Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Warner Bros. Pictures | Legendary Pictures
Theatrical Release Originally slated for an October 5, 2007
Direct to DVD/Blue-ray Release: October 6, 2009
Director: Michael Dougherty

Review by James Klein

How I love Halloween. Sigh...I get nostalgic thinking about all the times I went trick or treating in our neighborhood. As much as I loved it, it was the preparation of Halloween that was more fun. Finding a costume, carving a pumpkin, watching horror films all week long, I can smell the apple cider and fall leaves in the air as I write this. It's very hard to capture that feel of wonder and excitment as an adult than when you were a child. I still remember sneaking upstairs and putting on Halloween II after I got home from trick or treating and although it was edited for television, I knew that if my parents found out I was watching it, I was dead. It's very hard to capture this kind of experience again but writer/director Michael Dougherty has come pretty damn close with his underrated little anthology film set on Halloween night, Trick R Treat. Not only is it a fun and scary halloween movie, it is also one of the best written horror screenplays to have come out in years.

Although not a typical anthology film, the movie plays like a horror film directed by Robert Altman. Four stories are interwoven in a small town on Halloween night and throughout the film we see a small child in a halloween costume named Sam (short for Samhain) who almost plays like a Crypt Keeper. The stories range from a college age virgin who finally meets the man for her, a high school principal who is a serial killer, an old bitter man who has a dark hidden secret that is now coming to haunt him, and a group of children who play a mean prank on the wrong person. The stories all overlap but are planned out percisely at the right time for all of them to work. With a tounge-in-cheek style, this plays homage to the 1950's EC comic book Tales From the Crypyt and also films like Creepshow. Never dull, often scary and sometimes funny, the screenplay is a blast. It's no wonder since this is the guy who wrote the best X-man film, X2.

Setting the film entirely at night really sets the spooky mood too and Dougherty's visual style is perfect. This is his only film as a director and I pray to the Great Pumpkin that he returns in the director's chair. He also has a great cast working with him as Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker and the great Brian Cox are all top-notch and give this film even more credibility and class. And the thing that I love the most is that very little CGI was used for this film. That's right folks, we have some good old fashioned practical effects! What better way to make a nostalgic horror film?

Although the film was shelved for numerous years and was never given the proper release (and respect) the film deserved, it is now available on DVD and blu-ray (the blu-ray contains siome deleted scenes and an audio commentary by Dougherty). Watching this film made me think of a lyric of a Misfits song: I remember Halloween. And this film nails it.