Trick 'r Treat (2008)

There was a time when horror films were scary, or at least suspenseful. A time when nothing was predictable and you were on the edge of your seat the entire film unaware of what lay around the next corner. A time when horror films didn't try to make you laugh, they tired to make you scream. Those standards are long since gone, primarily because the youth of today have accepted a lower standard of horror, which is why Trick 'r Treat, a direct to DVD release no less is receiving so much positive feedback for being a film that continues to destroy the genre, not excel it.

The one thing Trick 'r Treat provides you with is a new outlook on the tradition of trick or treating, maybe giving you that added incentive to stay inside this Halloween and not waste your time going door to door for mass amounts of cheap candy. But for those of you still in the Halloween spirit this film does manage to reiterate the ever popular common sense rules of Halloween and shows what happens when you decide to break them. For example, wait to inhale your candy until you get home, otherwise you might unwittingly discover someone placed something uneatable in your chocolate bar. Also it would be wise to stay away from attractive strange women who enthusiastically invite you to a party, or a mysterious guy who keeps staring at you, chances are they have some ulterior motives. If anything Trick 'r Treat has some truth to it which bluntly put is be careful, Halloween is the one holiday when the true freaks come out!

Trick 'r Treat follows four individual story lines thinly linked by a large round headed midget wearing a sack cloth and the ghosts of eight deranged children who were driven off a cliff thirty years prior. None of the stories are scary and only one is a little disturbing, that being the one of the perverted principal played by Dylan Baker. The only reason the Baker storyline is disturbing is because nothing supernatural is involved here, he's just a crazy freak who ultimately deserves what he receives later on in the film. As a whole the film is Goosebumps quality horror or lower with an R-rating, most of the film's twists are predictable or underwhelming due to a paper thin plot containing very little character development. It's clear why Trick 'r Treat received a direct to DVD release, why everyone is singing the praises of this mediocre horror/slasher only proves the standards for a good creepy horror film have severely plummeted.

5/10