Trick 'r Treat


Please excuse the tardiness of this post, today consisted of frantically working and then driving through treacherous Colorado mountain passes (and by that I mean second-most-dangerous-in-the-US mountain passes), so I've only just finished my movie. Technically a day late, but here ya go:

Tonight my horror film was Micheal Dougherty's "Trick 'r Treat." The film basically consists of four stories happening one Halloween night roughly simultaneously that somehow all interlace together, whether greatly or less so. Dougherty obviously finds great pleasure in All Hallows Eve, and this film is essentially an over-the-top and ridiculous romp for him to explore all he loves about the holiday-- and allows him to punish those who don't. I really enjoyed how the film doesn't take itself seriously whatsoever and is not meant to scare so much as to revel in the fun that is Halloween. The set-ups to the people to the scares to even the murders don't feel so much horrifying as they are funny, for lack of a better word, in how they are presented. It is in this that Dougherty really makes a unique, B-movie-esque film, and where he finds his talent. However, I did feel after watching that the first half felt far less original/imaginative than the second. These earlier stories (the teacher and school bus massacre tales) feel like reheated told-around-the-campfire stories with not enough in them to set them apart from the hundreds of stories like them. He surely tries but does not nearly reach the imagination he finds with the latter stories (the old man story and to a lesser extent the circle of teenage girls story). These stories have an originality to them that really showcases Dougherty's love-of-the-holiday aesthetic and in the shadow of them the other two just don't stand up. Over all, though, a great, fun Halloween movie with potential for further greatness.
8/10

Edit: After thinking about it some more I've changed my rating from a 7.5 to an 8. I know, minute difference, but 8 just sounds better, and it's more what this film deserves the more I think about it. In fact, the more I think about it the more I like it. 

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