“Trick R’ Treat” was written and directed by Michael Dougherty and produced by Bryan Singer. Dougherty and Singer had previously worked on 2003’s “X2: X-Men United” and 2006’s “Superman Returns”. The film stars Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Quinn Lord. While the film was released in small film festivals, it had a huge cult following and then had main stream release in 2009 on home video and select theaters.

In a small town in Ohio, a number of various event all link up on this particular Halloween night. The school principal, Steven Wilkins (Baker) poisons a kid with candy after he vandalized his yard as a mysterious trick r’ treater, Sam (Lord) watches on. We then follow Sam across the street to a couple who is arguing about taking down their Halloween decorations. When the wife refuses, she is killed by Sam when the husband walks off. Next door to Wilkins’ is a grumpy old man, Mr. Kreeg (Cox) who scares off kids and is not in the Halloween spirit, very much a “Scrooge” indeed. Kreeg is attacked by Sam and rather than being killed Sam leaves him. Kreeg then begins handing out candy to trick r treaters. Across town we meet Laurie (Paquin) and her group of young teenage girls dressing up for Halloween. The girls are meeting and seducing people across town and inviting them to a nearby party. Laurie invites a man dressed as mysterious vampire. These 4 different stories range from dread, mischief, rituals and traditions and all drive home the fact Halloween has rules and regulations and those who don’t follow them will suffer the consequences.

For an indie horror film, this really was an intriguing film and storyline. Taking the anthology plot line and giving a Halloween back drop was very interesting and definitely paid off in the end. This was a great film all the way around and had great performances from a cast of relatively newcomers at the time. The character and look of Sam was so simple yet so effective. Very similar to Michael Meyers, a simple design with no distinctive features and still has a creepy look. This my first look into independent horror which later led me to other hidden gems in the genre.

As I stated earlier, the move was delayed 2 years after having major success in these indie film festivals. Michael Dougherty and the rest of filmmakers had announced plans for a sequel in 2013 but was originally announced in 2009. He also claimed after the success of his latest film, 2019’s “Godzilla: King of Monsters”, he would return to “Trick R Treat 2” although nothing has come of it since then.