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| Trick 'r Treat [2008] - review by Dann |
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Director: Michael Dougherty
Starring: Dylan Baker Anna Paquin
Country: USA
Most everyone has seen Creepshow and most everyone like Creepshow. So that said, we have a new movie that follows in the same tradition of smaller interwoven stories and for the most part it works.
The movie follows four main tales, each of which crosses paths at some point. The movie starts with a young married couple home from a Halloween parade. The husband is into the holiday a bit more than his wife, and after a day of walking around, she is not terribly happy about having to clean up the decorations in the yard that he put out. In a grumpy mood, she blows out the candle in their Jack-o-lantern against the superstitious warnings of her husband. This of course riles up the demons of the night, and she meets an untimely end.
We cut to earlier in the night and start tale number two. A group of girls are dressing up and trying to find dates to a party. This one plays out fairly straightforward for a while, and leads you to believe it's a purely exploitative measure to gather and audience. While most of the other stories have consistent supernatural elements, this one does have a final payoff, which I think equals the others.
Tale three is about a school principle who has a dark secret. After hours, his activities turn to a darker purpose, one which he is gladly intending to keep within the family. The final tale involves a crew of trick or treaters trying to gather pumpkins. They bring them all to the edge of a cliff, and recite a story about a bus driver who drove a school bus full of troubled children off of it.
Most of the movie isn't really scary. I think the part at the cliff may have been the most, but overall it's more of a fun ride with a bit of gore and camp thrown in for good measure. I think the shining trait of this movie, was the inclusion of a new horror icon, Peeping Tom. It appears throughout the movie dressed in a small pajama suit and a large round burlap mask. While ultimately sinister in intent, I think it would ordinarily make a cuddly companion otherwise.
The hardest part of this movie is keeping the timeline straight. Certain small details are only explained much later when the proper story plays out, so the crosstalk can end up being confusing until a later viewing. The good side, however, is that it is easily watchable more than once.
Tags: Ghosts
Halloween
Horror
Monsters
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Brian says: I am still mad that you got to review this and not me.
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