Hello KinderTrauma!
I read the LITTLE NEMO: ADVENTURES IN SLUMBERLAND submission and have another Ray Bradbury kindertrauma: THE HALLOWEEN TREE (1993)!
I didn't find this movie in your archives, although if I missed it and it is, I apologize. I don't remember all that much about the movie (I only watched it once and was terrified) but the thing that I remember (which helped me Google and then Wikipedia it) was that there was a sick boy with freckles (Pip) who had a doppelganger pumpkin. I hated that pumpkin face. In the movie, Pip had to be rushed to the hospital on Halloween, but he appeared to his friends as a sort of ghost and they, thinking he was playing a prank on them, chased this apparition through some woods throughout the movie, and at some point, Ghost Pip acquired a pumpkin with his face.
After reading the description on Wikipedia, it's supposed to be a really nice film about the origins of Halloween. Too bad I could only think of SLEEPY HOLLOW and the pumpkin head and relate this film to that scary story.
— Celeste
I was an adult by the time this animated tv adaptation came out, but I must say I read the book it's based on at least every other Halloween. You can watch the whole animated version on YouTube, though. Here's part one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NqgidFIHw8
Doesn't the theme sound very similar to John William's Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter?
The book is one of my favorite Ray Bradbury works. I have never seen the animation, but I would love to see it in stop-motion like 'Coraline' or 'The Corpse Bride'. The book is charming, chilling and very worth tracking down. You will not forget it.
@godmonster
"I have never seen the animation, but I would love to see it in stop-motion like ‘Coraline’ or ‘The Corpse Bride’."
That's genius. It would lend itself perfectly to that medium.
I've read the book and I watch the movie with my kids every Halloween. I even decorate my own Halloween Tree by hanging the light-up foam Jackolanterns they sell around Halloween. I still haven't found my Pip pumpkin though.