“Wait. There’s another tradition. Always check your candy.”

Okay, so it’s a day late. Let’s not waste any time. Trick ‘r Treat was made in 2007-2008 and was written and directed by one of the writers of Superman Returns and X2. Starring a fairly big named cast and garnering impressive word of mouth at the film festival level, it kept getting teased as a 2007, then 2008 theatrical release. Didn’t happen. 2009 rolled around and there was talk of a February theatrical release. Didn’t happen. Buzz was that the studios were afraid of challenging Saw for October dollars. And people wonder why I hate the Saw movies on principle.

Plot
Set in the fictional Warren Valley, Ohio on Halloween night, our movie tells the stories of several different characters who occasionally meet each other, but generally do their own things. One woman who doesn’t like Halloween gets her just deserts for trying to take down decorations before morning. A group of college aged girls that include a virgin come to town looking for some…company. A principle tries to educate a jerkwad kid in the spirit of the season, a group of teens head down to the old quarry to scare a hapless tagalong. A crotchety old man learns the true meaning of trick or treat. Obviously, nothing ends how anybody expected.

Characters
Steven Wilkins: Dylan Baker (Dr. Connors from the Spider-Man movies) is a principal and father who loves him some Halloween. So much so that basically he murders a fat, rude kid for knocking over jack-o-lanterns and other grinch-like behavior.

Laurie: Anna Paquin is a virgin accompanying her much more…experienced friends to a Halloween party. She’s looking for that special someone to be her first. Oh, and she dresses up like Little Red Riding Hood. She gets the attention of a mysterious masked man.

Mr. Kreeg: Brian Cox is a crotchety old man and the neighbor of Steven. He’s got no love for the holiday, having no decorations. He’s also got a mysterious past.

Emma: Leslie Bibb (from Iron Man and The Midnight Meat Train) is our movie’s first victim, getting offed in a colorful, slightly ridiculous way that sets the tone for the movie. Then again, she says “I hate Halloween” so obviously you don’t feel bad when she gets what’s coming to her.

Sam: Quinn Lord plays the strange, supernatural Sam, who appears in all the stories and serves as a common thread connecting them. Sam is a freaky little kid with orange PJ’s and a sack over his head. Sam doesn’t speak, but damn is he freaky in a cool way. As a kind of embodiment of the season that shows what happens when you disrespect Halloween and its rules, he’s quite the macabre little badass. (Note, Sam gets his name from Samhain, the old Celtic word for the holiday)

Now, there are a LOT of other characters, but there isn’t much that I can say about them without getting into spoiler territory.

Hmm, strange that all the characters I’ve listed (except Sam) appear in Marvel Comics movies. Interesting pedigree.

Visuals/Effects
This is Michael Dougherty’s directorial debut, and it’s a solid effort. The movie delivers a very satisfying visual style that blends a lot of great shadows with great holiday lighting. Orange dominates, of course. Effects-wise, its mostly done in practical terms, though near the end you get more CGI when necessary. Of note is the way that the movie will often go into panels to transition from scene to scene with “Meanwhile” or “Earlier” written, so its like reading a comic.

Writing
Michael Dougherty basically adapted a character that he came up with for an animated short back in the 90s and spun a twisted little movie around him. The story begins standard enough, but as it continues to jump around and around, you start picking up that there’s more at play here than just simple jump cuts and cheap scares. The movie isn’t exactly scary at all, but it is that kind of creepy and playful that’s just such a big part of Halloween and October in general. Structurally and thematically, it owes a lot to infamous old EC Comics like Tales From the Crypt, where you had stories filled with ghastly things layered with a deliciously malicious dark humor, and it shares those series’ penchant for unhappy endings for characters. Then again, the way that everything comes together by the end of the movie, it also feels a little like The Twilight Zone in how all the loose ends are tied up, loose ends you didn’t even know existed until the last shot of the movie.

Sound
Original music by Douglas Pipes sets a fine tone for the film.

Conclusion
The more I think about Trick ‘r Treat, the more I really like it. It’s got the throwback elements in it that remind you of the good old Halloween Specials that populated the 80s and early 90s, its got an urban legend style (NOT Urban Legend style) sense of humor to it that isn’t just the “boozedrugstits” of slasher films, and it’s a fantastic way to cap off a month of generally awesome Halloween cinematic goodness. If you’ve got time for a movie on Halloween Night and are considering some of the better known but creatively bland horror fare (I needed one last dig at the Saw series), go out and rent/buy this and watch it with friends.

And that about does it for the Octoverride, and I’m pooped. Probably going to take a break from posting because I need the writing equivalent of getting your stomach pumped after ingesting too much candy, so don’t expect anything for a week or so before returning to a normal schedule. So, uh, Happy Halloween and we’ll probably do this again next year, since there’s been a distinct lack of Wolf Man this time around.

“Tell me your name, I'll give you a skull.”

As All Hallow’s Eve approaches, let’s take a look at something that explores just what Halloween is supposed to mean. Sure, it may be an excuse to watch another obscure cartoon, but when its got Ray Bradbury involved in adapting a novella of the same name, then 1993’s The Halloween Tree is all good.

Plot
Four kids get ready for Halloween then run out to their “leader’s” house to find an ambulance in the driveway and that their buddy has appendicitis and might possibly die. A note left by the kid tells them to start Halloween without them and they start to do so before seeing what they think is their pal running through some woods and into a creepy old house where weird stuff starts to happen. The owner of the house, a rail thin bald guy who talks like he’s insane proceeds to take them on a chase through space and time as they explore the reasons for why they wear their costumes in a move that borders on edu-tainment while searching for their pal who’s being tossed through time as well. Its all standard stuff, but then in the last several minutes, shit gets real with a price that has to be paid for helping their friend.

Characters
(Note, TV Tropes will be referenced here, particularly the Five Man Band entry)
Joe Pipkin: Clearly regarded as the leader of the group, he’s also the one stricken with appendicitis at the beginning and spends the movie as a ghostly figure running through time clutching a pumpkin that is suspiciously carved like his head. More or less the instigator of the whole plot.

Tom Skelton: Naturally, dressed like a skeleton, Tom’s the lancer, the number two who assumes leadership in Pip’s absence. His costume gets explained with a trip to the Mexican Dia de los muertos.

Ralph: The mummy, and the smart guy of the group with glasses and the socially awkward one, more or less. Obvious connection to ancient Egypt.

Wally: The big guy, dressed up like a generic monster/gargoyle. He’s actually a fairly shy and cowardly guy with confidence issues and a penchant for saying “oh my gosh” A LOT. Connected to the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Jenny: The chick, but also a really smart one. Obviously dressed as a witch, she gets a connection to Stonehenge and witches and trying to overcome a fear of heights. There’s some interesting subtext going on between her and Tom as they’re more or less the two “main” characters.

Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud: Leonard Nimoy plays the cranky, lanky and mysterious Mr. Moundshroud. At first he just seems like a creepy old bald guy who lives in a creepy house and has a creepy tree in his backyard that has jack-o-lanterns hanging from the branches like leaves. It turns out he’s got a pretty clear agenda when it comes to chasing down Pip to get that pumpkin back. The creepiness of the agenda becomes clearer by the end when he demands a price for Pip’s pumpkin. He is quite the cackling badass.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Mario Piluso and the Hanna-Barbera company, the animation is generally pretty good and gets the job done nicely. There’s even some ambitions camera angles, like a shot of someone jumping over a fence and the camera doing a vertical 180 following them as they go.

Writing
Adapted for the screen by Ray Bradbury himself (and also narrated by him). The story is largely the same as the original with few changes. The themes are the same and so is the end result. It’s a solid adaptation. Storywise, it starts off having that “edutainment” vibe, but by the end, it does a great job of getting a Halloween atmosphere that blends the cheery stuff with the dark undertones of the holiday.

Sound
The original score by John Debney is very good, especially the music that plays over the opening credits.

Conclusion
Nostalgia may have made me put this into this month’s rotation, but it actually is a pretty solid Halloween themed kids movie. And it’s a damn dirty shame that this isn’t on DVD yet. Though apparently it does air on Cartoon Network during the season. I just never know when.

“Wahoo! There’s a pumpkin on your head!”

For some, It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is their annual Halloween tonic that they’ve carried since youth. That was what Garfield’s Halloween Adventure was for me (or the original title of Garfield in Disguise, according to IMDB), made in 1985 when Garfield was still funny, it was a TV special in that grand tradition that seems to have died out by the late 90’s.

Plot
Garfield wakes up to the TV telling him that its Halloween, which gets him all excited because of all the candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy. He dresses up like a pirate (so does Odie) and they go out trick or treating. Wanting even more candy, Garfield & Odie commandeer a row boat but lose the oars then wash ashore onto a small island with a single house and a single old man who tells them a spooky story about ghost pirates.

Characters
Garfield: Lorenzo Music was the official voice of Garfield for a long time, and he did a great job with a character that was pretty much defined by being lazy and anti-social. Garfield likes food. Candy is free on Halloween to trick or treat-ers, therefore Garfield loves Halloween. Simple, but effective. Fun fact, Lorenzo Music was the voice of Peter Venkman on the animated Ghostbusters spinoff. When the movie Garfield was made in recent years, Lorenzo Music had died several years prior. So who voiced Garfield? Peter Venkman himself, Bill Murray.

Odie: Gregg Berger voices (well, barks) Garfield’s dumber but generally likeable sidekick. Odie basically plays second banana to Garfield’s greed, but he does get some moments near the end.

John Arbuckle: Thom Huge voices Garfield’s rather sad sack owner. He’s there at the beginning and doesn’t do a whole lot. More of a glorified cameo.

Old Man: C. Lindsay Workman gives an incredibly hammy performance near the end as a creepy old man who tells Garfield & Odie about a hundred year old pirate treasure and about the ghost pirates that will come back for it at the stroke of midnight.

Ghost Pirates: Okay, so they have no voices and they’re only in it for a few minutes at best. Still, these are ghost pirates and the animation on them is really cool. Ghost pirates are always badass.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Phil Roman (who I believe was also responsible for the Garfield TV series and the other shorts as well) the special is reasonably well animated. A lot of it is the standard animated fare of the rest of the animated Garfield stuff, but those Ghost Pirates man, those guys were really well animated.

Writing
Garfield was created by Jim Davis, and gets writing credit for creating the comic strip. The story is a fairly straightforward string of occasional beats of traditional Garfield-esque running gags, some witty banter, a couple of catchy songs and then all of a sudden, outta nowhere, some legitimately creepy ghost pirates almost kill our heroes.

Sound
Original music by Ed Bogas and Desiree Goyette, and with some sung by Lorenzo Music and some by Lou Freakin’ Rawls himself, the songs are incredibly catchy and well done, and also nice and brief, so they don’t get a chance to annoy you.

Conclusion
Okay, so Garfield’s Halloween Adventure isn’t exactly the most complicated thing on our list, but it’s a fun and very Halloween-y special that’s got a lot of nostalgia credit going for it. I mean, it was made back when people didn’t hate Garfield.


 Now the songs are stuck in your head.