The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs.
The first tale begins with Bart and Lisa awaking from their sleeps to hearing noises in the attic (The Exorcist, 1973). What is making those noises(?), they ask Homer and Marge but they remain very hush-hush about it though at that very inquisitive breakfast, Homer brings a bucket of fishheads to feed "something" up there. So, Bart and Lisa, with Maggie in tow, go up to the attic to see what there is to see. They find something that is most likely partially human chained to the wall (Phenomena, 1984 / The Goonies, 1985), but before they can see what it is, it runs away. Homer and Marge come home and tell them the truth about "Hugo," Bart's evil Siamese twin (Sisters, 1973) brother they had surgically removed from him but was such a violent misfit they decided to hide him from the world (Basket Case, 1982). However, Hugo isn't really gone and plans to surgically re-attach himself and Bart back together. A visit from Dr. Hibbert also reveals another shocking twist (or a not-so shocking twist, as it turns out).
The second tale begins with Lisa working on a science fair project, taking a recently lost tooth and soaking it in a tub of cola to see what develops. She is surprised to see that inside the tub grows an entire, sophisticated world that turns out to be much more advanced than her own. But when Bart decides to ruin the tub "city" thinking it's just a model, the tiny world of people decide to see how they can participate in Lisa's world - launching a full-scale tiny aircraft attack on Bart in his sleep. Bart warns that he will get revenge for this. Lisa is then shrunken (The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957 / The Incredible Shrinking Woman, 1981 / Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, 1989) down to tiny size inside her own world where she is surrounded in an Emerald city (The Wizard of Oz, 1939) where she is the Queen / God of her tiny city. But they want her to save them from Bart, which she can't do if she's stuck in her Tub and her tiny people haven't invented a machine that can make her Big again.
The third tale begins with Homer just fishing quietly over a lake when he is quickly abducted by aliens (Kodos and Kang) who demand to be "taken to their leader." However, being the last week of October in 1996, Homer gets confused on who the current leader was because the election could make Bob Dole the new Leader. So instead of just kidnapping President Clinton, the aliens kidnap Republican hopeful Dole as well. Their plan is simple, to copy the Presidents, have the humans elect them Supreme Leader of all Earthlings, take over the planet, enslave humankind, and destroy other planets. Not so simple it turns out, is disposing of paranoid Homer who witnesses the whole thing and tries to convince his family and the rest of America that BOTH of their candidate hopefuls are evil space aliens from beyond the stars bent on world domination and conquest of all things human. Well inevitably, Homer is able to expose the aliens, but since they have now disposed of the President AND his opponent, America is clueless on just who will lead them to stop the aliens.
This is another Treehouse of Horror that mainly focuses on science fiction, which again just isn't my cup of tea. So this falls just in 2nd place for my least favorite Treehouse of Horror (from parts 1 through 7) episode. However, it has an edge over part 2 because it's a little more funny and satisfying. And the Siamese Twin tale at the beginning really focuses on a couple of much unseen horror films (and a subgenre of horror where there aren't too many movies) - Brian De Palma's 1973 surreal monster murder mystery Sisters, which is the most obvious influence, and Frank Henenlotter's 1982 cult film Basket Case. This ends up being one of my favorite individual Tales from the Treehouse of Horror series (it even ends up visually referencing an image in the opening of one of Dario Argento's most underrated films, 1984's Phenomena, which features an evil deformed youngster chained to the wall in the exact same way we see here, which we don't see the body of until the very end).
The second tale is very bland though it raises a very good question about God (maybe creation really is an accident or a coincidence), which is technically the only value this tale has. The third tale is very cutesy if you ask me because we don't see any of the political comedy getting as edgy as it has become in future seasons. But at least it's watchable cutesy. It just doesn't amount to much. If anything, it comments accurately on the sort of crowds who would gather to hear political speeches.
The first tale begins with Bart and Lisa awaking from their sleeps to hearing noises in the attic (The Exorcist, 1973). What is making those noises(?), they ask Homer and Marge but they remain very hush-hush about it though at that very inquisitive breakfast, Homer brings a bucket of fishheads to feed "something" up there. So, Bart and Lisa, with Maggie in tow, go up to the attic to see what there is to see. They find something that is most likely partially human chained to the wall (Phenomena, 1984 / The Goonies, 1985), but before they can see what it is, it runs away. Homer and Marge come home and tell them the truth about "Hugo," Bart's evil Siamese twin (Sisters, 1973) brother they had surgically removed from him but was such a violent misfit they decided to hide him from the world (Basket Case, 1982). However, Hugo isn't really gone and plans to surgically re-attach himself and Bart back together. A visit from Dr. Hibbert also reveals another shocking twist (or a not-so shocking twist, as it turns out).
The second tale begins with Lisa working on a science fair project, taking a recently lost tooth and soaking it in a tub of cola to see what develops. She is surprised to see that inside the tub grows an entire, sophisticated world that turns out to be much more advanced than her own. But when Bart decides to ruin the tub "city" thinking it's just a model, the tiny world of people decide to see how they can participate in Lisa's world - launching a full-scale tiny aircraft attack on Bart in his sleep. Bart warns that he will get revenge for this. Lisa is then shrunken (The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957 / The Incredible Shrinking Woman, 1981 / Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, 1989) down to tiny size inside her own world where she is surrounded in an Emerald city (The Wizard of Oz, 1939) where she is the Queen / God of her tiny city. But they want her to save them from Bart, which she can't do if she's stuck in her Tub and her tiny people haven't invented a machine that can make her Big again.
The third tale begins with Homer just fishing quietly over a lake when he is quickly abducted by aliens (Kodos and Kang) who demand to be "taken to their leader." However, being the last week of October in 1996, Homer gets confused on who the current leader was because the election could make Bob Dole the new Leader. So instead of just kidnapping President Clinton, the aliens kidnap Republican hopeful Dole as well. Their plan is simple, to copy the Presidents, have the humans elect them Supreme Leader of all Earthlings, take over the planet, enslave humankind, and destroy other planets. Not so simple it turns out, is disposing of paranoid Homer who witnesses the whole thing and tries to convince his family and the rest of America that BOTH of their candidate hopefuls are evil space aliens from beyond the stars bent on world domination and conquest of all things human. Well inevitably, Homer is able to expose the aliens, but since they have now disposed of the President AND his opponent, America is clueless on just who will lead them to stop the aliens.
This is another Treehouse of Horror that mainly focuses on science fiction, which again just isn't my cup of tea. So this falls just in 2nd place for my least favorite Treehouse of Horror (from parts 1 through 7) episode. However, it has an edge over part 2 because it's a little more funny and satisfying. And the Siamese Twin tale at the beginning really focuses on a couple of much unseen horror films (and a subgenre of horror where there aren't too many movies) - Brian De Palma's 1973 surreal monster murder mystery Sisters, which is the most obvious influence, and Frank Henenlotter's 1982 cult film Basket Case. This ends up being one of my favorite individual Tales from the Treehouse of Horror series (it even ends up visually referencing an image in the opening of one of Dario Argento's most underrated films, 1984's Phenomena, which features an evil deformed youngster chained to the wall in the exact same way we see here, which we don't see the body of until the very end).
The second tale is very bland though it raises a very good question about God (maybe creation really is an accident or a coincidence), which is technically the only value this tale has. The third tale is very cutesy if you ask me because we don't see any of the political comedy getting as edgy as it has become in future seasons. But at least it's watchable cutesy. It just doesn't amount to much. If anything, it comments accurately on the sort of crowds who would gather to hear political speeches.
