Memes continuously riff on the largest Halloween store pop-up rising yearly in the remnants of vacant retail space. That long closed and abandoned Sears? Prime real estate for a Spirit Halloween come September, only to empty once more in November. It’s this precise concept in which Spirit Halloween: The Movie sets its premise, creating a novelty, family-friendly Halloween tale that’s more likely to inspire a shopping trip than anything else.

A prologue in the past explains the town legend of Alex Windsor (Christopher Lloyd), a greedy man turned restless spirit (get it?) in search of a corporal host. Cut to the present, where friends Jake (Donovan Colan), Bo (Jaiden J. Smith), and Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel) make plans for Halloween night. Jake’s mood sours when he realizes that his friends announce that they’ve outgrown their annual trick-or-treating tradition. It gets even worse when mom, Sue (Rachael Leigh Cook), allows his younger sister to add princesses to their spooky yard décor. Jake attempts to turn his rough Halloween around by convincing pals to sneak in and stay overnight at a new pop-up Halloween store in a desolate part of town.

Enter the angry ghost of Alex Windsor, who possesses the store’s animatronics in pursuit of a new body.

Written by Billie Bates and directed by David Poag, Spirit serves as an effective showcase of the store’s catalog. The animatronics provide the bulk of the threat as the floating blue ghost ball pops into various animatronic props, like Buzzsaw, which you can buy at the actual Spirit store now. The middle school boys use some toys and merch to aid their escape from Alex. Spirit never fully utilizes its store setting to its advantage, though. The feature opts to spotlight only a handful of items in what amounts to an endless chase between the boys and a ghostly villain instead of using the setup to build an atmosphere or a haunted funhouse feel.

That slight quality extends to the narrative, too. It’s a simple tale of a boy coming to terms with growing older, therefore farther removed from childhood memories with his deceased dad. Spirit doesn’t entirely rectify Jake’s current ghostly predicament with his coming-of-age arc, nor does it get too in-depth with any introduced plot details. Cook efficiently portrays the dutiful and concerned mom, and Marissa Reyes injects needed energy in the back half as Bo’s older sister. While Lloyd brings some entertaining voice work, don’t expect to see much of him.

Jake and his pals follow the formula in their quest for holiday fun at that awkward transitionary point in their lives. It plays out as expected, perhaps even more so with how much restraint gets employed in the spooky hijinks. Despite Alex Windsor having an entire store at his disposal, he never feels like much of a threat.  

The town setting captures the quintessential fall aesthetic, and Andy Kugler’s cinematography gives this feature a surprisingly polished look. Well, save for an ineffectual climactic set piece that serves as the battleground for the showdown. Overall, Spirit makes for a well-produced, easily digestible Halloween movie, though one that doesn’t quite set itself apart from the rest outside of its Halloween store connection. What is on display makes for a breezy enough time while it lasts, but it’s not the story or its characters that linger in mind once those end credits hit; it’s the items that’ll fill up your Spirit Halloween wish lists.

Spirit Halloween: The Movie releases in limited theaters on September 30, followed by a VOD release on October 11.