Trick ‘R Treat

Rating: ***1/2

After years of waiting, the fan-favourite ode to October 31st has finally made its way to DVD shelves everywhere, and the important question now to contemplate is just what the heck took so long to get such a solid flick in the hands of the general public? Call it timing issues, constantly running up against the Saw juggernaut; call it spite on the part of the studio after Superman Returns (co-written by Trick ‘R Treat’s director Michael Dougherty and directed Trick’s producer Bryan Singer) under-performed at the box office. But whatever you do, don’t say it’s because this movie isn’t worthwhile, because it is really worth your while. Dougherty has created what’s possibly the greatest holiday special to be made in some time, and that ain’t easy.

Trick ‘R Treat is a kind of anthology movie that tells four different, interceding tales that all take play in one small Ohio town on Halloween night. Like a master of ceremonies, little Sam, a cherub in a scarecrow-like burlap suit, runs from scene-to-scene to oversee the mayhem and collect some penny candy in a pillow sack. He appears in all the stories: the one about the young kids playing a prank on a friend, the virginal college student looking for her first, the creepy old man facing his demons, and the somewhat sadistic school principal teaching his son a lesson. Naturally, all these stories have twists to them; some surprising, some suspected, but always entertaining.

Dougherty is adept at plumbing the holiday trappings and manages a pretty reasonable balance between adult-oriented scares and thrills that appeal to the kid in all of us. Most importantly though, Dougherty captures the atmosphere nicely; one can practically hear the leaves crunch beneath their feet as they march from one house to the next in search of candy. The cinematography puts an emphasis on the fall colours red and orange, and makes them pop out against the seemingly endless night the film takes place in. One scene takes place in a fog-filled quarry where a wrecked school bus rises from the bog like some sort of hideous tombstone. Thoughts of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and art director Rick Heinrich’s fine work on Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow do not go a miss.

But if there’s an unbearable weakness to these sorts of movies it’s that there’s always a weak link, there’s always one story that doesn’t connect like the rest. I’ll leave it for you to decide which one of the stories doesn’t work, but needless to say there’s something here for all tastes and it’s guaranteed that some stories will appeal more than others. There’s the subtle black comedy of the tale of the Principal, played with tremendous sinister relish by Dylan Baker. The kids’ tale about their search for a ghost bus that once ferried special ed kids that were killed by their driver when the bus went into the quarry has that spooky air of urban legend and lets the movie have a chance to play with zombies. Also recognized for its cleverness is the story of Anna Paquin’s Red Riding Hood, and the interesting spin Dougherty puts on that tale that’s too good to ruin.

The film’s not without its issues, both on a technical level and a literal one, like the use of “based on” comic panels in the opening and closing credits. I’m not sure what it is about filmmakers that make them sometimes think that the simple fact that they had an artist make up some faux comic pages fives gives them, and their film, added street cred, but it doesn’t (always) work. As more the technical problems, some of the segues and the way the stories were intercut were sometimes weak, and there were times when the film seemed to struggle with its own self-identity (probably from studio-demanded cuts for a more commercial friendly PG-13 rating). But I’ve seen enough direct-to-video crap to know when something truly deserves to be buried on the video shelf, and Trick ‘R Treat is not one of those.

Friday the 13th (2009)

Rating: **1/2

There’s a certain aesthetic quality to the re-imagining of/reworked of/non-sequel to Friday the 13th, however we’re not talking about a movie series known for being overly concerned with how it looks. What made the Friday the 13th series so great, at least to me, was that many of the earlier iterations looked as if you could have gone out into the woods yourself and made the exact same thing for nearly the same quality. There was a formula that encompassed everything from story mechanics to bad acting; Jason plus machete plus a bunch of nubile, hapless and horny teenagers equals mincemeat.

This Friday though seems to have aspirations beyond exploitation, although that certainly still plays a big part. In a way, this film shares a bit in common with Rob Zombie’s greatest hits Halloween remake, where the killer’s inner madness is given consideration before we get to the T&A&K. (The ‘K’ stands for ‘Kills’ obviously.) In the credits sequence we’re shown Mrs Voorhees getting decapitated in what’s basically a redo of the last five minutes of Friday One back in 1980. Flash-forward to present day and a new group of teens come face to sack with her son Jason, who kills all but one. Incidentally, it’s the one that bears a resemblance to his mother, Whitney (Amanda Righetti).

Be it for good or for ill, Jason’s psychological rationale for squirreling Whitney away in his hidey-hole aren’t really investigated that thoroughly. It would only waste valuable kill time, which is actually wasted anyway because the kills aren’t really that great. Disappointing, to say the least, and it’s a completely missed opportunity as well. The main characters include Whitney’s brother Clay (Jared Padalecki) and a group of college do-nothings led by rich, white frat boy Trent.

Trent is played by Trent Van Winkle, who’s filled the rich, white frat part to perfection with previous roles in Accepted and Transformers. It really says something that seeing this guy get his just desserts at the end of Jason’s machete doesn’t illicit even a little bit of smug satisfaction. After all, this is the guy that brings his good time bong buddies to his parent’s fancy cabin and then rags on them for acting like frat boys, while cheating on his girlfriend because she’s the only one in the group with human decency enough to feel for Clay’s plight. Padalecki is good enough to be the bland hero, but as a character note I have to say that he’s the worst investigator ever.

As for the big man, what can I say? Derek Mears is actually the best part of this as Jason, mostly because I think he was allowed to put his own spin on the character’s physicality and presence. In the later films, Jason kind of seems like a joke, a bit of self parody. After numerous movies basically showing in the end that he can’t be killed, the filmmakers decided to take that literally and show him being shot or dismembered about a million times over like some kind of human Timex watch. So I didn’t miss the old, lumbering Jason like I didn’t miss the slow and docile zombies in 28 Days Later. It feels like the humanity’s back in the character, which is an essential element that’s been missing in the action for a long time.

But one thing I did miss in this film was the old music; the to- to- to- to-ka- ka- ka- ka riff. I think I only recognized it once, but in the old Friday movies it was as omnipresent as the “dah-dum” in Jaws. What wasn’t missing though was anything resembling character because the teenage campers are pure id, caring only for satisfying their primitive pleasure needs. At this point, the terms for a satisfied customer are to see those kids die in as horrifying a way as possible, which is a condition that this Friday doesn’t satisfy. It looks great, no question, but can it sustain and launch another marathon ten movie series? I’m afraid not.