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Oct 31, 2018 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

A mean-spirited prank goes terrifyingly awry for a group of teenagers. A 22-year-old virgin (Anna Paquin) holds out for the perfect date for her Halloween festivities. A father and son bond over one of the holiday’s long-held traditions, and an old Grinch refuses to honor the spirit of All Hallow’s Eve and nearly pays for it with dire consequences.

The anthology movie has long been a staple of the horror genre, arguably reaching its heights in the mid-‘80s with VHS-era classics like Creepshow, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and Cat’s Eye. Released in 2009 after a two-year delay, Trick ‘r Treat feels old-fashioned: it’s playful in a way that’s missing from far too many modern horror movies. The individual stories are woven together in a clever way, and each plays out more like a gory joke than an actual scary tale. (Think Tales from the Crypt.) Like any anthology film, though, not all parts are equal – the father and son story (with Dylan Baker) and the one about the bully teens visiting the site of a terrible mass murder are far stronger than the more predictable story about the party girls. Still, as the name probably implies, Trick ‘r Treat celebrates Halloween in a way that makes it perfect for seasonal viewing. It’s a shame that Sam – the masked ragamuffin in footie pajamas seen on the Blu-ray’s cover art – never became the Halloween horror movie mascot he was designed to be.

Scream Factory’s new special edition contains several hours’ worth of bonus materials. One of the major pluses of seeing a semi-recent film like this one receive a lavish anniversary edition is that the filmmakers are up for talking about their work, haven’t forgotten all of the juicy details from behind the scenes, and have yet to lose track of cool concept materials or abandoned script pages. Director Michael Dougherty – now elbows-deep in a Godzilla sequel – is a full participant in Trick ‘r Treat’s plentiful bonus features, and his personal account of the film’s genesis – from an animated student film to a long-delayed studio feature – is interesting. The extra materials make it clear this was a collaborative effort between the filmmaker, conceptual artists, and others, and it’s good to see so many of them turn up to discuss a movie that didn’t kick off the prolific franchise that many probably thought it would, but one that they’re clearly all proud to have been part of.

(www.shoutfactory.com/product/trick-r-treat-collector-s-edition)