Trick ‘r’ Treat

Okay, somebody answer this question for me.

Why on Earth does Trick ‘r’ Treat get shelved for two years and then dumped on video after some brief festival circuit runs and yet stuff like Prom Night, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, The Hills Have Eyes 2, Saw V: The Revenge of Costas Mandylor, Saw 6: Mandylor Strikes Back, Saw VI: Mandylor’s Big Score, all of Platinum Dunes crap-tastic output and both of Rob Zombie’s HELL-YEAH!-Oweens get theatrical releases?

Someone explain. Cruel fate? Whims of a callous god? Moronic studio politics that are tied to the disappointing box office returns of Superman Returns which both producer Bryan Singer and writer / director Michael Dougherty worked on? Whatever the stupid reason, it’s an absolute travesty. Trick ‘r’ Treat is a great movie that deserved a wider audience than it will probably find being dropped on video.

For those of you unfamiliar with the film, Trick ‘r’ Treat is a horror anthology in the vein of Creepshow but structured in a unique way. Rather than divided into specific segments, the stories run parallel to one another. One is the story of a murderous school principal (Dylan Baker) who is trying to hide a body. Another deals with a young girl (Anna Paquin) trying to find that special someone to lose her virginity to. The third deals with some kids using the town’s urban legend to play a prank on a classmate (that never goes well) and the final is sort of a Halloween twist on A Christmas Carol, where mean old Mr. Kreeg (Brian Cox) gets a visit from the mysterious Sam, a creepy little urchin in a burlap mask. Trick ‘r’ Treat plays around with the timeline a good bit, moving back and forth to different points during the night and intertwining scenes between the stories. Characters from one appear in another, throwaway lines in one story paying off elsewhere and character who live through one story meet their fate in another. It leads to a lot of Pulp Fiction-style “Hey, I remember that!” moments. I can’t wait to watch it again just to see if I can catch any that I missed on my first viewing.

Granted, Trick ‘r’ Treat’s stories aren’t particularly original. EC Comics morality is out in full force and you can probably guess the big twists to each of the stories pretty easily. (Though they do come up with clever way to tie the stories together.) But a story does not have to be original as long as it is executed well and such is the case here. Writer / director Michael Dougherty admits that he is an absolute geek for Halloween and loves playing ghoulish pranks on people and boy, does this ever show in this movie.

For starters, this movie looks like the most awesome Halloween night ever. From the colorful parade that opens the movie to an absolutely eerie dream-like flashback about the fate of a bus full of children to Mr. Kreeg’s discovery of some graffiti Sam left him, it’s filled with some absolutely amazing imagery that will stick with you long after the credits roll. I almost wish I got the DVD instead of the Blu-Ray so I could take some screencaps and show you my favorite shots. It manages to be eerie and haunting without being dark and dreary, bright and colorful without being tacky. Like I said, it looks like Halloween.

That carries over to the tone of the film. On one hand, there are some moments that are genuinely funny, like when a trio of kids stumble onto a rather…um…”interesting” party at a teacher’s house. On the other hand, there’s no safety net in this movie. Innocent people get it just as bad as the guilty and there’s a surprisingly high number of kids getting killed in this movie. However, like a good Halloween prank, it manages to be nasty without ever being mean-spirited and never does it lose its sense of fun.

Finally, there’s the cast. They pull off their roles quite well. Dylan Baker is great as a character that’s basically Ward Cleaver turned psycho killer (ques ques say, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better), Samm Todd does a good job making her prank victim sympathetic enough that you completely understand and maybe even agree with her actions later on in her story, Brian Cox is great as the cantankerous old Mr. Kreeg and Anna Paquin is…Anna Paquin, but hey, she’s in a corset. However, the real standout here is 7-year old Quinn Lord, who plays the mischievous demon Sam. From his simple yet effective design to Lord’s performance (If this movie is any indication, then this kid is going to have one helluva career as an in-the-suit performer), Sam manages to come across as both a child-like innocent and creepy as all hell. I am not spouting off hyperbole when I say that Sam could go on to be a horror icon…or would have, had the studios not screwed this movie’s release right up the *RADIO EDIT*. They also spoil what he looks like without his mask on the cover of the Blu-Ray case. Thanks, Warner Bros.

I had a lot of fun with this movie. The makers of Trick 'r' Treat went out of their way to evoke the feel of an 80's horror movie and they were pretty successful. The mixture of laughs and scares, the heavy reliance on practical effects and the fact that anyone can get it at any moment all went a long wake to really evoking the feel of the movies I grew up watching. When it was over, I wanted a sequel. In the features on the Blu-Ray, Dougherty talks about a scene that never made it into the movie which featured Sam encountering a preacher who gave him pennies instead of treats. I want a sequel just for that scene.

In a lot of ways, Trick ‘r’ Treat is like visiting a really good haunted house. It’s everything you love about the season all in one package and even if you know what’s coming, you’ll still jump and scream and laugh and leave with a big smile on your face.

Also, they totally take a shot at the Friday the 13th remake on the commentary track.

Spoiler?:
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Every reviewer I've read mentions 'a lot of kids killed in this movie'...
Unless you include the flashback, the onscreen child body count isn't that high...

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End Spoiler


Otherwise I agree with you - a great movie. By no means the be all end all of horror - It's not scary in the least. Especially if you've seen Creepshow or Tales From the Crypt. But it a lot of fun.

On the one hand I can see why it got pulled from a theatrical release - It didn't feel complete - not coherent enough.

On the other hand - as you mentioned why did this not even get a timely DVD release, but Prom Night, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, The Hills Have Eyes 2 got shoved out into theaters...

Bad studio, bad...

I'd recommend this for people who liked Creepshow, but wanted less of that pesky Stephen King...

I really dug this movie (patiently waiting for my Blu-ray copy to arrive from Amazon) and also have no idea why it got shelved. If the rumor is true that Warner Brothers were worried that a film produced and written by the Superman Returns guys may not perform to expectations, well that just proves executives are morons. Sadly even Blockbuster seems to have morons involved as we got only four rental copies.

Dear Trick R Treat,

I love you.

Your Pal,

Quiz Kid Donnie Smith

I thought this was aggressively mediocre, myself. Only the Brian Cox story really interested me much; the Dylan Baker stuff was just poorly thought out, and the kids in the rock quarry was pointlessly predictable. Haven't started the review yet for the AV Club, but right now I'm in the C/C+ range. Nice as it is to have supernatural horror that's competently made, I'm not willing to excuse some really tedious and cheesy storytelling.

Also

SPOILERS

There are 6 kids murdered over the course of the film. You can get picky about "on-screen" stuff, but the four kids in the quarry all clearly die horribly, plus the two Baker murders. That's a lot.

If you count the kids on the bus, it becomes 14, I believe. The bus flashback was the creepiest. The costumes on those kids were more disturbing than anything else.

Yeah, I just didn't count them because Charnelhouse wasn't, but it was a pretty good sequence.

The bus costumes were incredibly creepy. Especially the one that was just a paper bag with a grimacing face on it. The way the mouth and teeth were drawn on there...buh.
While I agree with Marlowe that it was extremely predictable, I loved it anyway. It looked great, it was loads of fun, and only one use of gratuitous crappy CGI! The werewolves were cool as hell, and that was one of the more unique transformations I've seen.
Sam creeped me right out. Definitely going to be purchasing this one.

I just finished watching this, and Marlowe pretty much echoes my thoughts.