After a disagreement between two students in journalism class sparked a class debate, the Scroll staff decided to create a bracket to establish the best Halloween movie of all-time. We sent out polls on Twitter to determine winners of each matchup in our bracket. Our bracket consisted of 32 movies in four divisions, each named after journalism student. We set up the bracket March Madness-style with eight movies seeded best to worst in each division. The four number one seeds were “Halloweentown”, “Ghostbusters”, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”, and “Coraline”.

There were 16 match-ups between 32 teams in the first round. Most match-ups went as predicted, however there were a few upsets. In the Jake division, #5 “Ghostbusters (2016)” defeated #4 “Child’s Play” and #7 “The Addams Family” beat #2 “Beetlejuice”. The biggest upset in the first round was #8 “Scooby-Doo” getting the better of #1 “Ghostbusters (Original)”. Other notable victories included a drubbing of #8 “Wallace & Gromit: The Were-Rabbit” by #1 “Halloweentown” and a surprisingly close win by #2 “Twitches” over #7 “Hotel Transylvania”.

There were fewer surprises in the second round as nearly every higher seed won. The one major upset was #8 “Scooby-Doo Movie” continuing it’s Cinderella story run with a 69-31 win over #4 “Corpse Bride”. The victory set up a quarterfinal matchup with #3 “Scream” which was the other second round upset after a defeat of #2 “Twitches”. The upset that shocked the journalism class came from the Griffin division. The selection committee gave “Monster House” a gift by ranking it at #3. In the second round, “Monster House” exceeded expectations by beating heavy favorite #2 “Nightmare Before Christmas”.

The surprises didn’t cease in the division finals. #3 “Monster House” eked out a win over #1 “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” by a score of 54-46. The one-seed in the Jake division also was defeated as #3 “Hocus Pocus” won 57-43. #8 “Scooby-Doo Movie” continued its Cinderella story run with a commanding 67-33 win over #3 “Scream”. The only one-seed to remain undefeated, #1 “Halloweentown”, continued its dominance with a big win over #3 “Halloween”, 72-28. This set up an unexpected matchup with #8 “Scooby-Doo Movie” in the semifinal. On the other side of the bracket two number three seeds faced off with “Monster House” taking on “Hocus Pocus”.

The semifinals restored hope to the journalism class as both #1 “Halloweentown” and #3 “Hocus Pocus” defeated their respective opponents. The luck seemed to have run out for #8 “Scooby-Doo Movie” as it was defeated by a 20-point margin by “Halloweentown”. In the closest matchup of the tournament, “Hocus Pocus” claimed a victory over “Monster House”. The lead switched between the two movies many times, but “Hocus Pocus” grabbed the lead late and held on for the win.

The final matchup pitted two Halloween superpowers against each other in #1 “Halloweentown” and #3 “Hocus Pocus”. “Halloweentown” had the momentum following a dominant run through the preliminary competition into the semifinals but “Hocus Pocus” looked to dispute it’s low ranking. In the end, “Halloweentown” showed us why it was the highest ranked movie and perennial favorite with a blowout 79-21 victory over “Hocus Pocus”. It is clear that “Halloweentown” is the greatest Halloween movie of all time and will continue to be viewed for years to come.