Another 31 Days, Another 31 Screams: Day 30 (Trick R Treat)

Candy?

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my GOD. We've really lit a fire under my ass in regards to enthusiasm now. No fucking around with song reviews, or dual Doctor Who reviews. This is a straight-up horror movie and I am here to tell you that it's fucking brilliant. I haven't had this much fun watching a horror thing for the blog since... actually let me check. Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil? From two years ago? I guess? I don't know how this will hold up on a rewatch, but as of right now I'm sold on it. This movie is goddamned hilarious, but it's not a comedy. Not quite. No, it's a really dark sort of humor that comes from the way it both sets up its situations and subverts your expectations at every turn. I could stop the post here and yell loudly while waving my arms, metaphorically in text of course but you've got a good mental image of it now, all about how you need to throw on this movie and enjoy it without an asshole like me spoiling all the good parts. You can get it on Youtube for 4 bucks like I did, or less if you know what you're doing. For the love of God, check it out before I spoil some of the fun twists and mechanical shit. I guess that counts as your spoiler warning, so let's go into things a bit deeper.


This movie has some vague resemblance to Creepshow, another underrated classic horror anthology film which I adore. It has a bit of an anthology thing going for it, and a bit of that comic book aesthetic. It sadly doesn't go all in on the latter, but the way it plays with anthology is interesting. There are seperate vignettes going on, but they all tie into each other in little ways. You'll see something spooky happening with someone's neighbor, and then find out what happened from their perspective an hour later... but before that you'll have the protagonist of that first story show up in a different vignette altogether. It basically almost works, as you still get a constant sense of surprise and fun at noticing all the connections. The only place it dragged on for me was the final segment, on that neighbor. It took a little too long for things to catch up to audience knowledge, and once it did there were some fun twists... but it still was a bit of glancing at the watch and waiting for the movie to catch up. Still, that and a few nasty moments are the only sour notes in an otherwise breezy 80 minute movie. Let's gush about some of the stuff I loved.


This is a movie all about Halloween, in the sense of ancient traditions and the veil between the living and the dead being thinnest on Samhain and all that shit, but it's also got the typical slasher thing of transgression going for it. The opening of the movie is basically OHH YOU PUT YOUR JACK-O-LANTERN'S CANDLE OUT TOO EARLY, NOW YOU DIE. The transgressors get punished, but it's not all just typical slasher fare of sexhaving teens. No, some of these people actually deserve what they get. More to the point, they play wild with the dark comedy. In the end I couldn't help but laugh my head off at some of the bleak turns this story took. Nasty people getting their comeuppance in darkly comedic ways. The funniest part of the movie, I think, was early on when a man's murdered a trick-or-treater and gets into hijinks while trying to bury the body in his own backyard. The end of his segment seems like it's going one way and you think "Oh god no" but then the twist happens and you're roaring with laughter because OH MY FUCKING GOD THEY DID THAT INSTEAD! Then the character shows up as a twist for ANOTHER segment, and the reveal of what's going on with those particular characters (and the grisly end of that first guy) is just incredible. This movie, y'all. This fucking movie. I ruined some of it but please. View it. I adore it now, and I hope I still do next year when I give it a rewatch for the next spooky season. Speaking of, we're right on the door of Halloween. You know what we gotta do. Yeah. We gotta watch one of THOSE again.