Joseph_Woerner

Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

October 26, 2015 Movie Of The Week

Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat is a legitimate modern horror classic and the finest film ever made about Halloween. It’s an anthology movie set on the night of my (and your; let’s be real here) favorite holiday, telling a series of spooky stories that all take place in the same neighborhood at the same time. The film moves in a brilliant, nonlinear fashion - like Pulp Fiction for horror - with all the various story threads cleverly converging in different places thanks to its mascot character, the mysterious pumpkin headed trick or treater known only as Sam. To sum this one up in a single sentence: it’s the concentrated essence of Halloween distilled into the form of a beautiful, magical 82 minute horror movie. For what it is, Trick ‘r Treat is perfect.

The film tells five stories, each depicted in its own ingenius way and then tied together seamlessly by the iconic Sam, who watches over Halloween and punishes those who break the holiday’s “rules”. You see the fun side of the season as well as its seedy underbelly as the movie plays out, with the somehow simultaneously adorable and terrifying Sam turning up to pass judgement when needed with the aid of his razor sharp Jack O Lantern lollipop. I won’t spoil anything about the individual stories here because they all play off of each other to form a greater whole, but know that there isn’t a bad one in the bunch. Every second of Trick ‘r Treat is a joy to watch, and the movie actually improves upon repeat viewings (which is basically Halloween tradition at this point) since the script is constantly dropping hints and foreshadowing what comes next in gloriously subtle ways that will make you grin from ear to ear because you never caught them the first ten times around. Funny and scary in equal measure but always captivating, I think it may be impossible to not love this film.

When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself… but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.

When Stuart asked why, Wilder replied, “because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

i always have to reblog this because it’s my favorite thing ever.