Don't F*ck with the Halloween Spirit

 Four tales of terror are weaved within the tapestry of a modernized anthology, the various stories inside an unknown city and it's specific suburban neighborhood shot in the Tarantino-like method where we see certain characters, and their stories represented in shuffled form, alternating between past or present, a disheveled but coherent(amazingly)presentation that defies the anarchy which might oftentimes occur in such a dizzying format.

A principal(!), Steven(Dylan Baker),actually poisons candy, burying kids that annoy him in his back yard! Oh, and he allows his boy child in on his grisly activities.

While her sister and girlfriends scour a new city for "fresh meat", Laurie(Anna Paquin), dressed, interesting enough, in her little red riding hood outfit, is a "virgin" on the lookout for her own potential suitor, and it appears her life could be threatened by a vampire. But, who is actually preying on who?

An "idiot savant", named Rhonda(Samm Todd)is chosen to be victim of an elaborate, cruel prank by school kids, led to the location of a rock quarry where it's believed that a bus driver, paid by parents, was responsible for driving a load of "disadvantaged" youths to their doom. This comes back to haunt them when the sound of childish whispers echo in the distance..

A "Halloween miser", Mr. Kreeg(Brian Cox), is visited by the disgruntled "spirit of the season", seeking retribution for his failure to appreciate the holiday properly. He also has a secret(..note the photographs he's burning over the flaming logs in his fireplace) from his past that will return to pay him a visit.

And, the opening(..an obviously beloved homage to Carpenter's Halloween, the point-of-view of a killer shot through what appears to be a sack of some kind)shows the violent reaction towards a woman who decides to "thumb her nose" at the holiday by removing her decorations early before the night's even over, raising the ire of of a benevolent predator who doesn't take too kindly to such behavior, while her husband awaits her upstairs.

The movie, despite the decision not to separate the stories, moves incredibly well, and to the credit of writer / director Michael Dougherty(..who I hope and pray stays in the genre for sometime to come, because if this is his debut, then I can just imagine what might come next!)his format of arranging the different stories actually miraculously works at holding our interest(..or at least mine), and I found the way of involving the principles in the others' stories quite amusing(..and exhilarating). The cinematography is magnificent and I found Doughtery's implicit desire to blanket the movie completely under the Halloween season aesthetically pleasing. The whole look of the movie is major eye candy to me and I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the atmosphere of how the holiday is shown in such a beloved light. Special congrats to Dougherty for the little red riding hood symbolism(..the twist is a doozy!), giving Baker another creepy father role, handing Cox the perfect part as a Halloween Grinch whose bah-humbug is sending his dog after innocent kids wanting candy, and the little monster in this movie is quite a bizarre concoction! Photographed by Glen MacPherson(Rambo), a mainstream cinematographer, and I reckon I'm not the only one who feels that this is some of his best work to date. Not particularly too gory or scary, but full of wonderfully black humor and wicked developments. Destined to be(..if it isn't already)a Halloween classic. My favorite tale of those presented is Cox's battle with the little whatsit, with, I think, a loving nod to Evil Dead II. 

--Trick 'r Treat (2007); October 2009