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I had a heck of a time settling on this week's movie. A friend suggested I hunt down this really impressively low budget Mexican Transformers knockoff whose visuals looked like, and I'm serious, a WarCraft 3 mod, but I couldn't find it. While I looked, a couple random wrong search results on netflix popped up with some promise, like Sex Galaxy, which boasts being assembled completely from the unused footage, mostly of a bunch of terrible 50's B-movies, but it was kinda setting off my porn alarm. Then of course there's House (the Japanese one) but I'm saving that for when I can watch it with a friend. So... instead we're getting Trick'r Treat, which is apparently my kind of horror movie, and was unfairly buried when originally released. Here's hoping those recommendations are accurate.
We start off with a cheesy Halloween Safety film strip, followed by this couple who are clearly in their 30s at least going trick or treating in cheesy spaceman and robot costume. This was apparently the guy's idea and wow, boobs already? That's early. Anyway, as I was saying, this was is the guy's idea and you know what? I totally approve. They've got decent costumes, they really decked their yard out proper, and apparently left candy on the honor system. Anyway, Girl is totally down on this idea, and as soon as they get home strips off her costume and starts tearing down lawn decorations, while Guy goes inside to watch either porn or a horror movie, hence boobs. After a quick blatant Halloween joke (someone in the same mask was standing in the background staring, but just because he was waiting for a ride from his friends), Girl is, of course, murdered and used to improve her own decorations. Then things go all comic booky and "4 Tales of Terror!"
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Oh boy! That's right, I remember now! This was recommended to be by people who know I like the Creepshow movies! Because apparently it's an homage to'em. So yeah, starting in on our first proper short here, opening with a rather nifty costume contest/parade, and eventually meander over to our cannon foddery cast for this one, 4 slutty girls who apparently tour the country every halloween doing some different themed group costume, like all slutty sailors, or in this case, all slutty Disney Princesses... well, one's Little Red Ridinghood. There's also an outside chance that they are secretly vampires. Meanwhile, here's some fat kid hanging out with... the dad from Fido! Apparently playing the same character even. I really like this guy, I should actually learn his name and see what else he's done. Anyway, he's carving jack'o'lanterns and rambling to this fat kid about the true meaning of Halloween, and... oh hey. He also gives the kid poisoned candy, causing him to vomit forth a hilarious fountain of blood and die. And he's apparently the school principle. And before he can do whatever with the body more kids show up, and oh hey, apparently he's the principle. Also, one of the kids has one of them freaky burlap sack heads going on and will likely prove Significant. Then he gets interrupted duping this kid in what is apparently his one kid a year mass grave, by his own kid pestering him from the window. "Just go watch Charlie Brown!" "Charlie Brown's an asshole!" Then the neighbor's dog starts barking at him, so he tosses him a finger.. then the neighbor himself, then fat kid turning out not to actually be dead, then his kid again... man. Principle Timmy's Dad just can't get a break tonight can he! Poor guy.
OK, so finally, he gets this kid properly murdered, buried, and marked with a sapling and lawn gnome. Took long enough. Then he goes inside to deal with his own kid. As he enters the front door, he notices his other neighbor, some old lady, frantically screaming at her window, because apparently some slasher baddie is trying to kill her. Principal Timmy's Dad seems to be totally aware of this, but just plain doesn't care. He's got his own stuff to deal with tonight. So she gets murdered in the background while he goes in to help his kid carve a jack'o'lantern. After a lot of faking out that he's going to murder his kid, we eventually reveal that the kid is in on all this, and they have a tradition of desecrating the severed heads of other kids! Well good to see things are working out for them... but wait, why didn't he decapitate the kid before dragging him out to the grave? Just seems simpler.
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Anyway, apparently we're going to be meandering all over here, rather than breaking into specific shorts, which I'm cool with. We've got the 3 kids who were at the door before going around. I forgot to mention it, but they're gathering jack'o'lanterns, possibly for some nepharious purpose. Now here's some random couple making out in an alley in cheesy costume ball masks. Turns out the guy's a vampire, largely kills the girl, but she escapes briefly into the parade, where everyone thinks she's just being an annoying cosplayer. Everyone, in this case, mainly means the couple from the pre-credit sequence, making that possibly a flash-forward.
Jumping back to the kids real quick, they've picked up a weirdo girl dressed as a witch who calls Halloween Sawain, and they head out to the old abandoned rock quarry, where the lead kid starts telling this ghost story we cut to about someone driving a bus with the town's 8 most emotionally disturbed kids out to this very quarry to be driven in and killed. Unfortunately, one of them slips free of his shackles while the driver is doing his last minute check of them, heads to the front of the bus, and... well, drives it off. I guess it's really all according to plan except the driver was supposed to get off. Although he may have lived anyway, so it's all good. Anyway, lead kid in the present's whole deal is to take these 8 jack'o'lanterns (one per dead creepy kid) and leave them by the edge of the lake the quarry has become as offerings to the dead, because, hey, that seems like a cool way to spend Halloween. Oh yeah, and at one point in the flashback, creepy Sackhead kid is standing by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere as the bus drives by.
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Anyway, back to the slutty girls. Red Ridinghood is still looking for a date/victim. Hey, there's a centaur, but the back legs are his girlfriend. Oh hey, there's some big buff barbarian! Oh that's a girl. Cinderella finds her some big ugly baby guy though. Oh and now we're back to the kids. Cool thing here, they have to take this slow elevator down to the bottom, that can only take 3 at a time, and there's 5 of them here. As the last two are riding down, they hear all kinds of screaming and other evidence of Bad @#$% Going Down. Pirate kid wants none of it, but nerdy Witch girl, who, one may assume, is actually a witch, or at least a paranormal investigator, leaves him with the jack'o'lanterns to ward off evil and goes off alone to check stuff out. This movie jumps around a lot, but I really am digging it. Also, awesome decaying ghost bus and creepy dead kids' halloween masks floating in the water! And, distinct looking 10 yyear old bloated water zombies. Actually, those are darn effective. They've got just the right mix of cheesy kid horror big headedness and actual good direction to work out, and they're feasting on Pirate's entrails as she runs by again. Turns out they're just the lead kids playing a pretty @#$%ing awesome and well-executed prank. Witchy falls and cracks her head pretty bad, so everyone feels guilty and gets ready to go back. One noticed that a jack'o'lantern by the water was still lit, and kiks it into the water. Unfortunately, yeah, that turns out to be what was actually keeping the authentic drowned disturbed kids from getting up to kill'em. They look OK, now as good as the fake ones. And oh hey, remember the bit with the elevator only holding 3 people at once? Sucks to be those guys. Also, the zombies have their chains still which they use as whip-y lasso-y deals to drag their victims closer. Witch is already on the elevator when $#@% goes down for real, and figures you know what? Screw you guys, and lets the other kids die. Sack head is just kinda hanging out in the background all "'sup" style.
Meanwhile, the slutty girls are off at some bonfire, and... that vampire just murdered Red Ridinghood apparently. Oh no wait, that's his slmpy body in her cloak. Good, I thought I might have been off. Vampire as it turns out, isn't really a vampire at all! He's... Principle Timmy's Dad! They unmask him all Scooby Doo villain style and remove his fake vampire fangs. Because, like I called FOREVER ago based on only one single cryptic line, these girls are vampires. Or... actually they're pealing off their skin now. Oh. They're werewolves. AWESOME MUPPETY WEREWOLVES! They look like Frelling Gmork! Hell yes! And oh hey, Sack Head's hanging out with them too. Kid gets around.
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Now here's a random caption of "Earlier..." and some different kids trick or treating at a rather spooky house with a whole bunch of locks, with the door opening into darkness, eventually revealing a pair of glowing eyes and some snarling... which eventually just prove to be Principal Timmy's Dad's neighbor's dog in a mask.... and now that I see said neighbor, this might have been the neighbor who was getting murdered in the background afterall. He's got pretty long hair and a weird bathrove,, so I thought he was an old lady through the window. Anyway, he takes the candy the kids dropped when they saw his dog inside, and sits down to watch TV. He flips past a lot of good stuff really. Think I saw Suspiria in there, and an episode of Gargoyles. Anyway, damn punk kids come back to egg his house, plus his dog starts freaking out at the next door neighbor making a lot of noise in his yard. So he leaves his nice secured house with the door wide open, and goes to yell at him over the fence. We get that Halloweenish POV shot (through gauze if I didn't mention it) and as he heads back in, there's signs his house has an intruder in it... and trying to calm his dog down after checking that out, someone has placed like... 50 jack'o'lanterns in his yard too. Presumably, this is the work of Sackhead, who does kinda seem to have the MO of making damn sure people properly celebrate the pagan roots of Halloween and aren't jerks about it.
And uh... wow. Poking around, we have a creepy mummy hand under the covers of this guys bead, as soon as he starts getting creeped out by it, a jack'o'lantern on the table nearby bursts into flame, bigtime, illuminating that annoyingtrick or treat rhyme written all over every available surface in blood, and Sackhead comes after him with candybar with a razor blade in it. There's a big of struggling, tripping on candy caltrops and falling down the stairs, screaming at his neighbor for help through the window, but that jerk apparently doesn't give a @#$%, and some struggling. He tears off Sackhead's head sack to reveal this... generally kind of disturbing pumpkin with skull face. Like, seriously, it's really creepy looking, in this non-human vaguely reptilian or alien fashion. So uh... dude, is Sackhead actually frelling Samhain? Pagon god of Halloween? Out to murder those who don't pay him respect? Apparently he is! Awesome! He also takes a few shotgun blasts, splattering pumpkin guts all over, and we get a bit of evil severed hand fun. There's some more general panicking, eventually he overturns a TV tray and ends up clutching a candybar, as Sackhead Samhain, his mask back on, menaces him with a cartoonishly tooth chomped jack'o'lantern lollypop (which appears to be sharp enough to murder people with)... at which point he takes the candy bar from his hand, nods in approval, eats it, and leaves, the door opening and closing for him all magic-like. We get a quick shot of our protagonist of the moment's fireplace, where a group photo with the drowned creepy kids generally implicating he was the bus driver before fading out.
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Then we get another cartoony caption box saying "Later..." and a quick rundown of how everything turns out. Bus drivey neighbor here is having himself a proper Scrooge moment, dumping a TON of candy into the bags of the next set of kids to come by. Principal Timmy's Dad's kid is sitting on the porch in this Just Like Daddy outfit (including the bloodstains from corpse mutilation). The werewolf girls are driving off cheering, having finally gotten Red her first proper victim for one of their annual murder-orgies, Witch girl is carrying a lit jack'o'lantern with her as she goes about doing some proper trick or treating, and Samhain is making his way across the street to deal with that lame Halloween hating girl from the intro bit. Scrooge sees what's coming there but doesn't intervene because hey, he's sure as hell not questioning the system now. So everything is all wrapped up nice and tidy like... except one thing. His doorbell rings again, and answering it we have... the 8 drowned zombie kids. One croaks "trick'or'treat" in a properly drowned zombie type voice, and then we fade back into a little comic-ness as they murder him. I mean, come on. It's great that he learned the true meaning of Halloween and all, but that doesn't get you off the hook for this sort of revenge-murder. Dude killed 8 kids!
So yeah. That was honestly great. The whole thing rides this style line between legit horror and goofy kids stuff that actually hits this really nice subversive and unsettling note, the whole interweaving shorts thing was pulled off really nicely, there was actually a good use of color throughout (mainly orange), I seriously cannot stress enough how Gmork looking those werewolves were, and the whole little kid drowned zombie thread was astoundingly well-done in all respects. Plus it was really unpredictable (I only made that almost-right vampires guess on the grounds that horror anthologies basically always have a surprise vampire twist somewhere, and someone said something about everyone tasting the same when they were getting their costumes)... and oh man I so love the eventual reveal that the creepy little kid hanging out the whole time really was the gourd-headed pagan god of Halloween making sure everyone was acting in proper accordance with the traditions. And also collecting candy, because hey candy!
