Review: "Trick 'r Treat" (Finally)

This delightful little chap in the poster is Sam, aka Peeping Tommy. Sam is the most important of the many threads running through Michael Dougherty's long-delayed and much anticipated Trick 'r Treat. I say most important because ultimately Sam is both figuratively and literally the Spirit of Halloween, teaching horrible lessons to the non-believers, as much as any spirit that tormented Scrooge. Happily, none of the four interwoven stories in Trick 'r Treat end on a happy note (this is a horror movie, after all).

Never released theatrically in the U.S., the 2007 festival fave was finally released on DVD two weeks ago, and I am ashamed to be just now getting to review it. And I am also happy to admit that it was worth the wait. Dougherty's script is clever; ironic; surprising; hilarious and original, all while being quite gory; gruesome; creepy. and completly fun. The cast of familiar faces - Dylan Baker (Spider-Man; Fido); Anna Paquin ("True Blood"); Tamoh Penniket ("Dollhouse"); Bryan Cox (the original Hannibal Lecter) - are uniformly excellent (even the youngest of cast members). Baker is particularly good as a particularly bad elementary school principal; as are Paquin as a sweet young thing on the prowl and Cox as a nasty old man who painfully learns why it's best to be generous with the sugar on Halloween. All four tales take place on the same Halloween night in a small Ohio town obsessed with the traditions of the holiday.

The creepiest of the four stories involves a group of kids collecting jack-o-lanterns (purportedly as part of a "UNICEF scavenger hunt") and an urban legend about a school bus full of "special children" which led to an unfortunate incident. The young actors in this segment are just terrific and creepiness of the "special kids" in their exceptionally weird Halloween costumes is off the charts. And of course, there's 10 year-old Quinn Lord as Sam/Tommy. An essentially silent role, Sam is Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Jack Skellington, and the 'Zuni fetish Warrior' from "Trilogy of Terror" all rolled into one creepy little hydrocephalic creature. And while much of the work is done by stunt people and CGI, Lord's physicality in what couldn't have been a very comfortable or easy-to-wear costume is surprisingly effective and spooky. The SFX are kept to a minimum, but the ones employed are quite good (and include a particularly interesting version of the werewolf transformation). The jokes are truly funny and the surprises are mostly really surprising. The movie looks gorgeous, thanks to Cinematographer Glen MacPherson, Production Designer Mark Freeborn and Costume Designer Trish Keating. Every penny of the film's budget is one the screen and Dougherty's love of 70's Horror Comics is evident. Trick 'r Treat deserved a wide-release, big-screen run and it's a damned shame it didn't get one.

Fun, smart, original and great-looking, Trick 'r Treat is truly a Horror fan's treat. Let's hope Dougherty gets to make a sequel, because i can't wait to see what he has in store for us, next.
**** (Four out of Four Stars).

And of course, the evening was topped off by seeing Sam Raimi's brilliant Drag Me to Hell for the first time since I saw it on teh big screen and I enjoyed every single moment of it again, and this time really got to take note of Raimi's use of seamless transition from scene-to-scene. The movie never drags, never bores. The shocks are still shocking, the gross-outs are still disgusting and the shocks are still shocking (which may be thanks to the passing of five months since my first viewing) and the movie is every bit as fun and effective as it was the first time I saw it. If you haven't seen it (and once I again I shame for not having done so), do yourself a favor and see both of these movies before (or better yet, on) next Saturday!

And on a completely bizarre and unrelated note, a childhood hero of mine has passed and I'd just like to say "Thanks for the laughs, Soupy. There's more laughter in Heaven, tonight."



More terrors, anon.
Prospero

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Review: "Paranormal Activity"

I hate to say this about any movie, especially so about one I really wanted to like, but I honestly don't remember the last time I was so disappointed by a movie as I was by Paranormal Activity.

Honestly, I tried not to buy into the hype that has been steadily building on the net, and certainly didn't expect it to be The Scariest Movie Ever Made. But I did hope it would be at least a little scary. Sadly, it's not.

Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are young co-habitants ("...engaged to be engaged") who have been experiencing some unusual phenomena in their home; weird noises, faucets turning on by themselves, etc. Micah buys a camera to try and catch whatever is happening while they sleep (it is through that mostly hand-held camera that we see what's happening). Katie calls in a psychic, who advises her to consult a demonologist. Turns out, Katie was "haunted" as a child (apparently by the same entity) which ended with her house burning down. Micah decides he will take matters into his own hands and get rid of it himself, taunting the entity and inviting it to communicate (and by the way, the marker on a Ouija board is called a planchette, not a 'cursor'), things the psychic expressly warned them not to do. As Micah becomes more and more of a macho asshat, the creepy goings-on get more intense.

Paranormal Activity was a great idea, and while it isn't badly executed from a technical point of view, it's pacing is deadly. The first hour meanders about as Micah continuously tries to convince Katie to have sex on camera while ignoring her increasing discomfort. A door moves. Something screeches and thumps. Katie sleepwalks. Sort of creepy, but too little for too long. By the time the movie actually starts to look like it's going to get scary, it's over (with one of the single most ridiculous and superfluous final shots, ever).

First time writer/director Oren Peli gets pretty good performances from his small cast of unknowns. And he knows how to frame a shot and give us things to try and see around corners, but he lets the movie take far too long to get where it's going and then doesn't quite go far enough before so abruptly going too far. The packed house (mostly teenagers and what I can only assume were country rubes who were seeing a movie for the first time, ever) screamed and carried on while my three companions and I were bored by both the pacing and the "been-there-done-that" ghost movie bag o' tricks. The original ending was re-shot for the current version, which makes me think it might have been more interesting, subtle and creepy than the cheap Hollywood cheese it became.

I wish someone would give me $111,000 dollars to make a movie. I'd make a movie that would make you crap your pants, run home crying to Mommy and keep you awake for three weeks. Do yourself a favor, take the money you would have spent on a ticket for Paranormal Activity and put towards your own copy of Drag Me to Hell on Blu-Ray. You'll be much happier with your investment.

Paranormal Activity is rated 'R' for Language. * (One Star)

More terrors, anon.
Prospero

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