(82 min, 2007)
Plot: Four interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the one guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband.
Director: Michael Dougherty
Writer: Michael Dougherty
Stars: Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Dylan Baker
Tricks are for kids
Halloween, Samhain, Hallow's Eve.
The most magical day of the year when the line between the world of the living and the world of the dead is at its thinnest. Halloween has magnificent traditions that have been cultivated for centuries - dressing up, scaring people and of course - trick or treating. "Trick 'r Treat" not only captures the atmosphere of Halloween but also does the rare trick of being both good horror movie and good comedy.
We get to see all of the most famous traditions - carving of pumpkins, getting dressed in either scary or slutty costumes and giving kids their candy. Since it's a horror movie we also see obligatory guts and blood - it's definitely not a film for the squeamish as it has a maneuver that I previously saw in "Hostel" and to this day it remains one of the worst things I've seen - cutting of one character's Achilles' tendon. There are also scenes that will remaind you of other films - the crawling severed hand brings "Addams family" to mind and the creepy prologue with scarecrows inevitably brought me back to that horrible afternoon I was freaking out while watching "Jeepers Creepers".
One of the best things about the film is the main monster - the spirit of Halloween incarnated in the form of a child with pumpkin for a head. That spirit ensures that everybody honors Halloween's traditions and if they don't...well, there is a bloody trick coming. There are four separate stories in the movie, each containing fair amount of scares and laughs and just the right level of gore and creepiness. Something that distinguishes "Trick 'R Treat" from other productions is that writer/director Michael Dougherty doesn't abscond from something not many would do - killing children on screen. But as Halloween is the most fun for the kids it's probably the best and the most effective scare in the movie - I myself would never let my child go trick or treating alone in the evening on the scariest day of the year.
Gareth Edwards' 2014's Godzilla was one of the most forgettable big budget movies I've seen. Nothing memorable came out of it, other than hilarious Honest Trailer highlighting Ken Watanabe's stares and the meme of Bryan Cranston saying "Godzilla, we need to cook" and shot of Godzilla going "bitch". Somehow it got good reviews and made enough money to jump start the Monsterverse.
