The 32nd annual Simpsons Halloween anthology special.
This year's segments include:
Barti: Barti and his mother are chased by a hunter, but both end up okay thanks to Barti's father killing the hunter.
Bong Joon-ho's This Side of Parasite: The poor Simpsons family live in a flooding basement apartment until Bart gets a job tutoring at Rainer Wolfcastle's manor.
Nightmare on Elm Tree: All the trees in Springfield come to life and get revenge on the residents.
Poetic Interlude: The story of "The Telltale Bart" about how Bart spent an entire year doing mischief and other bad things.
Dead Ringer: Lisa must stop a TikTok video that will kill whoever watches it in seven days.
Tropes:
- Formula-Breaking Episode: There are now five horror stories instead of the usual three. One of the segments even references this.
- Halloween Episode: The one for Season 33.
Barti
- Ascended to Carnivorism: The Great Prince of the Forest (Homer) and Deer!Lenny end up this, tearing into the hunter (Burns) at the end.
- Boom, Headshot!: Milhouse (as Thumper) gets his head shot off by the hunter.
- Death by Adaptation: Thumper (Milhouse) is killed by the hunter in this version, while he survived till the end of the story in the original version. Same goes for Friend Owl (Professor Frink).
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Hunter is killed courtesy of being stabbed by the Great Prince's antlers.
- Lyrical Dissonance: A Disney-esque song plays, which includes lyrics about how parents always die.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In this version, Bambi's mother (Marge) survives because the Great Prince of the Forest (Homer) got to the hunter (Mr. Burns) first.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Bambi.
Bong Joon-ho's This Side of Parasite
- The Bus Came Back: Greta Wolfcastle makes an appearance here, after not having been seen since a cameo in Season 18.
- Eat the Rich: Mr. Burns is murdered by the mob during the climax.
- Human Resources: Homer uses the corpses of the squatters to build a play structure for Maggie.
- Hypocritical Humor: Kurt accuses the Simpsons of being "parasites" due to Homer taking his job, even though he and his family are literally squatting in their former employers basement. Bart even lampshades it.
- Mythology Gag: The Simpsons have a box of Mr. Sparkle in their old home.
- Shout-Out: The Itchy & Scratchy Show episode "D'oh Piercer" is a reference to the movie Snowpiercer, which was also directed by Bong Joon-ho.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Lisa tries to stop the squatters fighting by telling them that they can make a better society through solidarity rather than struggle for the scraps of the rich. It almost works... until Moe asks if it would count as socialism, and when Lisa admits there are some similiarities, the mob decides they'd rather kill each other than be Dirty Communists.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Parasite (2019).
Nightmare on Elm Tree
- Chainsaw Good: Exaggerated when Groundskeeper Willie comes to help, he is not only Dual Wielding chainsaws, but is also on roller skates with buzzsaws attached to them.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: The treehouse tree came to life thanks to a bolt of lightning.
- Mythology Gag: The short begins with Bart telling scary stories in a treehouse with Lisa and Maggie (and Milhouse), just like in the first Treehouse of Horror.
- Not So Stoic: Lisa and Maggie getting scared off by Bart's story in the beginning. The former has adult-like intelligence as her defining character trait and the latter has shown shades of being a Brainy Baby time and again. Yet, that particular moment reminds us that they're still little girls at the end of the day.
- Papa Wolf: Incensed by his daughters frightened by the scary story Bart told them, Homer tries to chop the treehouse down, kicking off the plot of the segment.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title references A Nightmare on Elm Street.
- Recycled Title: It's also the second Treehouse of Horror segment whose title alludes to that film, after "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace" from Treehouse of Horror VI.
- Self-Deprecation: Homer complains about the Treehouses of Horror, remarking "Two good ones and a lame one in the middle". This is the middle one, including and excluding the opening and interlude.
- Sole Survivor: Homer is the only human character confirmed to make it to the end of the segment alive.
- Shout-Out: A tree eats a kite... along with Ralph.
- Among the tree army are Treebeard, The Giving Tree, the Stanford University logo, and Audrey II.
- Pinhead, Cruella de Vil, and Maleficent can be seen on Burns's family tree.
- When the treehouse comes across the drive-in, he complains about its patrons laughing at Groot.
- The news broadcast titles the attacking tree incident as Splinter Cell.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Homer's attempt to chop down the Evergreen Terrace tree is what incites the whole tree uprising.
- When Trees Attack: The trees of Springfield get their revenge, led by the tree of the 742 Evergreen Terrace backyard.
Poetic Interlude
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The entire poem details shenanigans Bart would get up to in a typical episode of the show, such as putting worms in Homer's food, photocopying his butt, and unscrewing the swings at the playground, until November, when he beheads his entire family.
- Cheek Copy: Bart creates "nude butt faxes" on a photocopier during the month of April.
- Call-Back: Bart catfishes Mrs. Krabappel like he did in Bart the Lover. She even holds a picture of "Woodrow".
- The entire segment is a call back to "A Simpsons 'Show's Too Short' Story" from season 23's The Dohcial Network, which also had a Vincent Price-esque narrator tell a story about Bart's mischief in the style of Edward Gorey.
- Green Around the Gills: In October, on Halloween, Bart eats candy till he's green.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In August, Bart attempts to burn a turtle using a Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass, but the turtles shell reflects the sunbeams back at Bart, setting his hair on fire.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The narrator is a caricature of Vincent Price.
- Off with His Head!: Bart decapitates the entire family on Thanksgiving. Earlier, in July, he decapitaters Lisa's dolls.
- Setting Update: The Call-Back to "Bart the Lover," a 1992 episode where Bart answered a personal ad placed by Edna and started corresponding with her as an Invented Individual who he depicted using a snapshot of NHL player Gordie Howe. Here it's changed to the modern equivalent: catfishing her on Tinder.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Bart steals a car in May, drinks beer in June, and then kills his whole family in November. At the end of the short, Maggie strangles the Narrator.
- The Un-Reveal: Maggie kills the narrator before we find out what Bart did in December.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To the books of Edward Gorey, particularly The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
- Writing Lines: In September, Bart writes "I hate rhyming couplets" on the chalkboard.
Dead Ringer
- Accidental Misnaming: Ralph calls Sherri and Terri "Jerry and Larry" after he kills them.
- Accidental Murder: Ralph accidentally decapitates Sherri and Terri whilst he's playing on the swing.
- Continuity Nod: The killer Stanford University logo from the previous segment "Nightmare on Elm Tree" appears in the background.
- Driven to Suicide: Mopey Mary dies in her backstory by jumping into the well willingly after being bullied so much. Happens again at the end when Mary gets sick of Lisa trying to make her her best friend and her saxophone music irritating her enough to jump down into the well.
- Face Death with Dignity: After being told that he’ll die within seven days of watching the TikTok, Grandpa says “that’s three more than the doctor gave me.”
- Get It Over With: When Lisa gets the call that says she will die in seven days, Lisa dares the caller to kill her now. The voice in the other end makes excuses before agreeing.
- Kids Are Cruel: In Mopey Mary's backstory, her classmates gave her a valentine made of rabbit droppings. Willie even says as such.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Sherri and Terri throw a party, inviting all the kids except Lisa, where they all (except Bart) watch a video that kills its viewers in seven days. As a result, all the kids except Lisa and Bart were killed by watching the video at the party that Lisa was deliberately excluded from.
- Off with Her Head!: Sherri and Terri accidentally get decapitated by Ralph on the swing.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Mopey Mary.
- Take That!: While watching the deadly TikTok video, Grampa sees maggots at one point. He then says "No, that's an ad for Chipotle."
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Lisa winds up being so annoying as a best friend that Mopey Mary throws herself back down the well she came from again.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Mopey Mary gets easily irritated by Lisa and is Driven to Suicide out of frustration, despite Lisa's well-meaning acts to make her feel fine around others.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Ring.
