Trick ‘R Treat, Smell My Feet

By Leah Shore

One very cold, cold night, I was surfing on the Netflix my roommates and I have on our TV and came across a horror movie called Trick ‘R Treat. I assumed it was going to be another horrible, yet awesome scary movie along the lines of Thankskilling or the Gingerdeadman. NO!! I was wrong! This movie was an amazing film and, dare I say it: a classically great horror/scary movie. In fact, I believe this is one of the best new scary movies that I’ve seen in a while.

The film is a compilation of four vignettes that occur on Halloween night. A psychotic father and son who have an old geezer neighbor carve. A virginal college student forced to find her first.  Six kids play an evil prank on a fellow peer.  And finally, a grumpy wife gets what she asks for after blowing out a jack-o-lantern. A character named Sam, who is a scary pumpkin child-demon, somehow brings the vignettes together. He watches each happening and, basically, judges the characters and if he disapproves he takes matters into his own creepy child-demon hands. Werewolves, vampires, weird-ass demons, zombies, murderers, and blood galore are effortlessly packed into this film. Everything a scary movie requires, this movie owns.

I was surprised that Warner Brothers had produced this film and it went straight to DVD in 2007!! Michael Dougherty, who wrote the scripts to X2 and Superman Returns, directed Trick ‘R Treat. The cast was also epic with extremely talented actors such as Anna Paquin(The Piano, True Blood, X-men, JaneEyre), Brian Cox (Adaptation, the Ring, Super Troopers etc.), Leslie Bib (Popular, Iron Man, etc.) and Dylan Baker (Happiness, Spiderman 2 and 3, Law and Order and MANY more).  The production value of this film was outstanding, 10 points! Also, the cinematography was beautiful seamlessly moving from one vignette to the other, and the audio was disgustingly detailed, specifically one scene when a kid threw up candy. The squish and vomitious sounds that came from him will never leave my memory. Also the special effects were flawlessly gruesome, giving it a retro feel. Oh, and the suspense is what truly made this film. There was no need for over-gory scenes or stupid surprise scares, it solely was the suspense that scared me. There was even candy in every story. A crap load of candy. With razor blades.

I think this film should have been released in theaters and that it was definitely better then other released films like the Human Centipede and the horribly horrible remake of Halloween. It astounds me that these movies get released and something amazing like this film goes straight to DVD. I blame the Man…Man and producers. So you Netflix whores, next time you’re on the ‘flix: watch this movie.  It will scare the pants off of you while at the same time it will make you laugh at a ridiculous pumpkin demon and a creepy man who loves to carve jack-o-lanterns. This is definitely a classic horror movie that more people need to watch!