DVD Review – Trick ‘R Treat
Every so often, good word of mouth can save a film from oblivion — which was undoubtedly the direction Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘R Treat was headed, pushed into distribution limbo for two entire years. The downside of this tactic is that a hype machine can be built that quickly grows out of control.
People have called Trick ‘R Treat the best Halloween film since, well, Halloween. Did it live up to the hype for me?
Yes, it absolutely did.
Not for the reasons I expected, either, which was part of the surprise of the film — this is a film about constant surprises, and rabbits being pulled out of hats at every corner.
When I heard the praise, I immediately thought the film would be scary. And while it does have some good scares strewn about, it’s much more fun than scary. Dougherty celebrates the holiday in a way that is truer to Halloween than any other film. It’s gleeful and disgusting and morbid and magical. If you go in expecting that, you’ll be much more pleased with the outcome.
The highest praise I can give the film is that it felt like an old episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? — that old, forgotten Nickelodeon show from my youth — but reverse engineered via Romero’s Creepshow for an adult audience. The whole movie, which is spun through four interweaving segments involving a cute, deadly little beast named Sam, bears this aesthetic of being told a ghost story.
Expect surprises from Trick ‘R Treat, more than a share of gore (although you won’t be disappointed in that regard, either). It’s perfectly suited to this season, and will undoubtedly make the yearly rotation of films the way that It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story have for the holidays. Dougherty has waited a long time for the release of this film, but it’s been worth it: he’s injected the horror genre with a film more in love with its subject material than any released in recent memory.
For extras on the disc, we get a little animated short film that Dougherty created in 1996 that served as the basis for the character of Sam. I think it’s a perfect thing to watch either immediately before or after the film, because it feels like a twisted Charlie Brown cartoon.
