The trailer, which is helpfully subtitled on YouTube for those who find Sandler’s mumbling unintelligible, gives brief glimpses at the numerous stars in this movie. Kevin James and Kenan Thompson are skeptical cops, Steve Buscemi is the new town weirdo, Julie Bowen is the wholesome diner waitress, and Tim Meadows and Maya Rudolph….wear costumes. Oh, and Shaq is there, if only for a second. The trailer makes it clear just how widely mocked and despised Hubie is. Teenagers less than half his age make fun of him, in what is apparently a longstanding Salem tradition. The cops go to every effort to ignore him. Kids pelt him with sweets. A simple haunted house gag induces a round of bedwetting screams for mommy. Hubie’s biggest problem is that he’s a Halloween skeptic in a town known for witchcraft. The mayor of Salem, in the tradition of Larry Vaughn, flat-out refuses to endanger his biggest tourist season despite what quickly reveals itself to be a real, scary threat and not just Hubie’s normal incessant alarm-ringing. What exactly that threat is and how the maligned Hubie goes about addressing it remain unclear, but the smart money is on some combination of his longtime crush, the cops who regret doubting him, and a cast of local characters uniting to help Hubie save Salem. We’ll know for sure in just about a month. Hubie Halloween will premiere on Netflix on October 7.
