‘Treehouse of Horror’ is a 29-year old tradition for the Simpson family, but that well of experience isn’t showing in the latest effort. “Treehouse of Horror XXIX’ offers an eating contest with Cthulu, a Body Snatchers tribute, a belated Split parody, and a spoof of Jurassic Park. It completely abandons the wrap-around format and skews away from the bolder genre tones of early episodes, so it never manages to feel properly horrific. That’s not to mention this was the 666th episode of the series and they did nothing with that. The first segment ends on a flat criticism of phone usage, the second only shines when it comes to Yeardley Smith’s voice work, and the third is just there. It’s not a particularly clever or subversive episode, and fails to live up to what these episodes have been before.
