Trick 'r Treat
What is it about Halloween that piques people's interest in creepy, supernatural scares, and all the varied rituals? Perhaps it is an inner desire to indulge in the silliness and extravagance that comes with the abnormal and absurd--people in crazy costumes, monsters jumping out at you, and an excess of candy. Trick 'r Treat is a horror film that showcases five interweaving stories on All Hallow's Eve in the noisiest of quiet towns--Warren Valley, Ohio--as grim and grisly fates befall several of its denizens in the midst of their revelry...all while a sinister imp named "Sam" (Quinn Lord) looks on, and occasionally participates in the carnage.
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Trick 'r Treat is an anthology horror film, reminiscent of films from the Seventies and Eighties like Creepshow or Cat's Eye; it also shares tropes similar to Scream, which revitalized interest in "jump-out-at-you" scary movies like this one. Although Trick 'r Treat only enjoyed limited public release in theaters when it debuted in 2007, it has since become a "cult hit"--an homage to classic slasher and horror films and infused with a healthy dose of camp. Like Scream, Trick 'r Treat opens with a prologue featuring a young couple--Emma (Leslie Bibb) and Henry (Tahmoh Penikett)--returning from the parade and debating whether to take down their Halloween decorations early. The scene is deliberately framed to recall John Carpenter's slasher classic, Halloween, notably in how the burlap-encased Sam peeps on them from among the ghoulish decorations. Many of the episodes and characters in Trick 'r Treat intersect in their paths during their respective celebrations. Being an anthology film, and running at a svelte eighty-five minutes, the action tends to move fast in Trick 'r Treat and characters are depicted in broad strokes--although assorted twists and turns occasionally subvert this. As such, Trick 'r Treat hinges on the audience attributing characteristics to them based on some superficial elements. When a quartet of promiscuous women in Disney princess costumes and push-up bras emerge from the dressing rooms at a costume shop--miraculously busy during the Halloween party--the audience immediately makes assumptions about them from their appearance and dialogue. Laurie (Anna Paquin) is unique among this group; dressed in her Little Red Riding Hood costume, she comes across as a shy girl who is self-conscious about still being a virgin, while her big sister, Danielle (Lauren Lee Smith), coaxes her to overcome her insecurities. A mild-mannered school principal named Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker) is revealed to be a psychopath with repressed anger issues after he appears to share a heart-to-heart with an ill-mannered chubby kid. His neighbor, known as "Mr. Kreeg" (Brian Cox), is a sour old man, and is essentially the "Ebenezer Scrooge" of Halloween, willing to spook would-be trick-or-treaters with his dog, Spike, so he can claim their candy for himself. Even a group of superficially wholesome trick-or-treaters are going around gathering jack o' lanterns, while recruiting an autistic girl named Rhonda (Samm Todd) to come with them for a ritual at the abandoned rock quarry. The chronology of these events is not exact, and some characters from one plot thread weave into the others on this night where, as Rhonda puts it, the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest.
Trick 'r Treat thrives on its camp appeal, and showers the audience with a rapid array of shocks and scares--monsters lurking in the dark waiting to jump out, or some mysterious figure lurking behind a white sheet. Although the language is mostly on the mild side, there are lots of mature situations and gory scenes that make Trick 'r Treat the kind of film that is meant to make you jump and wince in equal measure at the moments of horror. Trick 'r Treat was the directorial debut of Michael Dougherty (who also writes the film), and who would later bring this aesthetic of horror and black comedy into the film, Krampus. Trick 'r Treat opens with a comic book-styled title sequence--later revisited in the ending credits--employing comic book-like titles for scene transitions and cutaways. This is a nod to the horror titles published by EC Comics--like "Tales from the Crypt"--which inspired not just Trick 'r Treat, but the films which in turn inspired this film. Dougherty has also worked alongside Bryan Singer (who produces Trick 'r Treat) on other comic book movies, like Superman Returns and X2. Part of the enjoyment of Trick 'r Treat comes from the audience's gut reaction to watching the dire events unfold, knowing that the often unlikable creeps in each episode will be forced to pay for being the jerks that they are, or wanting to shout at the screen "look out behind you" or "don't go in there", heightened by the short running time and scares-per-minute speed of Trick 'r Treat. Trick 'r Treat maintains a comic book sensibility, where style is emphasized over continuity or plausibility. Consider the scene where one of the trick-or-treaters, Macy (Britt McKillip), recalls a scary story about a "Halloween school bus massacre", which ostensibly resulted in a bus full of maladjusted children hurtling down into the watery depths at the bottom of the rock quarry. Macy claims that the bus sank so deep that it could not be found; when Rhonda goes to investigate scary sounds of the other children screaming, the same bus is clearly visible, with its front pointed up at the sky like it were a rusted tombstone. Even the climax of the "Surprise Party" plot has a goth rock music video aesthetic to it, with lots of rapid cutaways and a mix of sexy and terrifying action, all to the tune of Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams", speaking to the campy black comedy-infused horror at the core of Trick 'r Treat.
Recommended for: Fans of a stylized and rapid-fire anthology horror film that infuses comic book aesthetics with nods to slasher films and nostalgia. Trick 'r Treat is rarely subtle and is often over the top, but it wears its costume of fast-paced and even silly horror with pride.
Trick 'r Treat thrives on its camp appeal, and showers the audience with a rapid array of shocks and scares--monsters lurking in the dark waiting to jump out, or some mysterious figure lurking behind a white sheet. Although the language is mostly on the mild side, there are lots of mature situations and gory scenes that make Trick 'r Treat the kind of film that is meant to make you jump and wince in equal measure at the moments of horror. Trick 'r Treat was the directorial debut of Michael Dougherty (who also writes the film), and who would later bring this aesthetic of horror and black comedy into the film, Krampus. Trick 'r Treat opens with a comic book-styled title sequence--later revisited in the ending credits--employing comic book-like titles for scene transitions and cutaways. This is a nod to the horror titles published by EC Comics--like "Tales from the Crypt"--which inspired not just Trick 'r Treat, but the films which in turn inspired this film. Dougherty has also worked alongside Bryan Singer (who produces Trick 'r Treat) on other comic book movies, like Superman Returns and X2. Part of the enjoyment of Trick 'r Treat comes from the audience's gut reaction to watching the dire events unfold, knowing that the often unlikable creeps in each episode will be forced to pay for being the jerks that they are, or wanting to shout at the screen "look out behind you" or "don't go in there", heightened by the short running time and scares-per-minute speed of Trick 'r Treat. Trick 'r Treat maintains a comic book sensibility, where style is emphasized over continuity or plausibility. Consider the scene where one of the trick-or-treaters, Macy (Britt McKillip), recalls a scary story about a "Halloween school bus massacre", which ostensibly resulted in a bus full of maladjusted children hurtling down into the watery depths at the bottom of the rock quarry. Macy claims that the bus sank so deep that it could not be found; when Rhonda goes to investigate scary sounds of the other children screaming, the same bus is clearly visible, with its front pointed up at the sky like it were a rusted tombstone. Even the climax of the "Surprise Party" plot has a goth rock music video aesthetic to it, with lots of rapid cutaways and a mix of sexy and terrifying action, all to the tune of Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams", speaking to the campy black comedy-infused horror at the core of Trick 'r Treat.
Recommended for: Fans of a stylized and rapid-fire anthology horror film that infuses comic book aesthetics with nods to slasher films and nostalgia. Trick 'r Treat is rarely subtle and is often over the top, but it wears its costume of fast-paced and even silly horror with pride.