Trick ‘r Treat (2007) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 3

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Trick or treat, smell my feet. Give me something good to eat.

Anthology horror films are as old as, well, cinema itself. Trick ‘r Treat breaks the standard convention of the genre staple while setting up four equally creepy tales.

Before Viewing

The trailer opens by giving some Halloween safety tips. It also gives the sense that this may be an anthology film, having vignettes from several different storylines, all centered around people celebrating Halloween in one way or another. If you haven’t seen this film, then you’re in for a treat. No tricks about it!

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

On Halloween night in Warren Valley, Ohio, a husband (Tahmoh Penikett) and wife (Leslie Bibb) return late from a party. She wants to clean up their decorations but he’d rather get frisky with her and wait until morning for cleaning. She blows out a candle in a Jack O’Lantern, which her husband warns her is bad luck because she might “upset someone.” As he goes inside she starts cleaning up the fake body parts in their trees and the ghostly-sheets hanging on wooden supports in the yard. An unseen person, established by a POV shot, stalks her. The husband wakes up later, surprised his wife is not in bed yet. When he goes out front, he finds her bloody limbs strung up in the tree and her head under a sheet, mounted to a post, with a giant lollipop jammed in her mouth.

A young pre-teen boy, named Charlie (Brett Kelly), walks along the sidewalk trashing other people’s pumpkins. He ventures up to a house where the note by the candy tells him to take one. He grabs handfuls, when he is caught by Principal Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker) who explains some of the rituals and history of Halloween to him. Charlie chokes on the candy bar that Steven has given him and slumps onto the stoop. Steven drags him into the house and makes his way into the backyard to bury another body. He is interrupted by his neighbor Mr Kreeg (Brian Cox), and then his young son Billy (Connor Levins). Steven promises Billy, that once he finishes, he will let him help “carve the eyes” as he leads him into the basement, a knife behind his back. Steven stabs towards his son, but has really stabbed the head of Charlie, as Billy helps him carve the scary face on the dead boy.

Four young trick or treaters, Macy (Britt McKillip), Sara (Isabelle Deluce), Chip (Alberto Ghisi), and Schrader (Jean-Luc Bilodeau) collect Jack O’Lanterns from neighbors before picking up Rhonda “the retard” (Samm Todd). They head to an abandoned quarry where Macy tells the tale of the Halloween School Bus Massacre. Thirty years ago, a bus with eight mentally challenged kids went over the edge into the water below. The driver was paid by their parents to make them disappear. He managed to survive. Macy tells them they have brought the pumpkins as tribute to the dead children. When Rhonda makes it down to the water, a trio of ghostly children come for her. She trips and knocks herself out. She awakens to Schrader removing his ghostly mask, embarrassed of the prank they have pulled. Rhonda runs, leaving the other four stuck below as real ghostly children start to emerge from the water.

Back in town, four college aged girls purchase sexy Halloween costumes for a party at Sheep’s Meadow. Laurie (Anna Paquin), a virgin, feels like the Red Riding Hood costume makes her look like a 5-year old. Her sister, Danielle (Lauren Lee Smith), tells her not to worry. Maria (Rochelle Aytes) and Janet (Moneca Delain) pick out boys to take to the party and along with Danielle, leave in a van. Laurie wanders the busy streets of the town in search of someone. She is stalked by a mysterious masked man, who appears to be a vampire. She leads him out into the woods. When he tries to attack her, she subdues him instead. At the party in a wooded area, she dumps the body. He’s not actually a vampire, but Steven in a costume – hunting more prey. The dozen girls at the party all subdue the men they’ve brought before pulling off their skin-suits, revealing hungry werewolves underneath. This is Laurie’s first time, and she wants it to be special.

Throughout all the previous stories, a small, boy-like figure in coveralls with a large burlap covered head, Sam (Quinn Lord), observes the various events. Earlier in the evening, Mr Kreeg scares some kids from his doorstep, detesting Halloween. His evening consists of burning old photos in his fireplace. He follows his dog out back and yells at his neighbor, Principal Wilkins. Back inside the house, he is stalked by Sam, having his achilles tendon slashed by a razor blade stuck in a candy bar. Kreeg grabs a shotgun after slipping on little pieces of candy and razor blades, which cut up his hands. Sam has painted all sorts of Halloween related graffiti on the walls and ceiling. Kreeg rips Sam’s burlap mask off, revealing a skeleton/jack o’lantern shaped head. Kreeg manages to shoot Sam several times with the gun, but the young demon puts itself back together again. It uses a jagged pumpkin lollipop to stab a piece of candy out of Kreeg’s lap, happy to get a “treat” before leaving the miserable man alone.

Later, after bandaging himself, Kreeg sees Billy handing out candy at the Wilkins’ residence, Rhonda crossing the street with a jack o’lantern in her wagon, the four coeds leaving town in a car from one of their victims, and the married couple from the prologue coming home from a party. He returns inside but the doorbell soon rings. He answers to find eight ghostly children on the front porch. The pictures he was burning were of his younger self; the driver of a school bus thirty years ago.

“My dad taught me tonight is about respecting the dead because this is the one night that the dead and all sorts of other things roam free – and pay us a visit.” – Steven Wilkins

 

Trick ‘r Treat provides a nice twist on the tried and true anthology series of horror films. The first film to popularize a series of shorter stories was 1945s Dead of Night. The format became more popular in the 1960s with adaptations of EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror. Some of the more popular examples of the format include Creepshow (and its sequels) and Twilight Zone: The Movie. Several other anthology films have been featured over the last four years on 31 Days of Horror including The House That Dripped Blood, Holidays, and the freaky Nightmare Cinema. What sets Trick ‘r Treat apart in the world of anthology films? The interconnectedness of its stories, for starters.

Most films of this type have anywhere from three to five short segments of unrelated content. Often, they will have a framing sequence that creates the artifice of having someone tell the tales, or present them to the audience. The Crypt Keeper or Creepshow’s Creep are two examples. Trick ‘r Treat forgoes the artificial narrative by instead playing with the timeline, and having characters from each story walk in and out of other tales, similar to what Quentin Tarantino did with Pulp Fiction. It also doesn’t tell a single story at a time. Laurie’s tale is interspersed throughout Principal Wilkins and Macy’s stories. Since the stories also occur out of chronological order, seeing portions of other stories creates clues for the audience. Principal Wilkins’ story shows that Mr Kreeg gets attacked by something in his house, while the end of the film shows all the characters (that are still living) as it connects right back to the prologue between the husband and wife. Even having Wilkins show up in Laurie’s story, provides a bit of closure that his character gets some comeuppance. This organization helps set up multiple stories at the same time while also adding something fun to look for in future viewings.

Thematically Trick ‘r Treat stays consistent across the stories as well. The entire film takes place on one particular Halloween night where the traditions and rules of Halloween are focused on. In the prologue, Henry reminds his wife that she needs to keep the jack o’lantern lit, or risk upsetting someone. “There are rules,” he says. These rules are introduced further within Wilkins’ story. How the jack o’lanterns, costumes, and handing out treats were meant as a talisman to keep people safe. But, as he mentions, “nowadays no one really cares.” Rhonda brings it full circle in the third story talking about Samhain (pronounced sa•win), who is also known as All Hallows’ Eve, also known as Halloween. She gets back to the real roots of the Celtic holiday which was celebrated on the “one night between autumn and winter when the barrier between the living and dead was thinnest and often involved rituals that included human sacrifice.” All indicative of things represented in this film. Finally Mr. Kreeg’s story represents the exact antithesis of all these stories. He does not believe in Halloween. He scares away kids looking for handouts. He says “bah humbug,” to all this mumbo jumbo, just like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. But he is eventually visited by the ghost of Halloween who teaches him a lesson (or six) about believing in the rituals and the holiday.

The film certainly delivers its share of shocks and twists. Even when you think you know something is coming, the presentation is still surprising. The reveal of the wife’s head under the sheet in the prologue is expected, yet still terrifying. But the best moments in the film are the unexpected twists. That’s what makes some of the best horror films work so well. The first comes when it appears that Steven is going to kill his annoying son Billy. He raises that blade up and slams it down with such force (with the boy off screen, of course). But the camera pulls back to reveal that Billy is actually helping him in his ghoulish hobby. The best twist, which is quite cleverly foreshadowed for those paying attention, is the reveal that Laurie and her friends are actually werewolves. This is reminiscent of a Twilight Zone-style show from the 80s called Darkroom in which a woman (Helen Hunt) was certain that a new neighbor in town was a vampire. She sets him up to be exposed–but it turns out that he was a werewolf instead and eats her! Yes, great twists like that are awesome!

Some of the clues that are teased throughout that story include the party being held at Sheep’s Meadow (as in wolf in sheep’s clothing), Laurie dressing as Red Riding Hood, and the other three girls threatening to “huff and puff” to blow down the dressing room door (the same line used by the wolf to the three little pigs). The repeated use of the word virgin in a horror context gets viewers assuming sex, instead of some other ritual that she has yet to partake of. With elements like this, Trick ‘r Treat is a fun film that bears rewatching. It has something for almost any kind of horror fan, from ghosts to psychopaths to monsters. It really does pack a lot into its short 82 minute runtime. Plus, audiences find out a little bit more about the history and rituals associated with the holiday. Including how to be respectful of the dead–or the soon-to-be-dead.

Assorted Musings

• Anna Paquin, probably best known as Rogue in the X-Men films, would go on to star in the TV horror series True Blood and film sequel Scream 4.
• The shot of Mr. Kreeg having the back of his ankle slashed by Sam is a direct homage to a similar shot in Pet Sematary.
• Not one to stick to a single holiday, director Michael Dougherty also directed the Christmas themed horror film Krampus.