Trick 'r Treat (Michael Dougherty, 2008)

The most disturbing aspect about trick-or-treating for me wasn't the ghastly costumes (the tight crotch of my Jane Badler from 'V' getup would cause me to itch like a motherfucker) or the heightened bully factor ("Mommy, some mean kids stole my Maltesers"), uh-uh, it was most definitely the act of becoming acutely aware of the people who actually lived in my neighbourhood. Standing in their dingy doorways, awash in cigarette smoke and abject failure, the sight of these shrill monstrosities peering their ungroomed heads out into the cool October air to briefly participate in the narrative of my childhood never fails to flood my psyche with feelings of bleak disquietude. On top that, the fact that I was willingly passing barely eatable foodstuff through my still developing digestive system is my very definition of the "willies." Well, exploiting those troubled feelings is the tautly paced Trick 'r Treat (a.k.a. Terreur à l'Halloween), a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada set horror film that explores some of the myths and legends that surround Halloween, yet another in a long line of calendar-based holidays that humanity has made up to make their dreary lives seem a little less sad. (Why don't you people watch porn or something?)

Episodic in nature, the film, which was written and directed by Michael Dougherty (Urban Legends: Bloody Mary), cleverly jumps back and forth between storylines that revolve around the rituals of dressing up in kooky outfits, carving faces into the skin of gourd-like squash, and asking strangers to place or drop sugary snacks into makeshift sacks. Focusing on multiple characters at once, the film's lone constant is a creepy minor with a thick layer of burlap covering his face and head.

Now, I'm not %100 sure if he or she was wearing a costume, but I do know that if something unpleasant is going down, this wee figure is somehow involved. And I also know that they take Halloween very serious. How serious? Well, apparently you're not supposed to extinguish the light inside your hollowed out gourd-like squash until the night's festivities are officially over. A woman dressed as a robot learns this lesson the hard way.

Not one to let a height-challenged fiend with re-attachable limbs have all the fun, an unassumingly guy named Steven has decided to take advantage of the day's lax morals when it comes to acting evil in public. Of course, when you need an actor to lift a large tarp covering a pre-dug grave in his background with a convincing brand of nonchalance, you should look no further than Dylan Baker, the top of the ladder when it comes to suburban psychosis. Whether bashing the demented kid from Bad Santa in the head with a shovel or having the tables turned on him by a pack of ravenous hosebeasts, Dylan takes it all in stride.

"Ain't nobody gonna break my stride / Nobody's gonna slow me down / Oh no, I've got to keep on movin'."

Reminding me of the Dead Like Me episode "Haunted," the way murderers, anthropomorphic carnivores, and ghostly quarry kids all seemed to manipulate the innate vulnerabilities people seem to display on All Hallows' eve was mildly fascinating, in that it showed how easily the wicked can fraternize with the clueless.

It's true, the fact that Trick 'r Treat was filmed in Vancouver (Hollywood North), and features Britt McKillip as a prankish teen and Christine Willes as a drunken party host (both from DLM) helped me greatly in the reminding department. But if you check out that particular episode and compare it to this movie, you'll no doubt agree that my allusion to it is not only sound, but totally warranted.

Anyway, speaking of Britt, I'd like to move on to my favourite chapter/segment of the film, and that is the whole story involving five kids in their low teens trick-or-treating and collecting gourd-like squash for charity, and a mysterious school bus that apparently crashed into a quarry back in the 1960s. First of all, I liked it because it had a supremely creepy atmosphere throughout its brief running time. Incorporating gorgeous cinematography and an ominous layer of mist, the eerie darkness of this sequence was explored fully. And secondly, it featured children in peril as supposed to stupid adults, who technically should know better than to goof off in and around a spooky hole in the ground.

If I can be as so bold to come up with a third reason, I'd have to say the look of the kids was pretty instrumental in attaining my goodwill towards this slice of plot. Everything from headgear worn by Isabelle Deluce to the witch garb Samm Todd sported gave the film a slightly off-kilter vibe that was most welcome.

The exquisite longness of Lauren Lee Smith's neck shows up every now and then to politely remind the neck deficient what a human neck should look like. Oh, man, would I love to see her receive a pearl necklace. (And, no, I don't mean a clunky piece of jewelry. I'm talking about large circular droplets of seminal fluid. Don't be crude.)

Wearing a cloak like it were second nature, Anna Paquin, her gap tooth shimmering in the fake autumn twilight, may just spend most of her time wandering around the leafy streets like a lost puppy, but the striking manner in which she wanders, the redness of the cloak, the gapiness of the gap, all comes to together with a purposeful panache.

Lastly, I gotta give some measured props to Brian Cox as Mr. Kreeg, Steven's extremely cranky next-door neighbour. Old school horror fans will probably dig his segment the most, as it boasts the film's most confrontational temperament. I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say he gets up close and personal with the smallish person with the fetish for gourd-like squash I mentioned earlier.

Trick 'r Treat - Trailer
Uploaded by dreadcentral. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

...