MIKE: Hey, Max! I've got a couple of movies we can watch tonight.
MAX: Oh, really? What have you got? Something Halloween appropriate?
MIKE: Of course! We can watch Trick'r Treat...
MAX: Yeah that sounds like it would be a good pick for the month of Halloween...
MIKE: ...or--wait for it--It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
MIKE: Whatcha think?
MAX: What? CHARLIE BROWN IS AN ASSHOLE.
MIKE: Trick'r Treat it is. Roll it!
MAX: Trick 'r Treat (2007) is a fun, anthology horror movie that may be a modern heir to Creepshow. The basic premise is that a small town is having their annual Halloween celebration, and in the mix of the festivities, a number of strange and paranormal events happen, causing the lives (and deaths) of several townspeople to collide. The opening credits and transitions between scenes are presented in the style of a classic era horror comic, lending these vignettes a fun vintage quality which we've come to expect from the likes of CREEPY and EC comics. Most importantly, though, this movie is a love letter to Halloween. The attention to Octoberisms like orange colored lights and fresh fallen leaves really makes for a nostalgic reminiscence on the joy of trick or treating. This is a good one to watch while carving a jack o’lantern, or with a bowl full of candy corns to eat.
MIKE: Trick'r Treat is a love letter to the myths and urban legends of Halloween--I would be hesitant to say that I get a nostalgic feeling while watching this movie, because I don't remember razors in candy bars or carving jack o’lanterns out of a severed child's head. However, the stories you heard as a kid, "Always check your candy; Never walk alone, always go with a friend; wear reflective strips," were things I was told about. That's what I love about Trick'r Treat, it plays off of those superstitions, and then digs up some of the older mythos (think pilgrims and even later than that), and plays them out perfectly. The opening sequence is one of the best we've reviewed, thus far. We almost see the entire cast from low angle shots, as this fat little boy, with chocolate stains around his lips, walks throughout the town and into the suburban neighborhood where he is knocking over pumpkins. I loved this concept of tying in all of the stories together, even if the characters really don't interact with one and other, except with a bump in passing, or the turning of a head to overhear a bit of dialog.
MAX: Well, from the sound of it, Mike, you had some rather dull Halloweens. My family always hid razors in the candy bars and every year we carved a minimum of one jack o’lantern from a child's severed head. Anyway, I agree with you about the way they managed to tie the stories together, here. I also liked that the characters don't really interact with one another, their paths just tend to cross by coincidence. I see this in a lot of art films, but here it feels more natural, somehow. Maybe that's because it's All Hallows Eve and anything can happen.
MIKE: Sure, anything can happen on Halloween, but I think it's just the intelligent directing of Michael Dougherty that keeps this film so neatly tied up. I love the introduction to Sam, the spirit of Halloween: he's a potato sack mask wearing, footy pajama costume, big-headed (literally) kid who seems to affect each scene with his presence. Do you remember that bit where the drunk husband and wife (a young couple) come home from the big Halloween party downtown, and the wife blows out the candle in the jack o’lantern, that was priceless. The husband warns her not to, she asks why, and all he could say was, "Ancient tradition?" Then she blows out the light and starts taking down the decorations. Now, I'm the kind of guy who'll leave his decorations up well into the new year (black, rotting pumpkins look so cool covered in snow), so I was appalled by her lack of love and respect for the holiday (my favorite holiday, I might add). Sam must have shared my sentiments, because he hides in the basket where she is tossing all of the sheets used to make up the ghosts in the yard, and when he pops up, slashing at her with a jagged lolly pop, I was cheering for little guy to cut her up. The look on the faces of the kids walking by as they see blood (the fight is obscured by the sheet) squirts and splatters from under the sheet, is hilarious. This is one of the best setups to a horror film that we've seen in a long time. Am I gushing too much?
MAX: No I don't think so. I gush pumpkin guts all over the opening sequence of this movie. Sam is the narrator of sorts, and even though he doesn't say anything, the way in which he observes characters (and sometimes interferes) is very telling. I think another real strength of this movie is the casting. In the scene we both previously mentioned involving the candy bar razor and child decapitation, we get a (surprisingly) comedic interplay between Charlie (Brett Kelly of Bad Santa fame) and Principal Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker, or as we might remember him, the uber-creepy father from Happiness). The interesting thing about Baker in this part is that it's almost a natural reprise of the earlier role, in that he is still a "responsible" father figure and school principal, but also someone capable of harming children. And then of course there’s Anna Paquin in the role of the mysterious red riding hood, "Danielle." I'll confess I'm not a big fan of the True Blood series, but whenever I watch her in this movie, I wish that I was.
MIKE: I hear Anna Paquin is really hot in the True Blood series, but I'm a bit burnt out on Vampires, and I'm not a big fan of Charlaine Harris' writing. What I think is interesting about Paquin and her friends (Her older sister and two other girls), is what the audience isn’t picking up on, because they seem perfectly normal. In fact, I would have thought that they would all die horribly, because they come across as the typical slutty girls that ALWAYS die in the horror movie. When the girls' true forms are finally revealed (at an awesome bon fire blood orgy, no less) lines like, "I ate bad Mexican," become clear. It's one of my favorite scenes, because the transformations are so amazing.
MAX: I love the werewolf transformation that the girls do in this movie. It really gives new meaning to the term, "strip show." Ha-ha-ha-ha! No seriously, though, the collective feeding the girls do on that group of unsuspecting males is really the atmospheric high point of this film. I love how they softly scored it to Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams, and the orange harvest moon in the sky at the end of that sequence is a nice touch.
MIKE: You know what else was a nice touch? No CGI.
MAX: Yes. That is one of the nice things about this movie, isn't it?
MIKE: The special effects (transformations, blood, and gore) were awesome. I even loved the fake death scenes that the kids do when they play a mean trick on the unsuspecting Rhonda (she seems a bit mentally not that). The attention to detail is beautiful, and very unsettling. I think it will leave the viewers squirming in their seats.
MAX: Yes, that segment where the kids perform the prank on Ronda is also strong. No real FX needed there. The kids in creepy-ass masks coming up from out of the water is enough to scare us plenty (both times it happens). The history of those kids on the bus is one of the Halloween "urban legends" you mentioned earlier. It's also the only story line that completely carries over into another part of the film.
MIKE: That's an interesting point that you make. The story, which is supposed to be an urban legend, turns out to be true when those dead kids rise from the depths of the quarry (an amazing scene). What I liked about the telling of the story is when you see the bus driver (who had gone down with the kids) emerge from the water, gasping, and with a permanent wheeze, because, if you were paying attention, you would have recognized that wheeze from an earlier scene when you hear Steven Wilkin's neighbor rambling and wheezing from behind the fence.
MAX: Great observation. While I certainly understood that old Mr. Kreeg was the bus driver by the end of the film, I never caught the wheezing connection you just made from that scene near the beginning. I love it when directors drop subtle hints as to what we can expect. Sometimes it takes me four or five viewings of a film before I pick up on that sort of thing. What did you think about the end sequence involving Mr. Kreeg (Brian Cox) and Sam in Kreeg's house? I enjoy this part of the film because I think it's rich in atmosphere, and I also like the follow up with the urban legend, as we already mentioned. On the other hand, I would say if one of the vignettes in Trick r Treat moves the slowest for me, this one would be it. There is something about the pacing of this segment that drags a little. I find that's not necessarily uncommon in anthology horror films. In Creepshow I always tend to zone a little bit during the "Something to tide you Over" segment with Leslie Nielsen. I don't think it's necessarily a reflection on the overall film in either case. It's just that not every part of an anthology is going to make the same kind of impact, you know?
MIKE: I think, much like the scene you mentioned from Creepshow, that it seems to play a bit more slowly, because it's supposed to be scary and funny. Mr. Kreeg is utterly terrified of Sam--this supernatural kid who has broken into his house--and is going to extreme measures (e.g. a shot gun) to blow this creepy terror away. Much like Leslie Nielson’s scene in Creepshow, where he goes to extreme and somewhat comical measures to kill Ted Danson's character (he has to watch his girlfriend drown, while, at the same time, he is drowning), the segments from both films, in my opinion, drags a little, because of the mix of humor and horror. Let's be honest here, even though I love the Evil Dead series, there are parts that seem to drag, and that's because the building of suspense while incorporating humor needs a little more time to formulate.
MAX: This is a really brilliant point you raise, Mike. I agree that both of these segments are strong and I think the reason I respond to them the way that I do may be on account of my slight impatience with the humor/horror combo. I am a big fan of the first Evil Dead, but the more comical that series became the more I basically lost interest. There is definitely a lot of truth in what you are saying. Humor/Horror scenarios take time to build and play out. All the same, I do think humor has worked effectively in Trik r' Treat and all the film rounds out very strong.
MAX: With that said, we trick or treaters in the balcony are ready to weigh in with our bloody nubs of approval for this film. In my opinion, Trick r' Treat is a guaranteed goody for your pumpkin pail. If the vignettes in this anthology don't fill you with Hell-raisin’ Halloween spirit, I guarantee you are not a Halloween person. I give it two Bloody Nubs up!
MIKE: Trick'r Treat encompasses everything that I love about Halloween and horror movies: a rich sense of fall, using all of the colors late October is known for, and the perfect utilization of suspense and terror that ties so neatly with other traditional Halloween horror stories. I give Trick'r Treat two Bloody Nubs up.
MIKE: Max do you have time to carve this jack o’lantern with me?
MAX: Sure!
MIKE: Don't forget to help me with the eyes.
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