Warning: Spoilers ahead for Hubie Halloween!
Netflix's Hubie Halloween stars Adam Sandler in the lead role, but the new movie also features a surprise cameo by Ben Stiller in his classic Happy Gilmore role. The new horror-comedy was directed by Steven Brill, but it was written and produced by Sandler under his Happy Madison Productions banner. To date, Hubie Halloween marks Sandler's sixth collaboration with Netflix, and to no surprise, it includes many of his Hollywood friends and commonly seen so-stars.
Hubie Halloween follows a Salem resident who makes an effort to monitor his fellow townspeople so they have a safe Halloween holiday each and every year. Despite his good-nature, Hubie is viewed as the town weirdo, making him a constant target for bullying. When Salem citizens start to go missing while an escaped mental patient is on the loose, Hubie tries to convince others of the existing danger before Hubie has to stop the threats on his own.
The very first scene of Hubie Halloween sets up the impending chaos by focusing on the Westford State Mental Hospital on a dark and stormy night. While walking the corridors, a new attendant goes to check in on a patient, Richie Hartman. The attendant happens to be Hal L., a character that first appeared in 1996's Happy Gilmore as the sadistic nurse that worked at the nursing home that housed the grandmother of Sandler's character. Stiller reprises his classic role with the same threatening demeanor only to find his patient has escaped out of the window before shouting, "psycho on the loose!" into his walkie-talkie. Though Stiller's minor appearance is a treat to longtime Sandler movie fans, it's just the start of a movie jam-packed with familiar faces.
Aside from Stiller, Happy Gilmore actress Julie Bowen appears in Hubie Halloween, but in a much larger capacity. The Modern Family star plays Violet Valentine, an old classmate of Hubie's who holds somewhat of a crush on him. Bowen previously served as Sandler's love interest, Virginia Venit, in Happy Gilmore when she portrayed the PR director for the professional golf tour. Despite Bowen playing an original character, Violet's name and initials are an obvious callback to her past as Virginia in the '90s comedy.
Actors don't usually reprise their characters throughout multiple Sandler movies in the same way they do in Kevin Smith's View Askiewniverse, making Stiller's Hubie Halloween cameo even more special. Seeing as Hal worked as an orderly in the New England area, it's plausible to believe he eventually found a job in a mental hospital near Salem. Despite the fact that over two decades have passed, Hal never gave up his iconic handlebar mustache. His new job also fittingly requires the same blue orderly uniform. Some things never change in the Happy Madison fictional universe.