Trick 'r Treat, The Best Halloween Movie Ever

Always hand out candy to trick or treaters.

Always wear a costume.

NEVER blow out a Jack O'Lantern before midnight.

Always respect the dead.

NEVER take down your decorations before November 1st.

Always . . . check . . . your candy.

These are the rules of Samhain. You might know him better as Sam, the little spirit who represents and oversees Halloween. A spirit that takes the form (or at least height) of a little boy dressed in a sort of ratty orange pajamas with a burlap sack for a head, with cute (literal) button eyes and a grin stitched with rough, thin twine. He's always seen carrying a burlap sack full of candy or razor blades, and sometimes you'll see him "enjoying" a pumpkin shaped lollipop that can do a hell of a lot more than any lollipop should. Eat your heart out Blow Pops.

Don't know where you know that name from? For shame on you! But I'll tell you what . . . he's from the best Halloween movie ever made!

Trick 'r Treat.

(Warning! Spoilers in this article!)

This film with a deceptively simple title was made in 2007, and is known as an anthology film for the way it splits its run time between four stories that are tied together by one thing . . . and that one thing, is Sam's unbreakable, uncompromising Rules of Halloween.

Sam being, of course, the incarnation of Halloween, would absolutely have you believe that he not only has the will but the power to ensure those who break his rules are met with appropriate punishments (read: painful deaths). So let's go through the list of those who flagrantly broke his rules and exactly how he meted out punishment.

1. Emma was a wild one to start the movie with, so short yet so sweetly vengeful! Emma was a textbook skeptic, a funny contrast to her boyfriend who believed in the traditions of Halloween even if he may not have fully understood the consequences associated with them. Emma isn't having any of it though, and despite warnings, not only blows out the Jack O'Lanterns but proceeds to start removing the Halloween decorations! First of all, what was her actual problem? Who the hell just decides to remove decorations after a night of walking and partying instead of, I don't know, hurrying to get nice and cozy in their home? I'm sure had she known that her sticky, sugary end was coming so soon she might have chosen that option. Instead, after breaking three rules, she's trapped by the very white sheets she had hung up some weeks prior, and slashed at by a disapproving Sam before having her throat slit by the unnaturally sharp and jagged edges of a bitten pumpkin lollipop. The chopped up body parts and her boyfriend finding her head on a scarecrow was really quite an artful touch by young master Samhain, truly.

2. Charlie was a poor, hapless child who just couldn't resist taking some candy meant for the rule-abiding trick-or-treaters. Sitting there on those dark porch steps he unwraps and devours chocolate after chocolate before being caught brown-handed by the owner of that candy bowl-- his school principal Mr. Wilkins! At first Mr. Wilkins sits and chats quietly with Charlie about the candy and the holiday itself before things then take a rather sickening turn. While Charlie may have knowingly broken Rule #2 (always wear a costume), he seemed to have foolishly forgotten Rule #6 . . . Always check your candy. What ensues is, oddly enough, one of the grossest scenes for me in movie history and it's insane because it is most certainly not the worst "puke" scene ever? It really wouldn't even scratch the surface of some gory movies like Hostel or Saw VII, and yet I absolutely cannot be in the room while Charlie projectile vomits all his ill-gotten candy. So if you have a sensitive stomach maybe skip that scene. Charlie only had perhaps a minute to understand that his candy had been tampered with before he died miserably, his body being dragged into the house so that the murderous school principal and his twisted little boy could use poor Charlie's head as an avante-garde Jack O'Lantern . . . call it a Charlie O'Lantern now. Charlie may not have been personally punished by Sam, but he did receive a punishment regardless if it came from the surprise twist of a PTA-heading, middle-aged murderer.

It may please you to know, however, that Mr. Wilkins does indeed meet his own (gorgeous) demise via a little wolf in Red's clothing, amidst a seriously hot montage of dancing and skin shedding around a bonfire. Who ever said vampires were better than werewolves, huh? You'll understand it a lot more, and like it a lot more, when you see it. God Anna Paquin was awesome in what was, honestly, only about ten or fifteen minutes of screen time?

3. Little Macy Rutherford, all aglow and pretty in her angel costume, rounds up her school pals- Sarah Perry, Chip Winslow, and her crush Sam Hader- on a strange, impromptu trip to gather up Jack O'Lanterns in a wagon. Making a stop at a creepy Halloween Party, they march with some trepidation to the house of Rhonda Curran who for every Halloween creates scores of elaborate, beautiful Jack O'Lanterns. They encourage her to join them on a trip to the quarry in exchange for a couple of her creations. Once getting to the misty, dark quarry, Macy tells the story of the School Bus Massacre. About thirty years prior, there was a school bus driver who was in charge of driving eight children with intellectual and developmental disabilities who were always chained to their seats for every ride. The parents, perhaps tired or perhaps ashamed of their children, bribed the bus driver to kill them. So on Halloween morning, with the children dressed from head to toe, from bunny feet to vampire mask, the bus driver drove the bus over the cliff and sent it crashing down into the waters below. Every time I get so hurt by the story . . . to think people could really be so callous and pathetic as to kill children who had no say on how they lived? Not one of the children survived. The Jack O'Lanterns were meant as an offering of sorts to the tormented souls of the children, and so taking an old-fashioned elevator to the bottom, the group went down. It turns out that while the story was true, their intentions for bringing her were as rotten to the core, and it with a hurting realization that Rhonda realizes they only wanted to prank her rather than befriend her. Rhonda gets a very luscious chance for revenge though, because the little brats broke Rule #4 (always respect the dead), and those dead school kids have arisen from the grave for some tasty, bloody treats of their own . . . The kids flee, panic-stricken and nearly mindless with fear . . .

To realize Rhonda has already gotten in the elevator!

They plead with her to save them, to let them in . . . and Rhonda gives them one steady, calculating look . . . before playing it ice cold and pressing the 'lift' button, leaving the last three brats to be painfully ripped apart with only the last high-pitched scream of the not so angelic Macy to signal their last breath. Rhonda arrives up top, gathers her Jack O'Lanterns, and shares a silent moment with Sam before she heads back home. Good for you Rhonda. In case you didn't realize? This one was my favorite one in the movie. Sometimes if I'm tipsy the Anna Paquin one ties with it.

4. Now here was the most satisfying death, and he was actually spared by Sam! You saw Mr. Kreeg if you clicked on that little video link so it was a bit of a spoiler to this point in the article, nevertheless! Surly Mr. Kreeg was well known in the neighborhood for being the grumpy old man who yells at kids on a regular day, and on Halloween, scares kids to steal their candy in part to ensure everyone knows how much he hates the holiday.While he relaxes in his home, little does he realize Sam has infiltrated the gloomy house and is intent on letting the dour senior know just how little the pint-sized spirit appreciates him breaking the very first rule of Halloween. What ensues is a pretty cool knockdown, dragout fight between Sam and the surprisingly tough Mr. Kreeg who reveals himself a surprisingly competent opponent for little Sam. Too bad for him Sam isn't just immortal, he's vicious. Between scratching at the man and using a chocolate bar as a shank, Sam proves he has no problem doing his duty as the spirit of Halloween. Mr. Kreeg can toss him, punch him, hell even blast him with a shotgun- the little mischievous spirit will carry out his duty . . .

Unless.

Unless you prove to Sam that you've seen the error of your ways and commit to following the rules once more. Mr. Kreeg ends up doing just that, even if it was obviously unintentional. A candy bar falls into his lap mere moments before Sam gives him the business, and Sam happens to take that as an appeasement from the man, one he accepts as he starts to munch on the sweet and proceed to leave the house and its freaked out occupant. For the next few minutes of the movie, Mr. Kreeg is a changed man, offering trick-or-treaters candy and actually smiling at them! And for a while, we feel a little glad for the man who seems to have had a "come-to-Satan" moment via our Tricky Baby, and we watch content that things will have a sort of happy ending.

You can't imagine how hard I choked when I saw that photo, then, the photo that would completely change my understanding of just about half the movie, and before I could even go through all five stages of grief . . . !

Sweet, sweet justice.

In Conclusion, We Stan Sam in this Household

So, listen, there's more to my love for this excellent movie than its spectacular plot(s). It's the fact that even with a messed up release and its going straight to DVD, it received nearly unanimous positive reviews from critics and earned itself an 8/10 on most sites. It's the aesthetically pleasing, charming little town the movie is set in, with its stunning houses and people willing to throw themselves to the whims of the night on Halloween. It's the seemingly ordinary that becomes the sinister and extraordinary in the most delightfully twisted ways.

It's how Sam looks, for most of the movie, an innocent if mischief-loving little boy who just so happens to be at the scene of all things gruesome and grim. Not to mention the shocking reveal of his face, which is absolutely . . . well technically he should be classified as hideous but I'd still feed him treats and coo. We shouldn't judge on looks, but on his supernatural ability to absolutely wreck people. If you actually look up Sam and his abilities, he literally has the best powers of the Avengers, with some Deadpool thrown in, but better and all contained in a package more adorable than puppy-eyed Peter Parker so take that, Holland, you whippersnapper!

It's the way this movie gave me the honor and immense pleasure of experiencing (and taking multiple pictures) of my favorite scarezone in Halloween Horror Nights. A long stretch of road underneath lit trees with grinning faces peering at me from above. Waify, bloody, bedraggled trick or treaters meandering through crowds when it was still relatively safe to be a part of crowds.

To put it plainly, though, it's the way that this movie was a breath of fresh air in its originality. They didn't need CGI, or buckets of blood to induce crazy jumpscares or anything like that. What they had was an incredible script, and a fantastically mystical atmosphere that melded with the mundane world like caramel and chocolate. No other anthology movie that so obviously took cues from this movie has ever compared, putting Trick 'R Treat on the same level as Creepshow or the Twilight Zone. I cannot recommend this movie to you highly enough, for I can hardly find the sufficient words in the English language, though I suspect Latin would be suitable had I ever tried to learn it. Just give this a try if you want something fresh, something fun, something that can flip from spooky mischief to subtle terror as easily as the candle flame flickers.

Sam became an instant horror icon and, as far as anybody is concerned, he is a real and true legend as old as Halloween itself! This movie will teach you the proper etiquette that you might have been blissfully unaware of when it comes to Halloween night, lest your ignorance lead you to traipse right into a punishment from the giddy spirit himself. Remember boys, gals, and non-binary pals . . . Sam is always watching.

And Sam always knows.

Happy Halloween.