Warner and DC Entertainment continue to have a strong game with their animated feature films. They have been bringing some iconic stories to life including The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Returns. Now they are taking their two film release of The Long Halloween and bringing them back to the fans now as one epic film with Batman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition, but does it do the famed series from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale justice or will it be a holiday not worth celebrating?

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Batman: The Long Halloween follows a brutal murder on Halloween that prompts Gotham’s young vigilante, the Batman, to form a pact with the city’s only two uncorrupt lawmen (Police Captain James Gordan and District Attorney Harvey Dent) in order to take down The Roman, head of the notorious and powerful Falcone Crime Family. But when more deaths occur on Thanksgiving and Christmas, it becomes clear that, instead of ordinary gang violence, they’re also dealing with a serial killer – the identity of whom, with each conflicting clue, grows harder to discern. Few cases have ever tested the wits of the World’s Greatest Detective like the mystery behind the Holiday Killer all while also dealing with Batman’s famed rogue’s gallery including Poison Ivy, Tw-Face, Joker and more.

I was a bit bummed the art style wasn’t closer to something honoring Sale’s work, but it still works and in the second half of the film it felt like it might have found some more of its style. It is similar to the main animated Universe they have been doing with its own twist and stands out just enough to still do the story justice. It offers up some elements that were very Hitchcock like in their framing to help create more of the mystery of the murders and trying to figure out who Holiday is while still infusing some action to keep the story moving. You have to know the original series