Every Halloween, the ghost of The Palza's most legendary and outrageous inhabitant of old, Diamond Jim Johnson, returns to haunt the halls. But when the hotel's most famous 6 year-old girl, Eloise, encounters this frightening phantom, nobody believes her story of old-time spooks with larger than life appetites. When eeire sights and sounds begin to spook the hotel guests, will Eloise herself now be accused of scaring The Plaza's guests? Eloise decides to launch her own supernatural investigation! There are tricks and treats galore in store when Eloise busts some ghosts, reverses a curse and even saves the hotel from real monsters in the most unusual Halloween Adventure ever!
Between the candy, costumes and creepy decorations, what's not to love about Halloween as a child? Eloise discovers that it's not all fun and games, however, when the hotel becomes haunted by both a lovable spirit and a few shady businessmen pretending to be ghosts. Brave kids age four and up will love Eloise's attempts to solve this slightly spooky mystery. Typical Halloween events, such as bobbing for apples and eating pumpkin pancakes, intermingle with a swinging ghost party and a hilariously possessed roasted chicken throwing mashed potatoes at a diner will keep kids entertained throughout the film.
Since the main themes of this DVD are being brave and standing up for your beliefs, kids can learn some valuable lessons. Eloise demonstrates her bravery in confronting an amiable ghost who only wants to have fun and proves to be persistent in proving to her friends and the hotel staff that she's not making up the haunting. She throws in a good anti-smoking message, too, when she tells the century-old, cigar-smoking ghost that tobacco is bad for your health before replacing the cigar with a lollipop. The mystery set up is fun and lets kids follow along and try to figure out the culprits of the non-ghost related haunting.
Although five-year-old Ava, who I occasionally babysit, was a little spooked at first, she decided to try to watch the video and ended up loving it. At the end, she turned to me and said, "He's kind of a nice ghost after all."
--Abby