Trick 'r Treat
by Michael Dougherty
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DVD details
Actor: Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, Quinn Lord, Rochelle AytesDirector: Michael Dougherty
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Michael Dougherty
Writer: Michael Dougherty
Producer: Alex Garcia
Producer: Ashok Amritraj
Producer: Bryan Singer
Producer: Dan Harris
Producer: Jon Jashni
Producer: Peter Lhotka
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-10-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- The doorbell rings, the cry goes out: Trick R Treat! But, wait. What s actually going on during this ghostly All Hallows Eve? Something eerie and unexpected. Something splattered and spooky. Something that brings ghouls, vampires and werewolves into the night. Answer the door a shocking surprise awaits. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R Age: 085391176190 UPC:
DVD Reviews of Trick 'r Treat
DVD Review: Pretty good movie with great Halloween atmosphere
Summary: 4 Stars
Trick 'r Treat (2008) is a horror movie that was completed in 2007 but never had a theatrical release. Instead, it went straight to DVD two years later, in October 2009. The reason why it was never released in theaters was because the critics felt it wasn't worthy of it and perhaps because the movie contains some disturbing scenes. I usually find a lot of movie critics to be wrong when it comes to rating movies. The critics are not right all the time. They are WRONG so much of the time. I don't know if I agree with the critics on this one.
Based on the reviews, it seems that the general public generally likes this movie. I also generally like it. I think it was a good effort and a refreshing change from the typical slasher movies of today. There are actually four stories taking place at the same time that tie together. It reminds me of how George Lucas approaches movie making, such as in the Star Wars movies. A strong point of this movie is that it deals with the traditions amongst kids on Halloween night. Also, there is a brief mention of the Celtic origins of Halloween in ancient Ireland. I don't think there has been a movie since Halloween III (1982) that has dealt with this subject matter. Another thing - this movie's late-October-in-the-Midwest autumn/Halloween atmosphere can't be beat. The movie takes place in a town in Ohio. This movie has the Midwest autumn atmosphere that John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) lacked for the most part. When Carpenter's Halloween was filmed in May 1978, it was filmed in southern California. Palm trees appear on the screen every once in a while, along with mountains in the background (when Dr. Sam Loomis is in the phone booth). Flowers are blooming in the backyard of the Wallace house. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Carpenter did the best he could to create an autumn atmosphere in May in southern California. Hampered by a small budget, it prevented him from shooting the movie in the Midwest in the fall. Trick 'r Treat has everything that is Halloween in the Midwest - dry leaves falling from trees, the characters can see their breath (it almost looks like CGI breath), dampness, coldness, fog, tons of jack-o-lanterns and Halloween decorations, etc.
This movie features four stories that play out simultaneously. I found that the jumping around from story to story made the movie somewhat hard to follow the first time I watched it. I have since watched it a few more times and I don't find it as hard to follow. One flaw with this movie is that these four stories occur during a very short movie (only 82 minutes). Not nearly enough time is allowed for each individual story to play out with character development and connect to the other stories in any meaningful way. As a result, the characters come across as shallow and thin and the overall plot suffers from a lack of development and direction. By the time all the characters are introduced in each individual story, you barely have time for a plot. I think it would have been better if this movie was a single story or two stories at the most. If it would have been, for example, two stories, the plot would have been better developed, characters would have more depth to them, and if there's a sequel in the future, the two unused stories can be used. I found that I never really got to know the characters or even cared about them. Near the beginning of the movie there are some ditzy girls in their early twenties who are trying on Halloween costumes at a Halloween costume store. They end up walking out of the store wearing the costumes they had just tried on and it appears that they might not have paid for them. These are shallow characters that I never cared about (though they were nice to look at). But in John Carpenter's Halloween, for example, I found that I cared for Laurie and Annie and Linda, etc. This was not the case with most of the characters in Trick 'r Treat. They're just sort of there. They're mostly teenagers and adults in their early twenties, along with lots of little kids trick-or-treating. The movie is called Trick 'r Treat, so naturally there is going to be lots of kids. But I think overall this movie was geared toward a teen audience. Now when it comes to my favorite characters, they were Rhonda (played by Samm Todd) and Laurie (played by Anna Paquin). Why???? It's because these two characters were the only ones with any depth to them. Rhonda is a nerdy type who dresses up as a witch and knew about the Celtic origins of Halloween in ancient Ireland. Laurie was a suppressed and innocent 22-year old dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.
One more thing about the stories - I thought the stories themselves were somewhat on the weak side. The best story and the one with the best atmosphere was the one about the school bus. The worst one was the school principal who moonlights as a serial killer. That was just plain SICK. He's basically teaching his son how to be a murderer - kind of "showing him the ropes". And apparently the guy doesn't think the cops will ever see the hole he has dug in his backyard. The story involving the hermit was unique and reasonably effective. The one involving the transformation of the girls into vampires and werewolves was quite weird, though I did enjoy it visually.
Overall, I don't think the movie was that scary. It had a few moments, but it seemed like a lot was predictable, like I've seen this sort of stuff play out in countless other horror movies over the years. We've all seen so many horror movies over the years that feature, for example, teenagers who are set up to die, but you never get to know the characters leading up to their demise. I put this movie into that category. This movie was also a little on the campy side. This diluted some of the scariness. I think this movie tries to be too many things at once jam packed into 78 minutes (82 minutes if you include the credits). It's a gorey slasher film at times, it's a comedy at times, it's a children's story at times, it's a teenager movie at times, it's an adult movie with nudity and sexual overtones, etc. John Carpenter's Halloween has all of these elements as well (Michael Myers is the killer stalker, PJ Soles provides comic relief, little kids have babysitters, teenagers are partying and sleeping together), but the difference is that Halloween was much scarier than Trick 'r Treat. This movie is rated G, PG, PG-13, R, and X all in one. Certain scenes have that Steven Spielberg feel to it, kind of like Poltergeist, while other scenes are like John Carpenter's Halloween or Friday The 13th.
The musical score is pretty decent, but I don't find it really memorable. It's definitely not in the same category as John Carpenter's Halloween theme or The Exorcist theme, for example.
I noticed that the woman in the beginning of the movie was taking down the Halloween decorations in the front yard right in the middle of trick-or-treating. Huh?
Another thing I didn't care for was the foul language used by really young kids - I mean, some of these kids were 10, 11, 12 years old and they're dropping the "F" bomb like it's nothing. They're also making references to sexual acts. It shows how kids and society as a whole have changed dramatically in a short period of time. Now if these kids were teenagers who were 17, 18, 19 years old, that would be different. But it was shocking to hear this vulgar language come out of the mouths of such young kids.
It's amazing - Halloween's popularity is at an all-time high, but it seems the horror movies of today can't hold a candle to the horror movies of decades ago. The horror movies of today seem to be either slasher movies or terrible remakes of classics. I give the makers of Trick 'r Treat tons of credit for coming up with something a little different with a great Halloween atmosphere. It's a good movie, but not a great movie. It suffers from being a short 82 minutes long, some predictability, and lack of character and plot development. I know this movie is destined to have a cult following, but I don't know if it's a classic. It's not scary enough and the score isn't memorable enough, in my opinion. At least right now, it's a hot fad. Just like when it comes to music, fads come and go. There was disco. There was punk. There was new wave. There were the metal hair bands. There was grunge. But I find that I always go back to the classic stuff. I'll listen to Black Sabbath instead of Cinderella any day. When it comes to horror movies, I'll watch The Haunting (1963) instead of Halloween Resurrection (2002) any day. Get what I mean?
I guess I agree with Trick 'r Treat being called "The Best Halloween Film Of The Last 30 Years." In other words, the best Halloween-themed movie SINCE John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Take this movie's outstanding Midwest autumn/Halloween atmosphere and couple it with a stronger and scarier SINGLE story with a memorable soundtrack and it might have been able to claim the title of greatest Halloween-themed movie of all time. The way I see it, the door continues to be left open for somebody out there to step in and put it all together and make THE definitive Halloween movie of ALL TIME, which would de-throne John Carpenter's Halloween. Can it be done?
Description of Trick 'r Treat
The doorbell rings, the cry goes out: Trick 'R Treat! But, wait. What's actually going on during this ghostly All Hallows Eve? Something eerie and unexpected. Something splattered and spooky. Something that brings ghouls, vampires and werewolves into the night. Answer the door ? a shocking surprise awaits. From producer Bryan Singer (director of X-Men and Superman Returns) and writer-director Michael Dougherty (co-scripter of X2 and Superman Returns) comes a multitale bag of wicked yarns, four cleverly interlocked stories built on Shocktober admonitions like always check the candy and don?t extinguish the jack-o-lantern before midnight. So answer the door now: Experience horror made for today's fright fan.Bestsellers in DVD
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