I know what you're thinking, why in the world would I be reviewing a box office bomb from 2007 about Halloween in the early bit of August?

That's a great question. The short answer: I just watched it again, so it seemed somewhat appropriate.

The long answer:...

I've always been a lover of Halloween. Growing up in the 80's and 90's, Halloween wasn't some torture porn fest like it seems to be now. It wasn't lawns riddled with realistic corpses or Rob Zombified interpretations of All Hollow's Eve. It was a time of costumed kids running around with minimal parental supervision on a chilly night (yes, we actually did our trick or treating at night back then). The neighborhoods of my youth got as into it as the kids, in part out of mutual celebration and in part out of fear of being targeted for the trick portion of trick or treat. I remember the rush to hit as many houses as possible in hopes of filling our candy coffers for the next few months, even wearing rollerblades to cover as much area as possible.

The best way to get a kid to do chores in the 80s/90s

The decorations were harmless. Cartoonish black cats, pumpkins with all manner of non-terrifying carvings, friendly ghosts and non-haunt-your-dreams style witches on broomstick. No bloodiness, nothing meant to haunt a kid's dreams and rack up a serious psychiatrist's bill later on in life.

No, the holiday mixed with our imaginations was enough. Kids would have sleepovers telling ghost stories, watching creepy movies, staying up way too late and playing "light as a feather" or the old reliable Ouija board. There was a youthful innocence and a healthy kind of fear you can only get from the intangible unknown.

Since I've gotten older, I've noticed a shift in all things Halloween. It's shifted more towards the brutal, celebrating the real kind of scary, bordering on offensive. Fewer houses handing out candy, opting for Trunk or Treat events hosted by locals for the fear of abducted children or the convenience of parents, I don't know. And fewer and fewer kids showing up wearing actual costumes at my door. It hurts my inner nostalgia.

So where does this movie I referenced some 350 words ago come into play?

Nostalgia.

The atmosphere of the film is straight out of my childhood. Those autumn hues of red, orange, and yellow, mixed with that chilly fog of an October night. All the houses (save one) are decorated to the nines with the best that my childhood memories have to offer. It's a free for all of shirking responsibility and captures a night that is rife with that supernatural kind of terror that we only really feel as kids. It's the perfect level of campy, retro, cheesy gore that I loved growing up. It wasn't realistic, it was fun, which can best be seen in the first story shown in the anthology film. The deaths are so over the top that they don't feel real, they feel supernatural. That's what I want out of Halloween. Irrational fear.

The movie also nicely captures Halloween from the perspective of 5 different age groups, each delivering on a different level of "scare" that is appropriate for the age range. My personal favorite involves the group of kids that decide to scare a local girl and end up getting what's coming to them. It's also definitely the creepiest of the stories in the movie. But each story shows the evolution of the part Halloween plays in our lives in a campy way, while also reminding us what Halloween is supposed to be.

This movie hits my nostalgia in every way possible. The setting, the set design, the performances, the music (such a great throwback score), the costumes, everything. It's really a shame that this thing didn't get the release it deserved, but I'm damn happy that it has found the cult following that it has. I try to share this movie around as much as possible (hence writing a somewhat long-winded review about it.)

This movie should be required Halloween viewing for every devotee to Halloween. I'm afraid that Halloween is slipping away and losing importance to us, which is a shame. Halloween, while on its surface may seem like a celebration of "evil", represents something much more than that. It's a celebration of the ridiculous, an opportunity to be a community, and a chance to forget about all those rational fears for one night. We live with a real sense of terror most days, so why not embrace some ridiculous for one night.

And never let anyone tell you that August is too early to start celebrating everything that Fall has to offer.

P.S. Look for my coming lists of recommended (read: required) Holiday viewing. Trust me, I know my shit.

musings

A Random and Seemingly Out of Season Review of "Trick R Treat"