coolest since there are a ton of horror movie references. The third tale is the most interesting and classic of the Treehouse series. The second tale is probably the funniest and most smile inducing / most entertaining. As for what that is based on, it IS science fiction oriented, which is my weakest subgenre of horror. But since it has a cannibal subplot, there have been several horror movies that overtly reference cannibalism - Motel Hell (1980), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Make Them Die Slowly (1981 - which may have been an influence since there is a line in the first tale of this Treehouse episode where the house says "you will die slowly!"), and maybe some Hershell Gordon Lewis films (I think Two Thousand Maniacs had cannibals in it).

Treehouse Of Horror

I'm going to make a change to my usual review style and write a separate review for all of the segments individually.

Bad Dream House: Now, this is probably gonna sound really wimpy, but this is probably the only segment in the history of the Halloween episodes to kind of freak me out. Now it's not so much that it terrifies me, but it gives me the creeps. The strange dream-like quality to it (particularly the house itself) disturbs me slightly. But there's also some genuinely funny bits as well and to me that mixture of typical Simpsons humour mixed with a somewhat genuinely scary element is to me, what should have featured in other future segments.

Hungry Are The Damned: A good segment. Probably not as good as Bad Dream House but in probably any other special, it would really stand out. Of course it features the debut of Kang and Kodos. Not really horror, more sci-fi except for the cannibalism (even if, it wasn't really cannibalism.) Kang and Kodos aren't as wacky as they would be later, but even though they lack their usual humour they're still good characters...shame there wasn't more Serak The Preparer in further years.

The Raven: Probably the most literate stance the show has taken, it's brilliantly performed with James Earl Jones as the narrator (a great actor in himself, of course.) a little too light-hearted with it's Loony Toons style than I would've wanted, but it still gives the piece great character.

Overall, three beautiful segments make one beautiful episode and of my all-time favourites.

This is the one that started the tradition and it's still one of the best in my opinion all 3 stories are great and allows the animation team to go out of boundaries for what they normally can do. Classic Simpson's really is on another level. It captures the Halloween vibe so well with Marges opening love the jab at parents who blame tv shows for things they have control over. I also really like how it's at night and the kids and Homer are at a fire just telling scary stories. The first story is prolly my favorite of the episode but it's they're close. Love the classic family move into a new house that ends up being haunted cliche. The knife fight gag between the family and them apologizing to each other still cracks me up every time. I like the reveal that Marge was not hypnotized by the house. The house talking to the family is also great. The reveal of the Indian burial ground is also amazing. I think everything works in this episode and has a very creepy vibe to it. The second story is also amazing as well with the first time seeing Kang and Kodos who are great like always. I still love the twist at the end that they weren't going to eat them. As well as when the aliens kidnap Homer and his family. The first two are some of my favorite stories of the treehouse of horrors and the third one is great as well with the kids mostly Bart interrupting the story at some points making it even better. I still really enjoy the Raven story it is my least favorite of the three though. Bart as the raven is hilarious and the narrator and the music is top notch. Also love the jab at the first Friday the 13th which is even more tame compared to nowadays. I also lobe how it ends with Homer scared of the childrens stories more than the kids. All three stories are classics and are great parodies of what they were going for.

"Treehouse of Horror" is the third episode from season two of everybody's favorite yellow family The Simpsons. Like the others, it runs for slightly over 20 minutes and the title as well as the photo already give away that this is at least as much about the horror as it is about comedy this time. Well no, not really, comedy will always be dominant with The Simpsons, but it is still much scarier than your average Simpsons episode. I am still mesmerizied by seeing then future Oscar winner Brad Bird was a part of this. Anyway, Bart and Lisa are up there in the treehouse and telling horror stories to one another. Well, it's Lisa telling mostly, but not exclusively. Bart has other stuff on his mind like pretending there is a hand grabbing his neck trying to suffocate him. But when he stops to say something, it is again a good example of how they did not want to make it too scary. Besides, we are used to seeing a hand around Bart's neck. Homer's that is. This episode includes three stories in one: The first is about a haunted house that was built on an Indian graveside (what was written on the tombstones like "Pocahontas" shows you they did not want to take the 100% serious route here either, also not 50% even), the second is about an alien abduction (look the poster, I loved how they played with us here thinking immediately they want to eat the Simpsons and smart Lisa thinking the same increased the probability of this theory, but honestly how could the Simpsons have ever gotten away to safety if this had been the case!?) and the third is about Poe's The Raven. I enjoyed the first and the second, but with the final segment I must say it was clearly the weakest and if I at one point intended to give more than 3 out of 5 here, then these intentions were blown away by the final segment. Seeing Bart as a raven was still somewhat interesting. Nonetheless, it almost felt as if the writers were even apologizing through Lisa that this was not too creepy by saying that back in the second half of the 19th century, people were simply easier to scare.

The by far funniest moment from this episode was the cookbook and all that was revealed when the dust got removed. Laughed really hard there. From the first segment, I especially liked the quote from Homer that Lisa must not scare her mother when he was the one actually scared. That was also some solid forecasting to the very end when we see Homer is the only scared one of them all who cannot sleep. By the way, how the house vanished was indeed a bit strange. The sequence in which the Simpsons were ready to kill each other with the help of knives and axes was surprising. Reminded be a bit of The Shining. Oh and you never really see Lisa showing an evil face/grin on this show, so this was something totally new here. Okay, I guess this is all. I give the episode a positive recommendation, but I wish the level could have been kept up in the last six or seven minutes. Which they did not achieve and it had a bit of a negative impact on the entire thing. Nonetheless maybe particularly interesting for literature lovers that the final segment included many unaltered quotes from Poe's work. Good, really old Simpsons episode from over 30 years ago now, but not one of the best. Can certainly also be seen more than once, especially during Halloween obviously. Go check it out.

This is the very first Treehouse of Horror to debut, and it's a memorable one for sure. It's hard to believe it debuted 34 years ago. For me the favorite segment was Hungry are the Damned, a send-up of The Twilight Zone classic "To Serve Man". I'm amazed by the genius displayed by the writers and how the real alien book titled in the segment was How To Cook for Forty Humans.

Anyway, the Treehouse of Horror is quite literal in some senses, and perhaps they can do parodies or homages to the Human Centipede, Saw, Hostel, American Horror Story, Glee, Wolf Creek, Cube, Salo, or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Woo-hoo! October is here at last, and I thought it would be fun and appropriate to write reviews through the month on Halloween and horror-themed TV episodes and movies. First subject: the episode that launched one of my favourite things about The Simpsons, the annual Treehouse of Horror specials.

The Treehouse of Horror specials allow us to take a break from the usual tone of the series which was originally loosely based on reality and have some non-canonical fun with the characters we love. The THOH episodes are all broken up into three short stories. Here we have some basic ideas: a haunted house and an alien abduction. Lastly we have a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's classic The Raven.

The show as a whole testifies as to the plight of the lower class dysfunctional family, and here we see a little of it when the Simpsons marvel at the affordability of their new house (albeit with a high price to pay when they find out it's evil). Marge acknowledges the family has fought in the past, but haven't used knives until moving into this house. Finally, Lisa tells the aliens they face prejudice every day. Still, the episode has some laughs outside the realm of relatability. We have a vortex and an Indian burial ground (with Gandhi, no less). We have a dusty book which makes for a good trick and treat. This THOH is good- and they'll get better as the years go on.

Happy Halloween.

While The Simpsons is one of my absolute favourite television shows and I am an especially big fan of the annual Treehouse of Horror segments as are most fans of the show, I have only ever once seen the original Treehouse of Horror. Re-watching it now, it is rather amazing just how well this first effort embodies the atmosphere, the humour and the charm of later outings.

This is also one of the few Treehouse of Horror installments where Bart and Lisa sit up on their treehouse and tell each other scary tales as the title would have you imagine. It amusingly has a rather unforgettable gag of Homer intently overhearing their various tales and becoming horrified after the kids' most yawn inducing tale in a parody of "The Raven".

**BAD DREAM HOUSE**

The family moves into a new house that unbeknownst to them is built on an Ancient Indian burial ground and haunted by ghosts.

This is it. The show's very first Treehouse of Horror tale and it's pretty superb. There's plenty of great character humour notably Homer whether it be him trying to convince his family to sleep on the decision of whether or not to continue living in a haunted house OR his grave misunderstanding with the real estate agent who claims to have warned Homer multiple times about the house being haunted.

The whole story has a great atmosphere, great visuals (a lot of nice oblique 'camera' angles that give the whole story a real creepy and fun atmosphere) and has plenty of classic horror references. There's The Shining with Homer going crazy and getting an ax to kill his family, there's spinning head Maggie (The Exorcist), there's the butcher's knife (Halloween) and the Amityville Horror as well as Poltergeist as the more broad but perhaps also covert references.

**THE HUNGRY AND THE DAMNED**

This episode not only introduces to the show the Treehouse of Horror special but with it, the beloved aliens Kang and Kodos! This is that episode in which The Simpsons are abducted and brought before the alien ship as its guests.

A very memorable story with the iconic 'How to Cook Humans' gag, this story once again features plenty of great humour and one of the more memorable moments in which the ship's primary beam (or whatever) is not strong enough to abduct Homer! The entire dinner sequence is brilliant and hilarious. While I have only just begun to make my way through the classic series, The Twilight Zone, I am informed that this episode is a parody of one of its most famous episodes, "To Serve Man" from the third season.

**THE RAVEN**

This is the only story I do not care for. It's a little tedious and rather boring though to some extent, that seems to be its purpose. Bart entirely calls Lisa out on the story being completely unscary and in a hilarious moment, we see Homer outside the treehouse absolutely scarred by the tale and later at night, unable to sleep. It's a hilarious and sweet and memorable moment in what I consider a fairly forgettable tale and it caps off an otherwise exceptional first Treehouse of Horror. And it's neat to here James Earl Jones as the narrator within the tale in this story.

**CONCLUSION**

A superb first effort, "Treehouse of Horror" embodies everything that makes these annual episodes so wonderful (at least during the show's Golden Age, I cannot make any informed decision beyond that since I haven't seen very many). It's extremely funny, mildly creepy, features plenty of exciting and memorable visuals and takes The Simpsons into interesting and often otherworldly territory. Season two is off to an absolutely brilliant start so far.

This simpsons episode reminds me of when i was a child with small stories that i knew the show was truly scary in the act with the haunted house i never knew that there were things like dimensions with rick in it marge shows the issues that i am working on as a marine i am currently in the poem the raven myself but instead of the raven it is a little girl i have a lot to think about so far it as has been a happy one for me and i do think that i rate that but there are thoughts that could be helped like the topic of pedophilia from her pretending she is a child i just want her to know i am her husband and she could be a witch.