Trick 'R Treat: The definitive (and very overlooked) Halloween film

Cafe Society
1

Just saw this movie tonight. It was stuck in post-production hell for the last 2 years (the trailer for it was on the 300 DVD, which I vaguely remembered seeing), and finally got a straight-to-DVD release. However, it’s an excellent movie, and I think it would have done really well if it made it to theaters – at the least if it had a theatrical release, then the name would be more well known and potential audiences wouldn’t cast it off as “having to suck, since it’s direct to video!”.

It has 5 separate but intertwining stories set on Halloween night in a suburban Ohio town. Each story deals with the consequences of breaking one of the traditions of trick or treating:

  1. Always check your candy for tampering
  2. Take ONE piece of candy from the unsupervised bowl
  3. Let the jack-o-lantern candle burn all night
  4. TRICK OR TREAT – and don’t try to hide inside with the lights off; we know you’re home!

Being a Halloween-themed movie, there is a bit of violence and gore, but nothing too over the top, and it has a perfect mixture of horror with dark comedy. The thing is, this movie REALLY put me in the Halloween spirit. I’ve sat it out the last couple of years, but now all I want to do is find the perfect costume and round up some friends for the big night! This may become a yearly tradition in the same way I watch Christmas Vacation each year on Christmas Eve.

2

Saw it. Didn’t like it. I can see how a studio decided it was just a tad over the top for them, what with the violence directed at and involving little kiddies, but something about the whole thing was very off. I think it was the pacing. I don’t recall a single audience scare, though Dylan Baker does give me the chills whatever he’s in. Might work better as a mini-series or on television, though.

3

Yeah, but 2 years ago Monster House was released by Dreamworks, which involved at least one kid getting killed. And THAT movie did pretty well (and was also a good movie)!

4

No one got killed in Monster House. In the end, the house “vomited” everyone it had swallowed, or they crawled out unharmed from the basement.