Everything you’ve heard is true! Michael Dougherty’s long awaited, studio mishandled Trick R’ Treat is the best Halloween Movie to come out in 30 years! How this movie went direct to DVD and is not in theatres right now scaring the crap out of huge audiences is still a mystery. Did the studio really not know how to market this Halloween gem or was there another reason? I doubt we’ll find out anytime soon. But what is clear is that they mishandled one of the most original horror films I’ve seen in years.
By now you probably know that Trick R’ Treat is a horror anthology like Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt by way of Pulp Fiction. Its a simplistic way of describing it but accurate. There are 4 intertwining stories here featuring serial killers, monsters, urban legends, and even people with no Halloween spirit who get their comeuppance. All the stories have the common thread of being in the same small Ohio town on Halloween night with each story affecting the other in some way. Then of course there’s the child like character of “Sam” that makes its appearance in each story as if directing the action.
A lot has already been written about the stories of Trick R’ Treat so I won’t go too far into talking about them other than to say that they all work and work well. Dougherty has crafted a very polished story that gives a fresh take on a horror anthology. The character of Sam that makes an appearance in all the stories is the closest thing the film has to a host but he has his own story where he is the main character as well. The stories themselves look at Halloween from several different age perspectives. There’s the spooky Halloween legend that brings together 5 young trick or treaters, the sexually charged Halloween tale of 4 college girls looking for dates, the middle aged man passing the traditions onto his son and finally the old man who hates Halloween and the demon that comes to torment him.
Trick R’ Treat is a Halloween movie where Halloween is the focus, not something happening in the background while a slasher kills teenagers. The stories all involve the rules of Halloween or the legends surrounding the holiday. I was reminded of being a kid at Halloween and tramping through darkened streets begging for candy dressed as a zombie or ghoul of some kind. There’s something that’s almost magical about Halloween when your a kid and Trick R’ Treat captures it better than any film I’ve ever seen. However don’t be fooled into thinking this is a kids movie because its not! It has violence, buckets of blood, dead kids, and even nudity.
Michael Dougherty, a fellow Ohio native, has created what is slowly becoming a Halloween masterpiece! Beautifully shot and directed by someone who truly loves the holiday, Trick r’ Treat is a Halloween fans wet dream! Now that its been out for a few years on DVD It has become a yearly tradition for me and my household and more importantly it seems to get better with each viewing!
