Trick
'r Treat
Came
out; 2007
Time;
1 hours 22 minutes
Watched:
Max
Rated:
R for horror violence, some sexuality/nudity and language
IMDB
Rating; 6.7/10
Caution;
Spoiler Alert
Staring.
Anna
Paquin as Laurie
Brian
Cox as Mr. Kreeg
Dylan
Baker as Steven
Rochelle
Aytes as Maria
Quinn
Lord as Sam
Lauren
Lee Smith as Danielle
Moneca
Delain as Janet
Tahmoh
Penikett as Henry
Brett
Kelly as Charlie
Britt
McKillip as Macy
Story Line.
Five
interwoven stories that occur on the same block, on the same night. A
couple finds what happens when they blow a jack o' lantern out before
midnight, a high school principal has a secret life as a serial
killer, a college virgin might have met the right guy for her, a
group of mean teens play a prank that they take too far, and a hermit
is visited by a special trick or treater.
Thoughts:
This
a B movie that I caught on TV one day. I wanted to watch it uncut. It
really isn't that different uncut but it's so much fun!
All
the stories come together in a way at the end and you sorta
understand it.
It's
actually put together very well for the B rating it deserves. Things
aren't exactly explained, yet they are. Everything is exactly what it
seems, yet they aren't. I enjoyed the cheesiness of this from
beginning to end!
CAUTION;
Major Spoiler Alert
The
movie includes four interwoven tales:
Opening: A couple
dressed as a robot and Flash Gordon return to their home, the front
lawn decorated with numerous 'ghost-crows' (scarecrow-style ghosts)
and lit pumpkins. The robot, Emma (Leslie
Bibb), takes a jack-o'-lantern to blow out the light but her
boyfriend, Henry (Tahmoh
Penikett), tells her that it's against tradition to un-decorate
before midnight. Emma asserts that she wants all the decorations gone
before her mother visits the next morning, saying that the yard looks
like a crime scene, and blows out the candle. Henry, a true fan of
the holiday, promises to remove everything early the next morning and
convinces Emma to meet him inside for some "alone time".
While he goes in to "put on the tape", Emma starts to take
down some of the decorations down, uttering the unforgivable "I
hate Halloween". As she removes the sheets off one of the
ghost-crows, it lunges at her, covering her in the white cloth. In
the ensuing struggle, Emma tumbles onto the sidewalk where passing
trick-or-treaters stop to investigate. Under the sheets, a figure
takes a bitten pumpkin-shaped sucker and slits Emma's throat. Her
blood stains through the sheets and the children run away. The hidden
assailant drags Emma's body back to the yard as Henry lies upstairs,
passed out and with the TV on high volume. Sometime later, he
notices Emma has not come up and goes down to the yard where he
notices that one of the ghost-crows now has lights attached to it. He
removes the sheet and screams at the sight of Emma's disembodied head
on a stake, the pumpkin sucker lodged in her mouth.
Meanwhile,
the Halloween festivities and parties continue throughout the town
and a parade march down the main street while the silhouette of a
short figure walks through the crowd, dragging a burlap bag with a
dark stain at the bottom.
1. The Principal - A portly boy
walks through the neighborhood knocking over jack-o'-lanterns. He
stops at one house and walks up to the porch where it appears no one
is home. A bucket full of candy is set out with a sign saying, 'please
take one!' The boy begins to put the entire contents of the bucket in
his bag when someone startles him from behind. The boy recognizes the
man as Principal Steven Wilkins (Dylan
Baker) who addresses the boy as Charlie (Brett
Kelly). Wilkins sits down on his porch, inviting Charlie to sit
and talk with him as he offers him a chocolate bar. Wilkins explains
rules of etiquette and how to properly respect Halloween. When
Charlie begins to cough, Wilkins explains the most important rule of
Halloween; "always check your candy". Charlie violently
vomits blood and chocolate and passes out. Wilkins drags Charlie into
the house, the blood and chocolate mixture oozing onto his shirt,
just as his doorbell rings. Struggling with the body, he answers and
sees three teenagers who ask if they can take his jack-o'-lantern. He
agrees and gives them all some candy, including a small boy wearing
orange, footed pajamas and a burlap hood with buttons for eyes and
stitching for a mouth (known hereafter as Sam, Quinn
Lord). Wilkins then dumps Charlie's body in a large hole dug in
his back yard where another child's body already lies. As he tries to
bury the bodies his small son, Billy (Connor
Christopher Levins), appears in the upstairs window and shouts
down to him repeatedly, asking for help on his jack-o'-lantern and if
they'll hand out candy. Wilkins, frustrated, tells him each time to
be quiet and wait for him inside. Meanwhile, the neighbor's dog (Zip)
approaches the fence and starts barking as the first child in the
grave begins to moan, reaching out from under dirty sheets with a
clown-costumed arm. Wilkins stabs the boy's arm with his shovel and
severs one of his fingers, throwing it over the fence and distracting
the dog. However, its surly owner, Mr. Kreeg (Brian
Cox) comes into the yard and peeks through a hole in the fence to
speak to Wilkins, still struggling with the clown child. Wilkins
passes off his activity and the smell as a septic tank leak and Mr.
Kreeg goes back into his house, shouting back to Wilkins to "get
his kid out of his yard". Wilkins finishes the clown child off
with a blow from his shovel and completes burying the bodies. As he
walks back into his house, he notices a frantic Kreeg motioning to
him from his window across the way. Bitter Wilkins ignores him and
goes into the house as Kreeg is tackled by something. In the kitchen,
Billy jumps out from behind a counter, scaring Wilkins and asking for
help on his jack-'o-lantern. Seemingly annoyed, Wilkins takes a
butcher knife from the knife block and follows Billy to the basement.
Billy runs ahead to a table covered in carving materials and Wilkins
approaches behind him. Billy says "let's make a scary face this
time" as Wilkins puts his hand on Billy's head and brings the
knife down, blood glistening on the blade as he draws it back. But
Billy smiles and says "don't forget to help me with the eyes"
as they look together at the severed head of Charlie on a wooden
turntable.
2. Surprise Party - Laurie (Anna
Paquin) is a 22-year-old 'virgin' who is shy and self-conscious.
Her older sister, Danielle (Lauren
Lee Smith), tries to boost her confidence by taking her to a
Halloween party with two of her friends (Moneca
Delain and Rochelle
Aytes). The girls all dress in fairy tale costumes while Laurie
is stuck as Little Red Riding Hood, a choice she despises though her
sister tells her "It's tradition". They walk through town
on the way to the party picking up dates, but Laurie is discouraged.
She opts to meet the girls at the party later.
Meanwhile, a
young woman makes out with a masked man in an alley. He
affectionately kisses her neck but, when she looks down, she sees
blood running down her body. The man smiles, revealing blood on his
fangs. The woman screams and makes her way to the street where the
people are gathered for the parade. Emma and Henry walk by in
costume, but ignore her, thinking she's just another drunk partygoer covered in make-up blood. The woman turns around to see the vampire
standing behind her and screams as he swings his cloak around her. He
leaves her dead body on the sidewalk leaning against a building, as
if she's merely passed out, and walks away.
At the bonfire
party in the woods, Danielle stands alone worrying about Laurie. The
others assure her that Laurie's fine but Danielle wonders, saying
that their mother "always said Laurie was the runt of the
litter". As Laurie walks down a dimly lit path in the woods, she
senses someone is following her and shouts out that she's not in the
mood and they'd better come out. When no one responds, she turns and
comes face to face with the vampire. He grabs her by the neck and
holds her against a tree, saying, "My, my, what big eyes you
have", before biting her neck. At the party, the girls are
startled when a cloaked body falls out of a tree near the fire.
Danielle nervously approaches the body and removes the cloak to see
the vampire, bleeding and begging for help. His mask is removed and
Principal Wilkins blinks in the fire light, whimpering. Laurie
appears and assures everyone she's ok, despite the blood oozing from
her neck. She approaches Wilkins and straddles him, telling him to
bear with her since it's her first time. The other girls start to
dance as Wilkins looks around in shock to see that all of their dates
are dead. Laurie removes his fake fangs as the girls rip off their
skin, revealing coarse fur and lupine fangs. Laurie begins to change
herself and leans down to Wilkins to whisper "My, my, what big
eyes you have" before lunging into Wilkins' neck. The other
werewolves finish the remains of their dates, howling at the moon, as
Sam looks on from a nearby log.
3. The Halloween School Bus
Massacre Four costumed teenagers scour the neighborhood for
jack-o-lanterns and stop at the home of a peer named Rhonda (Samm
Todd), dressed as a witch, whose yard is decorated with dozens of
them. Despite the fact that she's considered an idiot savant and
nicknamed Rhonda the Retard by the leader of the group, Macy (Britt
McKillip), dressed as an angel, Schrader (Jean-Luc
Bilodeau) asks politely for one of her pumpkins and invites her
to come with them, complimenting her on her costume. Macy leads them
onward while Rhonda talks briefly with Chip (Alberto
Ghisi), a pirate, about the origins of Halloween. They arrive at
an abandoned rock quarry and Sara (Isabelle
Deluce), an alien, asks why they're there and what the purpose of
the jack-o-lanterns is. Macy explains that the quarry is the site of
a fatal bus crash thirty years prior that has become the stuff of
legend.
The bus was carrying eight mentally disturbed
children, clad in freakish Halloween costumes and so troubled that
they had to be chained to their seats. That fateful day, the driver
(Gerald
Paetz) deviated from his normal route while taking the kids home.
Their parents, no longer able to stand the strain and humiliation of
caring for them, paid the driver to put them out of their misery by
driving the bus into the lake at the bottom of the rock quarry,
intending to make it look like a horrible accident. However, while
double checking the restraints on the kids, one of them, a masked
vampire (Richard
Harmon), is able to free himself and hijack the bus, repeating
that he wants to go home. Disturbed and confused as he is, the boy
accidentally puts the bus in gear and drives it over the edge of the
cliffside into the lake before the driver can stop him. Macy says
that the driver survived but was never heard from again and the bus
was never recovered, possibly because the rest of the town just
didn't want to bother.
The eight jack-o-lanterns collected
represent the eight souls lost that day and are meant to be left at
the lakeside as an offering. They walk to a rickety elevator and
Macy, Sara, and Schrader get in with their pumpkins to go down to the
lake. Since the elevator will only hold three at a time, Chip and
Rhonda wait for it to come back for them. On their way down, they
hear the panicked cries and screams of the other three and watch as
the lights of their jack-o-lanterns go out in the mist. Rhonda tells
Chip to stay in the elevator with the remaining pumpkins, saying that
they will protect him, as she goes to investigate. Walking through
the mist, she eventually comes to the wreckage of the half-submerged school bus and sees the masks of the others floating in the water.
She is suddenly attacked by two water-drenched figures covered in
chains and runs to see a third disemboweling Chip. As they chase her,
Rhonda drops and steps on her glasses before tripping and hitting her
head on a rock, blacking out. When she comes to, she sees the figures
standing over her and screams in fear but one of them, actually
Schrader in disguise, explains that it was just a cruel prank played
by all of them and tries to apologize. Macy is unremorseful and kicks
a still lit jack-o-lantern into the lake as whispers and giggles
suddenly echo out of the mist. Schrader leads Rhonda to the elevator
and, when he hears the others screaming, tells her to stay put while
he goes to see what's wrong, though he suspects another ruse. But
when he meets up with the others, they all see the figures of the
eight dead children rise out of the lake, still tied in their chains.
They run for the elevator though Sara is caught by a strand of chains
and dragged away. The other three make it to the elevator to see
Rhonda locked inside with the rest of the jack-o-lanterns, looking
sullen but calm. They beg her to open the door but Rhonda, seemingly
in a daze, presses the button to go up and leaves the others to their
fate as the ghost children surround them. Rhonda exits the elevator
and leaves the quarry, towing her pumpkins in her red wagon. She
briefly looks at and passes Sam, sitting inside a cement pipe, as
Macy, Schrader, and Chip scream and are ripped apart.
4. Meet
Sam Three trick-or-treaters walk up the porch of a dark, old house
with no Halloween decorations and nervously knock on the door. It
opens to pitch darkness and they nervously hold out their bags,
saying trick or treat. Two glowing eyes appear, and growling is heard.
The children run away as the monster chases them across the yard and
Mr. Kreeg appears in the doorway. He calls out to his dog, Spite, and
picks him up to remove the monster costume and glowing head piece. He
collects the children's dropped candy bags and retreats inside where
he proceeds to burn old pictures in his fireplace before settling in
his chair to watch TV. He takes a bite out of a candy bar but,
disgusted with it, swaps it for a bottle of liquor. Since there is
nothing on TV that doesnt have anything to do with Halloween, Kreeg
turns it off and hears Spite barking outside before seeing an egg hit
his window. He runs to the front door and opens it to see that his
entire yard is decorated with dozens of jack-o-lanterns. Spite
continues to bark in the back yard and Kreeg goes to investigate
where he has his conversation with Wilkins. After finishing the
finger that Wilkins threw over to him, Spite runs back inside and
begins to bark upstairs. Kreeg follows him up and walks cautiously
into his bedroom where he notices something moving under the covers.
He pulls back the blanket to see a mechanized hand before a pumpkin,
set on a table in the corner, suddenly starts spewing flames, bathing
the room in orange light and revealing words scribbled all over the
walls and ceiling: trick r treat, give me something good to eat.
Kreeg then screams as something stabs him from under the bed. He
falls to the ground and looks up to see Sam appear from the other
side of the bed. Sam shows him a candy bar and peels back the
wrapping to reveal a razor blade inside before attacking. Kreeg
screams and manages to escape down the hallway but trips on the
landing to the stairs and falls to the bottom. The staircase is
covered in small pieces of candy and razor blades and Kreeg winces at
his hands, covered in bloody cuts. Struggling as Sam attacks again,
Kreeg makes it to the far window where he calls out to Wilkins just
before being tackled. He tries to fight off Sam and manages to rip
off his burlap mask. Instead of finding a human child's face
underneath, Sam's face is a horribly deformed pumpkin with beady eyes
and sharp teeth. Kreeg gains the upper hand and gets hold of his
shotgun, shooting Sam across the room where he slumps against the
front door. Kreeg shoots him again at close range, severing Sams
hand, before dialing 9-1-1. But the line goes dead and Kreeg is
stabbed in the leg again by Sam's severed hand. It crawls back to Sam
and reattaches itself to the stump. Sam gets up and puts his mask
back on as Kreeg backs up against the wall, knocking a table and its
contents to the floor. Sam removes a pumpkin sucker from his pocket
and takes a bite out of it, showing the sharp-edged bite marks. He
approaches Kreeg, arm raised to stab him and bring the sucker down on
Kreegs chest. Instead of stabbing him, however, Sam lodges the sucker
in the discarded candy bar Kreeg had opened earlier, which had landed
on his chest after he knocked the table over. Sam proceeds to chew on
the candy bar and leaves the room, appearing satisfied. He looks back
at Kreeg, who watches in puzzlement, before leaving the house. The
door slams shut of its own accord. We then see one of the pictures
that Kreeg had thrown into the fire. It shows the eight kids from the
bus massacre, revealing that Kreeg was the driver.
Later, a
heavily bandaged Kreeg answers the doorbell to give candy to some
trick-or-treaters. From his porch, he sees Sam go towards Emma and
Henrys house across the way just as she is blowing out the candle to
one of her jack-o-lanterns. Rhonda then walks by along the street,
pulling her wagon absent-mindedly, and is almost hit by a car
carrying the werewolf girls, laughing in human form. Billy Wilkins
sits on his porch handing out candy, wearing a costume to mimic his
fathers appearance complete with glasses and bloody shirt, unaware
that his father is dead. Kreeg walks back inside and the bell rings
again. He opens it to see the children from the bus massacre standing
on his porch. The boy with the vampire mask says trick r treat and
extends his bag before the children leap forward and begin to rip
Kreeg apart.
