This is the one that started it all and has become a once-a-year tradition for the show. It's understandable why people were blown away by this, Halloween episodes for sitcoms and other TV shows were commonplace. But here it's different as this episode was a horror comedy anthology which was great because it meant creative freedom in storytelling but also, they wouldn't have to worry about continuity as each of the tales despite being in the "Simpsons" universe were all fiction from them. Each of the tales are memorable and like any good horror tale still spooky fun to this day.
Dead House: This is one of my personal favorites in "Treehouse of Horror" tales. It's pretty much a parody on "The Amityville Horror", "Poltergeist" and many other haunted house films you can think off. Not much to this one as it's the simple Haunted House formula only it's The Simpsons under the haunted roof. It's funny how there are certain things happening but one member or another is too oblivious to notice mainly Marge. There a dryly funny moment when it looks like Marge might do something horrific but then it turns to something else.
I really like how the tale is both spooky and funny at the same time, along with some of the other tales. One moment that creepy and blackly funny is when we see each of the Simpsons members (except for Marge for some reason), all of them get unhinged by the home's demonic influence and each have a weapon to kill each other with. It's blackly funny as we see Bart, Lisa, Homer and Maggie are trying to kill one another but are very unsuccessful as their each moving very slowly in probably the slowest game of ring around the rosy, I've ever seen.
"Hungry are the Damned" is a sold tale, it's a parody on "The Twilight Zone" tale, "To Serve Man" not a whole lot I can say, this is the first interaction "The Simpsons" have with the Space Mutants. There are a lot of funny moments like the first abduction and their having a hard time picking Homer up which shows some advantage to being heavy. But like I said some, this doesn't last. And even a moment where the mutants introduce the Pong game, which is dryly funny, despite their advanced technology they're not quite up to the times of ours. Really like the twist ending in the episode which is funny as it's a parody on the concept of twist endings.
The Raven: This tale is another honorable mention in my book; as a kid I knew about Edger Allen Poe and the poem, which made this tale even more surprising made me wonder how the heck could you make a comedic take on an old gothic poem; well knowing the show there is always a way. I really like the ongoing narration from James Earl Jones, as usual he has that golden booming deep voice, really like that he does it with unwavering seriousness which is how the poem should be and it really adds a spooky flare to the tale especially at the end which has that ominous sinisterness.
The humor is visual, and it works well as it's sort of almost like a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon as it's mainly Homer trying to simply kill this Bart Raven. One favorite visual gag for me is the Edger Allen Poe reference joke which I thought was a nice touch.
So, see where it all started and Happy Halloween.
Rating: 4 stars.
