Written and Directed by Michael Dougherty
Starring Dylan Baker, Rochelle Aytes, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox
USA, 2009
TRICK 'R TREAT is one of those movies renowned for the way it found a cult audience without being a big hit in theaters. Whenever that happens, you have to wonder, do people love it out of proportion because they perceive it as their own discovery, as opposed to something spoonfed to them? Or, is the love totally in proportion to how great the movie actually is?
As usual, what we have here, is a middle-of-the-road that is looked upon more fondly than most because people see it as their own. And, hey – that’s better than either not getting discovered at all or being a bad movie. But, a classic this does not make.
In any case, we’ve got sort of an anthology film here, exploring several different stories and characters on one Halloween evening. I say sort of because they’re not self contained episodes – like PULP FICTION before it, TRICK ‘R TREAT features stories that overlap and twist in and out of each other in unexpected (and expected) ways, as the movie hops back and forth in time to give us the full picture of the spooky happenings one night, all revolving around a creepy little bag-headed trick-or-treater the internet tells me is named Sam.
The internet also tells me Sam shows up whenever any of the characters break any of the traditions of Halloween. Thing is, these characters know way more Halloween-related traditions than I do. The ones I know about are… dressing up in costumes and… trick or treating. So there’s two. Apparently there’s a bunch of other ones. Who knew? Everyone in this movie, I guess.
We’ve got Anna Paquin as the virginal member of a group of party girls who are not what they seem, Dylan Baker as a twisted serial killer and Brian Cox as a reclusive grump who may or may not figure in to the tragic history of a school bus crash infamous in the history of this fictional, Halloween-loving, small town.
Is the movie greater than the sum of its parts? Not really. There are moments that shine, like a grotesque transformation sequence in which women shed their skin to reveal they’re actually werewolves. This is not only a cool take on werewolf transformation, but also effectively rendered with fun, gross and believable special effects. But, there are also long stretches that bring on the snores like when a group of kids goes to a graveyard to do something, I dunno. Wake me up when Brian Cox shows up again.
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