Review:

I've been sitting on this movie for months, just waiting for Halloween to come around for the perfect time to finally check it out. I can definitively say that it's the best horror movie I've watched this month, but it has some issues. The acting is great and there are tons of people that I recognized that would go on to bigger things after this: Anna Paquin (right after portraying Rouge and a year before True Blood), Dylan Baker (who I couldn't separate from his character in Happiness), Britt McKillip (grown up from playing Reggie on Dead Like Me), and Jean-Luc Bilodeau (five years before Baby Daddy). The cinematography is fine and I didn't notice any production issues. The one issue I did have is how the story is told. Trick 'r Treat is a handful of connected stories (almost an anthology) within a small town and character overlapping. I love anthology movies and each of the stories individually have a lot to celebrate, but the timeline is broken. We get one bit and then we flash to "earlier" and "earlier" and eventually "later" but the stories don't line up that way. There were a couple "You said this takes place earlier than what we saw, so how can he be dead?" kind of moments and the links between the story need more explanation. The biggest loose end is Sam, the most well known piece of this movie (and the only thing I'd seen before hand). I don't know who/what/why he is or what his goal is. There is a little bit about his legend in the first story, but we don't get more. I don't even remember them telling us that his/its name is Sam. I like when he popped up, but but each time it raised more questions. There were some fun twists in the stories and I was never entirely sure where I was headed, but none are individually noteworthy. Trick 'r Treat was a great movie to watch, but it's not a great movie; it's good and it's a fun time, but it's certainly flawed.