A shimmering pumpkin lit from the inside as if illuminated from the fires of hell, a young trick or treater with a sack over his head braves trick of treating the night of all Hallow’s Eve as we’re treated to glimpses of Missing posters hinting at the rash of disappearances across the town our young trick or treater is perusing. He manages to visit a few houses and is met with a mysterious figure who sucks him in to the darkness and after splashes of blood and sounds of beating, minutes later the small trick or treater emerges from the darkness of the alley with the body of his attacker in his sack. The mask this young trick or treater is not an elaborate mask built from a sack, but instead his face upon which he gazes back at the audience with an evil grin welcoming us in to the world of Halloween.
This little demonic specter just wanted to trick or treat, but in the process he may very well have put an end to the reign of terror this figure has inflicted on the neighborhood children, likely murdering them and keeping them in his basement. This is both an act of revenge, an act of karma, and about pushing your luck one step too far, as Sam demonstrates in the final scene of Dougherty’s animated flick. This is our first glimpse at Sam, and if you were lucky enough to view Michael Dougherty’s short cartoon entitled “Season’s Greetings,” you were introduced to the clever and wicked little Halloween short where Sam glimmered in the darkness proclaiming Halloween to be his territory. I saw “Season’s Greetings” on the Scifi Channel here in America on their Halloween edition of their program “Exposure.”
The show entailed showcasing short films of all kinds from the fantastical, to the horrific from various filmmakers, and even managed to display most short films from Hollywood’s most innovative filmmakers showing the first short film that became the inspiration for “Eight Legged Freaks,” and Michael Dougherty’s “Season’s Greetings,” a short film I fondly recall watching in awe and wanting so much more of. This short became the basis for Michael Dougherty’s masterpiece of a horror anthology called “Trick ‘r Treat,” a film criminally unreleased in theaters that sadly became on of the various shelf consumers among many straight to DVD titles that many horror fans are still woefully unaware of.
For people anxiously awaiting its release and looking forward to seeing what Dougherty had to offer fans of the holiday, “Trick ‘r Treat” met every single expectation imaginable with a wildly sardonic tone, amazing atmosphere, and an interwoven method of telling its scary stories that made it feel like a horror version of “Pulp Fiction” as our characters mixed and meshed in an alternate world where Halloween was the most sinister night of the year. A night where the ghouls, and spooks came out of the darkness to play, and Sam would watch it all with his beloved candy sack, and buttoned mask zealously witnessing the madness unfold.
Much like the crypt keeper, and the Creep, he’s often the watcher and probably the catalyst for these horrific events that unfold, and Dougherty and co. manage to tell a massive story filled to the brim with clever nuances and twists that seem disconnected but are unfolded in a very seamless and fluid motion that keeps all of the characters within the title in their own worlds and apart of a greater scheme. He doesn’t talk or giggle, nor does he pop wise, but surely enough he’s very menacing and makes for some ghoulish imagery. This becomes especially apparent when we see Sam in all of his gory glory in the climax, and it won’t disappoint.
“Trick r’ Treat” has taken the place of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” as my favorite film to sit down and watch on Halloween primarily for its unabashed devotion to the atmosphere of Halloween and its orgy of orange hues and tongue in cheek humor that keeps the film feeling like a wonderful little secret only the select horror geeks know. While “Halloween” continues to be the standard, Dougherty’s film is a celebration of the holiday with jabs at urban legends, folk tales, and Halloween myths, all the while trotting out some genuinely great performances from folks like Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, and Dylan Baker, all of whom have their hand in the pot when applied to the madness Sam indulges in.
Dougherty seems to have a genuine passion for his project of “Trick r Treat” and in show in almost every minute of his horror anthology that strives to pay tribute to just about every Halloween tradition imaginable while twisting classic folk tales to the wills of the wicked holiday he so steadfastly celebrates. From urban legends, ghosts, revenge, werewolves, serial killers, zombies, karma, Celtic mythology, and even Little Red Riding Hood, Dougherty tries to squeeze in as much devices and clever nods to the mythology of horror and the origin of such tales in ninety minutes and pulls it off with flying colors using the format of the anthology film as a function to trot out the elements without ever faltering and turning the entire movie in to one stylish mess that delivers no rewards for genuine horror lovers.
While many will take issue with my preference of “Trick R Treat” over Carpenter’s seminal slasher film that popularized the knife wielding maniac, Dougherty’s horror film gets top billing in my Halloween rotation for the fact that in its deepest core, it’s much more of a horror film than the former. All the while Dougherty channels the the classic EC Comics formula while implementing the fluid disconnected storyline to his advantage where he can dole out some wonderful tongue in cheek comedy and sardonic humor that always manages to undermine the audiences expectations and side swipe us with one surprise reveal after the other in a never ending barrage of “Gotcha’s” and “Comeuppance” toward a myriad of characters who deserve what they get in the end, and this is all thanks to the doing of Sam who is the gatekeeper and key device who acts as a manifestation of such evil allowing for an entrance and exit to these awful misdeeds these characters engage in.
Sam is a character that demands reparations and takes this holiday very seriously to the point where we’re introduced to the variety of tales by a prologue involving a hapless couple who break the tradition of blowing out jack o lanterns prematurely which results in some headway made by Sam, and poor Leslie Bibb becomes one of her many Jack O’ Lanterns in her backyard. This is a sickly and sardonic little introduction to what is an endless barrage of clever stories. This later becomes apparent that Sam is not one to just sit back and let people tarnish this yearly event by visiting old grouchy Kreeg, a bonafide scrooge who takes it upon himself to avoid the holiday and hide in his house.
Sam doesn’t stand for this when he comes knocking at his door with his jagged half eaten lollipop and manages to create something of a horrific incident where he’s intent on making old Kreeg pay for his lack of festivities on that night and we’re able to see Sam for all he is as Dougherty provides an unflinching glimpse in to the true evil and specter that is Sam, the innocent trick or treater always in the right place at the right time. Is he a monster? A Demon? An angel of vengeance? Chaos incarnate? The devil? An undead trick or treater who took the holiday much too seriously and spreads his evil every year? We’re never quite let in on his little secret, but do we get a full on view on his true face by the time poor Brian Cox comes head to head with the relentless spook.
“Trick R Treat” offers a reasonable argument for watching it again and again mainly because Dougherty squeezes in so many nuances and quirks that only the most investigative eye will be able to catch. For example characters from previous or future segments walk in and out of frame during another segment allowing for a cohesiveness in chronology that we don’t often see in anthology films, and this allows us to feel as if this is one world, a dark corner of reality few of us rarely come across. Dylan Baker’s storyline as middle class father Steven, a man who is prone to getting in to disagreements with trick or treaters and comes across a portly trick or treater who despite his abundance in weight and diabetes manages to pig out on the mild mannered single father’s candy basket.
The ultimate turning of the screws to his segment is something of pure genius and one that continues to leave me in awe, due to its unabashed silliness and demented bravery that doesn’t mind bringing in all of the family for the gore and grue. And of course there’s the wonderful take on the Red Riding Hood story in which Anna Paquin plays Laurie, a young insecure virgin being influenced by her girlfriends to indulge in some men for Halloween night. As something of an initiation. The tale of Red Riding Hood was of course a metaphor for sex and the red hood a symbol for menstruation, which was then bent to become a metaphor for sexual predators preying on little girls in films like “Hard Candy,” and “The Woodsman,” which is then again spun around to become a metaphor for Laurie’s coming of age when her friends pressure her to de-virginize before the night is over.
The very night she meets a vampiric gentleman who threatens to harm her during a party, and we’re provided with a truly slick surprise climax to her scenario that shows there is still so much more a creative mind like Dougherty can do with the tale of the Red Hood and Paquin can still look mesmerizing with fangs and claws protruding from her skin. And the tale of the group of trick or treaters who wind up in the canyon where the infamous bus accident happened that begins as a prank and ends in devoured limbs is classic EC Comics fodder and one segment that fans will truly appreciate in the end. While the set up is pretty predictable involving a group of kids pranking the outcast of the group and ultimately getting what’s coming to them is something of sheer traditional horror karma, and one that Dougherty unfolds with great zeal providing something of a mystic and haunting setting for the segment with the children who head in to the ravine looking for tricks and get much more what they bargained for.
Especially when they learn the restless souls of the disabled kids from the horrific bus crash are not prone to welcoming intruders, especially those who seek to make light of their untimely demise. As if Dougherty isn’t crafty enough this seemingly throwaway tale of a bunch of mentally disabled and disfigured children who died in a bus crash unfolds in to something of a last punch in the gut as we learn Sam’s true purpose among the chaos of this Halloween night. Dougherty obviously had the best of intentions with “Trick R Treat” and with the right studio backing it along with a proper marketing campaign, this movie could have and should have been a box-office smash. Rather than relying on grue, it instead depends on traditionalism. Apparently raised on horror fodder like “Creepshow,” “Tales from the Crypt,” and material from EC Comics, Dougherty aims for the stars with a movie that is both a loving tribute and a hope for a new renaissance where horror was more about storytelling and creativity than it was shocking you in to submission.
“Trick R Treat” continues to be horror’s best kept secret, a movie that, like urban legends and tales told around the campfire, is spread by horror geeks back and forth through the darkness, and that is how Dougherty’s film will live on. As a well kept secret that obtains immortality through word of mouth and praise by horror buffs who can appreciate the genre when it’s trying to be original and not beat us down with its attempts at controversy and gimmicks. “Trick R Treat” is the traditional horror film for the new age that provides the spooks and creeps of a William Castle entry paired with the splatter cynics usually adore. It has an icon in Sam, a format, a slew of wonderful stories, a seemingly desolate realm where horror and Halloween are ever lasting, and it basks in the glow of the Fall season that keeps the entire film lit like a pumpkin.
Dougherty seemingly pays homage to the original spirit of the holiday that isn’t mired in consumerism or holiday specials but more on thinning the line of the living and the dead all in the spirit of the original Celtic holiday Samhain before it was touched by the grapple of Christianity and Politically correct conservatives. “Trick R Treat” sets down on a world where on Halloween anything can happen. The dead can come back to life, the freaks come out at night, and Sam lingers in the darkness reveling in the little tricks we indulge in when we think no one is looking. My infinite thanks to Michael Dougherty for giving us Halloween fans something to chew on every year when Fall rolls around.
Because when the major studios are often giving us horror movies that are akin peanuts and pennies, Dougherty’s “Trick R Treat” is that tasty, delicious, and addictive Peanut Butter Cup only a select few find every year in their bags and indulge in every single time with a wide grin and demonic gleam as Sam watches on from the woods wreaking havoc where ever he goes on All Hallow’s Eve with his sack and jagged little lolli. Not surprisingly, Dougherty’s film was never given the treatment it rightfully deserved, but if you’re looking for a new treat for this Halloween, pay Sam a visit and watch him indulge in some madness and blood splatter. I surely will be, and it’s earned its place as my number one horror film to watch on Halloween.