Skip to content 
I don’t usually review Dutch films aimed at children, but this is a first for everything, and that happened last year. helloThis is a fun family movie with a Halloween theme. I am a big fan of directors Jasper Ten Hoor and Ivan Hidayat, who have made many funny and scary shorts. But could their talents have been applied to a children’s feature film? yes. hello It was a success, selling 90,000 tickets (a lot in the Netherlands) and currently has an IMDb rating of 7.7. Not bad for a debut!
Hey, I really liked it too
The film’s investors were happy enough to allow a sequel, and it is currently showing in Dutch cinemas. halloween overdrive. Security guard Wiebe and his team must once again save the theme park Halloween Happyland. Here’s the giant robot that almost destroyed the park in the previous film’s finale. However, a smaller, sleeker robot is discovered at night and attempts to steal the larger robot. Who is behind this threat? The first film’s villain, evil billionaire Sam Hayne, is imprisoned and unable to create this new opponent who is faster, stronger, and seemingly has no weaknesses. Can Wiebe and his team stop the theft? Perhaps more importantly, will Wieby be able to handle his ego, which has ballooned to epic proportions following the success of the first film?
In my opinion, halloween overdrive It’s a better movie, better pacing, funnier and the language puns and money shots really made it popular. The cast is game, with everyone from the first film reprising their roles. Duncan Meijerling is Wiebe. There’s much less reason to like him this time around, but he’s often funny and moves the plot forward. Wendy Ruijfrok plays Jenny, the smart assistant who constantly saves the world, and even Max van Kreij returns as the now imprisoned Sam Haine. silence of the lambs. If you liked the first movie, I would definitely recommend this one. But I can’t review this movie, so don’t take my word for it.
Why can’t I review movies? Because I am in it. Yes, in some scenes halloween overdriveA group of journalists can be seen chasing people for interviews. Most of that group is made up of actual journalists, many of whom reviewed the first film, myself included. As fun as it was (and probably my first screen acting credit), I can’t review in good faith a film I was a part of, even if I only get to see a few seconds of it. But what I can do is tell you a little about a day on set.
The actual theme park that serves as Halloween Happy Land is called Toverland and has some pretty cool roller coasters. One of them is made of wood, and regulations require you to regularly remove the rails, check the wood underneath, and then reattach the rails. The park was closed on the day of the incident, allowing the production crew to use it for daytime filming for the film, using extras instead of visitors. It also meant you couldn’t have it all, although the air was filled with the sounds of hardcore woodworking high above throughout the day. The production had such beautiful, sunny weather that day and it was worth all the uncomfortable sounds.
So on March 3rd of this year, I got in my car and picked up a few colleagues from various points in the Netherlands and drove far to the southeast. There we were given instructions on where to stand and who to badger. At one time or another, we all had to deal with actress Iris Van Geffen, who plays the manager of Halloween Happy Land. Several shots were taken and each time we got more excited, until director Jasper Ten Hoor asked us to tone it down a bit because this was a children’s film, so we kept walking between Iris and the cameraman, keeping her out of focus. So in the next shot, we all ran towards Iris and shouted questions. But since Iris was moving forward and the cameraman was behind her, we all had to run backwards after we got to Iris. I guess this isn’t my talent because I stumbled in the crowd. Jasper said my impromptu stunt was unfortunately not captured on camera. “…but we all know it happened!” Oh well…
Luckily for the second shot I didn’t have to run backwards. We broke into small groups and interviewed individual members of Wiebe’s team. This was fun because our questions were not scripted and we were allowed to make the actors laugh. The atmosphere was great throughout the day, the Toberland Park staff were very friendly and the food was good, as is the first rule of a low budget film set.
Directors Jasper Ten Hoor and Ivan Hidayat, both genre fanatics, also provided a bit of trivia. halloween overdrive It’s full of verbal jokes and movie references. Some are obvious, some are obscure, and this extends to the props we receive. Below are pictures of some of the laptops, cameras and microphones we have. The microphones all had station names on them from horror movies, and we spent a lot of time waiting to find out which movie it was from. Some were pretty vague! I am giving it to you as a gift because “Schokkend Nieuws” is a Dutch genre film magazine. But everything else is from another movie!
This concludes my field report.
halloween overdrive It is currently showing in Dutch cinemas and is the first hello It is available on Amazon Prime in select regions.
