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Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

Dir: Michael Dougherty

Tis Halloween night and most of the residents of Warren Valley, Ohio are celebrating it in style!
Dancing in the streets, partying in the bars and clubs and ‘trick or treating’ through the pumpkin-lantern lit suburbs.
Let’s take a look at just some of those wrapped up in Halloween’s spell;

We have Principal Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker) who just loves to offer his very special treats to the kiddies who come-a-knockin’ on his door…

And look there! It’s the lovely Laurie (Anna Paquin), and she’s with her big sister Danielle (Lauren Lee Smith) and some girl friends, all dressed as buxom Princesses.
But lovely Laurie looks worried in her Little Red Riding Hood costume as big sis just has to keep on and on about Laurie being a virgin.
So lovely Laurie decides she needs to finally find a man this Halloween night…

Who’s this coming down the street? Ah, it’s some children by the names of Macy (Britt McKillip), Schrader (Jean-Luc Bilodeau), Sara (Isabelle Deluce) and little Chip (Alberto Ghisi). They are after 8 Jack-O-Lanterns for a very special Halloween ritual.
You see years ago there was a terrible event involving 8 children, their school bus and a big drop into a deep pool. And Macy has decided they should offer up a lantern for each of the poor drowned children.
But they still need more pumpkins, so they head off to see shy, ’special’ little Rhonda (Samm Todd) who has plenty of pumpkins in her garden.
And off to the drop they all go…

Look out! It’s grumpy old Mr Kreeg (Brain Cox).
He lives in that scary looking, run down, house and he just hates Halloween and all those pesky kids who keep knocking on his door wanting things!
But grumpy Mr Kreeg will have another, all together different, visitor tonight…

So there we are, four different groups of people, all doing their own thing, and all will have a very special Halloween this year.
And a very unusual little fella named Sam (Quinn Lord) will always be there, somewhere, to ensure they all do…….....

Welcome to the world of bad judgement and just plain stupidity!
No, not the world of Michael Dougherty’s “Trick ‘r Treat”, but to the world where his film sat on a dusty Warner Brothers shelf for a couple of years barely seen by human eyes.
Recent international festival screenings though have ensured that, at last, the public can see what the suits at Warner’s could not see…A truly marvelous little cinematic Halloween treat!

Opening with a couple, Emma (Leslie Bibb) and Henry (Tahmoh Penikett) arguing that Emma should not mess with Halloween‘s little customs, Michael Dougherty’s wonderful, clever and always entertaining screenplay starts us off (after some great ‘comic strip’ style credits) on a one night journey that weaves its stories though time and place as each tale crosses with another.
Some very subtly, others far more explicitly.

This cross cutting, intertwining, shuffling time frames, style of delivering what is basically an anthology film is a stroke of genius. Bringing a small portion of “Pulp Fiction” aesthetic to the Horror film.
Whereas other anthologies almost always tend to keep their tales very much separate (despite the wrap-around story that joins them up, here that wrap-around is cleverly the character of Sam) and stays with each tale until its end, “Trick ‘r Treat” has all of its tales eventually reach a conclusion only after returning to each one, in little bite sized pieces, throughout the film’s tight running time.
This not only makes for some clever and intriguing moments, where the people in one tale will appear in another tale simply in the background or in a prominent though smaller capacity, but it also ensures that we are kept on our toes and never get bogged down in one specific tale.

As such this means that “Trick ‘r Treat” not only stays fresh during the first viewing, but it also means it should retain a very healthy shelf life as, unlike other anthologies, you never have to sit through all of one story you may not like waiting for your favourite to come along (not that there are any remotely poor stories here anyway) and although they all have some kind of twist they crucially never just rely on that twist to entertain.
Something is always happening in the tales for our delectation and you should never feel like you’re just waiting for the sting in the tail. A trap too many films (anthology or not) fall into, made worse when that twist we have sat, often bored, waiting for was never worth it anyway.

Not only are all the stories very well cast and brilliantly played by that cast (with Dylan Baker, veteran Brian Cox, youngster Britt McKillip and “True Blood” star Anna Paquin being the stand-outs) but they are also brimming with Halloween atmosphere and packed full of obvious love for this now too often maligned or forgotten time of year.

Halloween itself has indeed never been served better as it is here.
The truly breathtaking location/set dressing (by Rose Marie McSherry), art design (by Tony Wohlgemuth) and crisp cinematography (by Glen MacPherson, “John Rambo”) capture an almost fantasy land version of the festival.
Never have you seen so many people in costumes or so many Jack-O-Lanterns.
The lanterns in fact are almost a character in themselves. They adorn almost every scene in the film and radiate that wonderful orange glow over everything from house porches, gardens, woodland paths to crowded streets and lonely fog-enshrouded vistas.
Most certainly this ranks right up there with Carpenter’s original “Halloween” and “Halloween 3” as perhaps the best examples of a Halloween set movie that actually feels like it was shot during that period.
A triple-bill of these three films should fill anyone up with the ghoulish joys of the season.

The effects are all very well done and nicely old school, with little or no CGI enhancements bar some clever location tinkering, and offer up a few gruesomely effective moments.
The occasional creature FX are also lovely with many a delightful surprise awaiting the unsuspecting viewer as each story slowly reveals its true, often supernatural, self.

Despite mixing some very black humour, a smattering of welcome nudity, pretty strong violence and the odd splash of gore “Trick ‘r Treat” still manages to feel like an old school, even charming, Horror movie that you used watch on late night TV when a kid.
It has a nostalgic sensibility but wraps it up in some excellent, modern film making techniques and effects and this pretty much means the film slips into that very, very rare category indeed…that of near perfection.

Highly recommended then and along with the original, seminal, “Halloween”, Michael Dougherty’s labour of love, “Trick ’r Treat”, should become the staple Halloween movie from now on… for generations to come.