Trick 'R Treat (2007)

You may or may not remember that back in 2007 I ran a piece about the films that I was looking forward to inthe Autumn of 2007. This list included the likes of Superbad, The Kingdom and Eastern Promises. One film on this list failed to make its Halloween release date. That film was X2 and Superman Returns screenwriter Michael Dougherty's directorial debut Trick R' Treat. The trailer for this movie had been floating around online for a while and it looked like a big budget horror movie made by a studio with a guaranteed blockbuster hook. Halloween 2007 came and went and all we had to show for it was the latest Saw borefest which of course made tons of cash anyway.[ReviewAZON asin="B002LMSWN2" display="inlinepost"]

Trick R' Treat as you have probably guessed by now takes place at Halloween. We follow several characters in a small town in middle America.The town celebrates Halloween in a big way by organizing a massive parade and sending all their children out with pillow cases and no other kind of parental supervision. We follow several characters over the evening, the possibly murderous high school principal, the teenage virgin (played by Anna Paquin) in a red riding hood outfit and the school kids who are scaring themselves in a quarry by telling stories of a busload of special needs kids who were killed by their driver on Halloween.

These stories intersect and connect via a murderous little character with a scary sack mask named Sam who appears in the background of every plot thread for the ninety something minutes of its runtime. As we find out much to the horror of one couple, Sam really doesn't like it if you break tradition on 31st October.  The story takes in the horror standards of the knife wielding stalker, the vampire and the werewolf but does it so well and with so much wit that you are squirming one minute and laughing the next. At every turn the film subverts your expectations so just when you think one character is going to get their comeuppance the film flips expectations on its head.

A stand out sequence has a gang of werewolves turn the tables on a supposed vampire and another has a man about to kill his young son and through a brilliant piece of camera work we see that the son is horrifyingly complicit in his father murderous life. The stand out scene though has to be where Sam corners a grumpy old man played by Brian Cox in his home and secrets are revealed from both parties. This scene manages to feel fresh and unique whilst also paying homage to classic films Pet Sematary and Evil Dead 2.The movie has a very Tales From The Crypt type feel to it and is heavily influenced by the EC comics of old that in turn influenced the old HBO series. The score by Douglas Pipes is very Danny Elfman esque which makes the whole thing feel like a Tim Burton movie at times and the film is so beautifully shot by Glen McPherson and looked amazing on the massive screen we saw it on.

All of this begs the question why is this movie going straight to DVD this October? After the 2007 release date came and went the movie began screening at film festivals and was reviewed almost exclusively on film geek sites like Ain't it Cool. The film has received high praise from everyone who has seen it and has been compared to John Carpenter's classic Halloween. So why? It could not possibly be an issue of marketing, the movie has had tie in toys and comics and because its a film as much tied to Halloween as Elf is to Christmas it would have been easy to market the hell out of this movie in October and I have no doubt that it would have made some of that Saw money when it played in cinemas.

Perhaps that was why, in 2007 the torture porn fad was still in full swing and Saw 4 was about to come out, Saw 3 had cleaned up at the box office the year before and Warner's probably didn't want their movie to get trounced by that juggernaut. Its all about market trends I suppose. Trick 'R Treat is a very old fashioned movie that doesn't rely on gore or shock value just great story telling and sheer class. In the same season The Mist failed to make a dent in the box office and that is possibly the best horror movie of the last ten years.

I saw Trick 'R Treat at the Empire Leicester Square as part of the Film 4 Frightfest in August. The film was introduced by director Michael Dougherty and star Brian Cox and we were informed that this would be the only time the movie would play on a big screen in the UK and as a result Dougherty was understandably nervous as he sat three rows in front of me. He had nothing to worry about, the full to capacity screen all applauded, laughed and squirmed in the right places. Hopefully the bad experience within the studio system he had first time out won't sour his view and he'll get to work again soon.

Currently Trick 'R Treat is due to be released on DVD on 26th October from the Warner Premiere range which also releases low budget horror like Rest Stop and those pretty decent animated DC comics movies. I don't recall ever having seen one of those Warner Premiere titles to rent in the local blockbuster though so do yourself a favor. If you are a fan of good old fashioned horror , like Tales From The Crypt and Creepshow then buy this movie (its currently £7.99 pre-order) invite round a few like minded friends on Halloween and enjoy the best Halloween related movie since Michael Myers pulled on a Shatner mask and chased a young Jamie Lee Curtis.