Trick (2019)

Damn, Epps as Detective Denver can take a lot of stabs! They are Trick and will continue to grow unless Reyes and Adair follow behind, with Epps riding shotgun, and stop them. So this sets up a sequel. Why would I go ahead and say that, you might ask? Because it is a slasher film with Farmer and Lussier clearly hoping Trick could be a potential franchise. Sort of a variation on The Strangers, where folks in town thrown on face paint and skull/jack-o-lantern masks and represent Trick (Niemann), stabbing locals in Benton, New York. Epps is so perplexed because it appears no matter what he (or other cops) do to (Pa)Trick, he keeps returning time and again to stab more and more locals, Halloween after Halloween, seemingly stemming from "spin the stabby knife" where he was to kiss a high school guy. I thought to myself, "Surely, this isn't the reason Patrick would go ballistic!" Just don't kiss the guy! Fucking hell.

Each person stabbing Epps at the end, while Niemann sits in his wheelchair, dressed as a person fit for execution (looking like a version of Horace Pinker from Shocker, I guess), goes on and on and on. The scene doesn't fucking end. And then Epps pops up with the ladies at the end, ready to go hunt some more of Trick, and I'm like, "Then why the fuck did you extend that lengthy confessional?" Why make the scene go on so long if Epps is just to recover later? Good grief.

I guess the reason this whole Trick Halloween kill-o-thon movement is important to Patrick's cult is to build a reputation...and get to just stab as much as they want under a disguise, in numbers, having a grand ole time.

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I dig Epps in the Loomis role, after his Boogeyman, but I sure do wish the menace was menacing. Folks running around in masks, mocking the police, setting up traps on victims or spree-stabbing; I was just bored by them. Never once was I taken aback or unnerved by them. Maybe it was the music or the camera work...I thought both were just ugh. God, this was not fun. This isn't me piling on because I'm such an easy lay in comparison to much more critical folks on the LB. I just genuinely felt nothing all throughout this. I'm often like the zombies to fireworks in Romero's Land of the Dead when you throw up Halloween colors/aesthetic/cosmetic all over the place, but that didn't even seem to lure my passion or interest to anything in this. I think Reyes -- as the young lady who stabbed Patrick with the fireplace poker and wants revenge for what happens to her father -- does sufficient enough work, but even she's not exactly left with much material (she survived Patrick that night while watching others get mutilated and returns from college knowing martial arts defense moves) besides avoiding death and fighting back when challenged.

Atkins as Talbot, the growly old gus with the diner and haunted maze packing a shotgun to try and deal with Trick, calling him a sumbitch before he himself is part of the body count will always be welcome on my Telly, but this is a "squeeze you in somewhere" celeb casting...but it will always work on me. Just nice to see him. Jamie Kennedy's twist revelation was not the least bit shocking...flashing in my mind was, "Wait for it...wait for it...there he is."