Trick R Treat (2007)

Episode 4, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another edition of two guys and a chainsaw. Todd I’m Craig, and it is Halloween time. We’re in the middle of the month. And, uh, starting off with another Halloween movie again. 

Craig: Yeah. We, uh, decided in the spirit of this. We would give a watch to Trick R Treat.

Todd: Now I saw Trick R Treat last year or the year before on this time during my 31 days of horror where I review, 

Craig: I think, yeah, I think it was the year before because I went and looked for your review and I couldn’t find it right away.

So I think it must’ve been a couple of years 

Todd: ago. It must’ve been a couple of years ago, but I do remember the one I watched it. It was the highlight of my year and I think. He might’ve even been you who recommended 

Craig: it to me? It wouldn’t surprise me. I stumbled upon this movie. I don’t remember where I don’t remember if I rented it from a video store or if it happened, maybe be on Netflix for a little while.

I don’t remember, but I loved it from the first viewing. I mean, this is just such a fun. Movie. 

Todd: Oh my gosh. Like as a Halloween film, this is the quintessential Halloween 

Craig: film. Great. And you know, I just love, you know, uh, well, horror in general, uh, Halloween themed movies are always fun. It’s, it’s great to pop them in this time of year.

And, and this one just delivers on pretty much every front. I mean, it’s. Uh, got it’s darkly comedic moments. It’s a, it’s got your adequate amount of Gore for those who are, uh, the Gore hounds out there. Um, it’s genuinely frightening in places, but it’s not the kind of scary that you’re probably gonna lose.

The sleepover. It’s fun. I mean, it’s, uh, I can imagine, unfortunately, nobody got to do this. Um, but I can imagine, uh, you know, sitting in a crowded theater with a lot of pumped up people who are really just in for a ride. Um, so this wasn’t a big 

Todd: movie 

Craig: when it came out. No, I read a little bit about the production history and it was kind of troubled, I think, uh, on IMDBs.

It says that this is a 2007 film, but I think it was actually supposed to come out at least a year before. Uh, and it was scheduled for a Halloween release. And I guess just without any explanation for why. It got pulled from, uh, its release date and, and no new release date was ever scheduled. Uh, there was, I read some speculation.

Uh, Bryan singer was Brian singer, the director here, who was the producer producer. He had, uh, also, uh, his production team had also worked on the Superman reboot that did not perform well in theaters at all. Um, and so there’s some speculation that maybe they were worried about. It’s a, this having a similar, uh, reception also, it was initially slated to come out against a soft four.

And those movies were huge Halloween draws at the time, and they may not have wanted to compete, but the sad part of the story is it just never ended up getting released and it ended up just going straight to video and, you know, based on the quality. This is definitely, you know, a theater worthy film.

This is, this isn’t a low budget, uh, 

Todd: hack job, no, by any stretch of the imagination, I mean, it is beautifully shot. Uh, it is colorful. Um, it is well acted, actually a whole bunch of unknowns in here. Although some people work, some character actors, you kind of recognize, but you’re not sure from where, um, and widescreen total widescreen, um, it’s not 16 by nine it’s anamorphic wide screen.

Right. It’s gorgeous. It’s beautifully shot the transitions. Well, it’s an anthology. Yeah. 

Craig: And I feel like we’ve talked about this before we, that maybe we should do spoiler alerts. Um, if you haven’t seen this movie, I don’t know if I would listen to this, if you plan to, because part of the fun of this movie is it is an anthology film.

Kind of in the same vein as like creep show or something, you know, like that from the dark side. Right, exactly. But, uh, it’s a little bit atypical in the way that the stories are all woven together. It’s it, they’re not, uh, presented as kind of their own episodic. Pieces they’re all interwoven and kind of seeing how they all come together as part of the fun.

Todd: Yeah. Your, your standard anthology movie has kind of a wraparound story. Right. And you got your bit at the beginning. Um, and then, you know, it kind of starts off one story after a time. And then the beginning part kind of. There’s an end. The book ends essentially. The first story has its conclusion. After the last story, it’s sort of bookend it, you know, like tales from the dark side has the, the kid who was trapped by the, which I think in, in her house type thing.

And then there’s that twist there at the end. And, um, but this one you’re right. It, the whole, the stories wrapped around each other. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and, you know, the, they. Work well, you know, on their own little individual stories, but it’s kind of fun to see characters from one story pop up in another, even if it’s only briefly and some of them are more interwoven than other others.

Uh, it’s, it’s really a neat concept. It’s just, you know, it’s, it’s one Halloween night, the timeline kind of jumps around, but really all of the stories are happening, happening concurrently on this one night. Uh, and it’s, it’s really cool. I mean, it’s, it’s really well written and well done. Cause, you know, contrive, it’s 

Todd: like the pulp fiction, Halloween movies like that.

I hadn’t thought about that about halfway through when you realize that, Oh, I’m seeing a character from another or, Oh, this happened before. The part of the fun of watching it is, is figuring out how they interconnect or kind of, you know, seeing it, and then towards the end it becomes. It becomes actually a part of the plot.

Sure. Yeah. And again, as Craig said, if you have not seen us, you really need to stop this podcast and go, wow. Gore level is pretty high it’s mid-level for Gore. If you were to take out the goriness though, this would, you could watch us with your kids 

Craig: almost. Yeah, yeah. With, yeah. But the Gore that is there is, is, is pretty graphic.

Yeah. There’s, there’s quite a lot of blood and the content is, is pretty dark in places. I mean, you got. Children being brutally murdered, um, unapologetically. And you get to see some of that and it’s it’s graphic detail. But I think that the reason that you say that, you know, it’s something you could share with your kids, because I think that it celebrates that, that spirit, you know, that fun of Halloween, um, that I, you know, Christmas is great, you know, fun times, but Halloween has always been the really exciting holiday for me.

And, um, it seems like everybody involved with this. Felt the same way. You know, it really feels like a celebration of the season and the holiday and it’s, they had a lot of fun with it and it reads perfectly. 

Todd: Oh yeah. And it’s your, um, being a wraparound story, of course, uh, being a, sort of a, um, anthology tale and, uh, starting off with sort of the comic book, it’s very evocative of creep show, which itself was very evocative of the ISI horror comics in the fifties tales from the crypt and those sorts of things, which are very high in, um, they have a morality.

Of themselves, right? Usually the bad guy gets it at the end. Right. Or there is some twist in there where, who you thought was the good guys, not actually the good guy and they end up getting it in the end. And this plays with that in a lot of different ways. And that’s what makes it sort of like the kind of movie that, like I say, you could kind of watch with your kids, if it weren’t for the Gore, in that it has that, those sort of folk tale, fairy tale type qualities to them, that those comic books had, um, with that strong kind of moral message in the end and that this movie hasn’t 

Craig: spades and yeah, absolutely.

It goes in unexpected places and that’s part of the fun. And that’s part of the reason why, if you haven’t seen it, turn it off. Um, but, uh, like for example, one of the stories kind of establishes the central character as a little red riding hood figure. I mean, she’s, she’s dressed as little red riding hood, Danielle.

I look like I’m five. Shut up. You, you look great. 

Todd: It’s tradition. Great. 

Craig: What does tradition say we do now? We meet our dates and she’s kind of. Built up as this vulnerable, innocent. And then when we actually get the pay off of the story, it just completely flips it on its head. Uh, and uh, in, in a really clever way, 

Todd: do you want to dive into the stories, talk about them a little bit?

Craig: Well, I, it’s hard. It’s hard to do it because of the way that they’re interwoven. Uh, it’s, it’s hard to even know where to start because really the, the first scene in the movie. Chronologically happens at the end of the night. Um, but that’s also something that’s fun about. Uh, the movie is because you can see the conclusion of one of the individual stories.

And in that conclusion, somebody likely dies. But then they can still pop back up later on in the movie because the chronology, uh, you know, they, they, we flash back to earlier in the night and it’s kind of fun, you know, to know what these people’s fates are gonna get. Especially there are going to be, especially since some of them you’re really hoping they get it in the end.

Uh, and so to get to see that, and then still have them playing little parts kind of in the, uh, is a lot of fun. But yeah, we, I mean, we probably should at least give some, uh, Uh, idea of what these stories are, I guess. Well, I mean, 

Todd: speaking of what you said, especially that first story, that sort of the first bit of the story, actually, you know, where it starts out with the woman and her husband coming home from hallow, this Halloween party.

Oh. And it must be said that this town, this town of, uh, Warren Valley it’s Warren Valley, Ohio. Yeah. Is the most awesome little town in the world for their Halloween celebration, 

Craig: this big. So, you know, everybody attends this big celebration in the square. The whole town, you know, is totally decked out in, in, uh, Halloween decorations.

Um, it’s clearly a big celebration. They’re even doing a feature story on the news. Uh, that we get glimpses of. So yeah, I would love to visit this town at Halloween time and just the atmosphere is perfect. You know, you’ve got this perfect fall evening with the leaves littered along the streets and a little bit of fog in places.

It’s just, it couldn’t be better as far as atmosphere everybody’s 

Todd: costumed up. And they’re almost like very much traditional style, Halloween costumes, you know, and, and of course, You can’t really do it in the movie. You can’t bring in a whole bunch of licensed characters, but it’s not like you’re seeing the Freddie and the Jason’s and things like that.

It’s almost like the old fashioned Halloween atmosphere where somebody is a robot and somebody is a pumpkin and somebody is, uh, a ghost. Right. And 

Craig: get the princesses and the little red riding hood. Yeah. Yeah, and just kind of typical stuff, but, uh, also really fun, fun images, homemade costumes. 

Todd: The girl comes, comes back to her house with her boyfriend and she, you know, she’s this robot, she takes it off and she says, Oh, you go inside, go upstairs.

You know? And she goes in there and she she’s one of the first victims.

And, you know, when you talk about the wraparound nature of it and sort of the waiting for the payoff, that’s the closest thing we have to book end because that story, like it’s the tail end of the story that begins it. And we don’t really see the full version of the beginning of her tail until the very end.

And what’s what you’re sort of left with is, especially as you realize, this is one of those anthology tails was sort of the morality behind us. What was her sin, you know, what did she do? 

Craig: She didn’t respect the traditions of Halloween. Todd, you weren’t 

Todd: paying. Oh, I paid, I saw I got it. No, I got it at the end.

I got at the end, but when you’re first watching it, you don’t know that. Right. And at the end, of course, though, she blew out the pumpkin. She wasn’t supposed to 

Craig: no way wait. No. Yes.

He’s supposed to keep it land. Why? 

Todd: Henry it’s Halloween not hung up. So that happens and 

Craig: yeah, I, and that’s where it kicks off. And at the end, when we return to that story, like Todd said, we, we kind of returned to it just a few moments before it picks up in the beginning. Um, and in those few moments, we see almost all of the main players intersect on this little patch of street.

That’s right. You kind of see at the end, how, from the very beginning, everything has been tied together. The other stories, you know, there’s, there’s, like I said, the little red riding hood story where you’ve got these, I guess, sorority sisters, beautiful girls, all of them, the mild meek one played by Anna Paquin of, of a true blood fame.

Um, and, and she’s kind of the innocent where the other girls are kind of. Slut it up and their princess costumes she’s, you know, very modest in her red riding hood. And it establishes her as the inexperienced one. And the whole goal for the night, I guess, is to get her late. Cause she’s the last Virgin among them.

And they, uh, so when we’re first introduced to them, they’re trying to pick up guys to go to this party and. You know, we cut back and forth kind of between the different stories, but eventually we get to the party. And again, I just, I hate to give away too much because you know, it’s a twist and it’s such a fun one.

If you go in knowing what it is, uh, I feel like I’d be spoiling something 

Todd: for you and it plays with that feminist trope. Yeah. Oh, you know, the, is the, the girls, uh, it really takes your expectations. Oh, we’ve seen this story a million times. Here’s the girl, who’s the meek one. The other girls are the sort of the trashy slutty girls who are going to get her late and what’s going to happen here.

And then it sort of flips that on its head. Uh, by the end when you realize, Oh, who’s, who’s actually the vulnerable one 

Craig: here. Exactly. Yeah. So there’s that one, there’s another, and all of the stories really are, are pretty simple. You know, this is they’re what, three or four of the main stories and the whole, you know, the whole movie only has a runtime of like 82 minutes.

So it’s really pretty compact. The stories are told pretty quickly. Um, another one we’ve got, we’ve got a principal. Who, uh, it has a very dark side. 

Todd: Um, yeah, his was very interesting. I thought, you know, he’s a high school principal, this town you’d never want to be your high school principal, but just seems to be the most mild-mannered meek.

And at the same time, he’s sort of doing these dastardly things. He does them with sort of a casual aloofness, like, like nobody’s going to spec them suspect a note. He’s not even really cleaning up after himself. No, 

Craig: no. Yeah. I mean, there’s. Carnage that he, you know, doesn’t really go out of his way to, to hide or 

Todd: anything.

But one of the things he does that comes in to play later on in the show is the whole, um, razorblades and the candy bit. Right. 

Craig: You know, one of the rules of Halloween always check your kids, wait. 

Todd: That’s right. There’s another 

Craig: tradition. 

Todd: Very important.

Craig: Always check your candy. 

Todd: And that’s really funny. I don’t know. Have you ever seen a movie that played with the whole Razorback, that urban legend of people putting razorblades 

Craig: and candy? I don’t know if I have or not, but I remember being scared of that when I was a kid, you know, that was something that we really were concerned about.

I. Who knows if that’s ever really happening. 

Todd: When you think about it, it’s insane. Like how would you get, and it was always like the razorblades in the apples, right? How would you possibly, could you get a razor blade in an Apple where nobody would notice? I mean, I 

Craig: don’t know, but I remember that being a genuine fear when I was a 

Todd: kid, it was, and they play with that.

And that’s, that’s, what’s neat about this movie. It’s a movie. It’s not just a Halloween movie. Like it’s a movie about it Halloween. 

Craig: Absolutely. And that’s the thing, you know, one of the things, yeah. There’s lots of stuff going on on this night, you know, there’s a, in one of, there’s a, there’s another story about a group of little kids that centers around an urban legend, which I actually thought was one of the.

Strongest, uh, of the stories. But during that story, you just casually hear in the background. And one of the, uh, one of the kids in the story comments on it, you hear a Wolf howl and he says, Oh, werewolves. And one of the other kids is all you’re stupid or something, but of course, you know, we, that does tie in later, you know, something else is going on in another part of town, it really does celebrate Halloween.

And one of the things that I thought was a really fun that they played with was. You know, this is a night where if you wanted to get away with mayhem, you probably could. Yeah. You know, some of these characters are doing really violent dastardly things right out in the open, but they’re surrounded by the grotesque.

You know, you’ve got all these costumes with people, with blood and. Guts and all this stuff. And so a lot of it just goes unnoticed. Yeah. That blood is really thought 

Todd: of that, that blood is really blood, right. That girl who looks like, you know, she’s passed out and she’s just got a bloody thing is really dead.

And she was bloody. And in this town, especially at getaway with that, I guess, so. Oh, you don’t in that one, you were just talking about, you said it was the strongest with the 

Craig: kids. The reason that I liked that one that focused on the group of kids was because they establish in this really cool shot, this urban legend about a bus driver who was paid by a group of parents to dispose of their different children.

There were eight of them and they were different trouble disturb. Every day, parents put their dirty secrets on this bus to be driven to a school miles outside of town. Sorry, these kinds of odd children. So you’ve got this bus driver who has all of these. Kids in, um, masks and costumes. So you can’t really see their faces.

There’s in these kind of old fashioned, uh, Halloween masks, they’re chained to their seats. And, and according to this legend, the bus driver was paid by the parents to dispose of them and on Halloween. Right. And on Halloween. And I just, I mean, you’re the technical guy, but I just loved, you know, the, for the, for the majority of the movie, It’s nighttime, we’re in dark, it’s this, you know, great spooky atmospheric thing.

And then when we go to this urban legends, everything’s in kind of these gold sepia tones. Um, and it it’s, it was just kind of a really neat thing to watch. And, and plus the, the urban legend is kind of sad, uh, in and of itself, but it really felt like. A real urban legend. You know, it felt like something that you would have heard maybe more, maybe more appropriately a suburban legend.

Yeah. And then, and then of course, you know, uh, It plays, uh, on that, uh, in the payoff. Um, but I just, that one for whatever reason, just stood out to me as being particularly strong. 

Todd: No, I agree with you, the tr you know, you were talking about how it goes from dark to light the transitions in this film, and that’s why, I mean, such a high budget, high quality, just, well put together film.

The transitions were awesome, you know, to go from that dark night to suddenly this really bright CEPI tone, we came through the window of the back of the bus, I think, you know, and then lit up on this, this really bright street. Um, interesting that the whole movie takes place at night and the flashback is bright and, and, uh, and almost devoid of color really, which is it’s it’s again, it’s kind of a flip, you know, usually your flashbacks.

Uh, well, I dunno, sometimes they can be black and white or something like that, but. Um, it’s, it’s the horrible things that are happening, that happens in such a colorful world. And then when you go to sort of the reality of what was supposed to have happened in this, in this past time, you get this very, a washed out, uh, kind of a look to it.

That’s bright, but it’s. It’s devoid of that 

Craig: color colorful. And it just, it stands in really stark contrast. You know, when we come back, we’ve got this group of kids and, and so the premise is that they are, they go out to the site where this urban legend is supposedly took place. And in the legend, of course, these, these kids died.

And so what they’re doing is they’re setting out, uh, jack-o-lanterns uh, uh, in honor of the dead eight victims, eight jack-o-lanterns each one representing a lost soul. So we’re going to leave them by the side of the Lake, as an offering to those who died. And again, there, you know, twists and surprises.

It’s not exactly what you expect, but the contrast between, um, the lightness, when they’re doing the flashback or the urban legend or whatever in the next shot or the next scene, there’s just kind of a really, I mean, it’s not really long, but for a shot of a girl’s feet, just walking along the ground, it seems kind of long, but I was just like, man, This is such a cool shot.

You know, you’ve got this, this girl is dressed in a witch’s costume, so she’s got which boots on and the which dress. And it’s just her feet walking along the ground with the leaves rustling and the fog just kind of barely lingering. And it’s just one shot. It’s not even really pivotal to the plot in any way.

Um, but just those little details just had me giddy throughout 

Todd: it. It takes a lot of care. A lot of care went into making this film and. Another thing that, that, uh, kind of jumped out at me, this, the transformation scene. So there’s a transformation, um, in one of the stories and it was a, well, it’s like a werewolf, but I’ve never seen a werewolf transformation quite 

Craig: like that before.

Yeah. Uh, very, I don’t know if unique is the right word because it pulled from, I mean, there’s obviously inspiration from others, you know, uh, American werewolf in London, of course. A bit of me kind of the master rights still. And you kind of, you know, you kind of see some of that, but you’re right. It has its own uniqueness to it too.

That makes it a lot of fun and, and it’s kinda, it’s gross and scary at the same time. Yeah. I thought it was excellent. The effects for that I read were done by the same special effects company that did the liken effects for sure. The underworld series. Oh, really? Which I’ve only seen the first entry, but, um, yeah, so they had some experience in that 

Todd: area, that whole scene, you know, kind of as a bit of a back, uh, for me to blade and it was a bit of a throwback for me to, from dusk till Dawn.

Yeah, it definitely sort of those two elements in there. 

Craig: I’m glad you said throwbacks. Cause that was something else that I was noticing. There were nice little nods to other horror movies. Uh, you can tell that the filmmakers were horror fans because they gave us these little, uh, tip of the hat. Did you catch any of 

Todd: those?

I caught a pet cemetery. Yeah. 

Craig: Great pet cemetery. 

Todd: One at the end out from under the bed. I’m trying to think of others. You must have caught some. I did. Uh, 

Craig: I was so excited. There’s an Allie chase scene that, uh, reminded me a lot of the excellent alley scene at chase scene. And I know what you did last summer with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

That’s very reminiscent. I liked that a lot. Yeah. Um, at there’s a bonfire party in, in the werewolf scene. And, uh, if you listen carefully, the song playing in the background is cry. Little sister, the, the theme song from, uh, the lost boys, right? Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, a big time. Favorite from my childhood. You said the pet cemetery one, there’s a severed zombie hand, little nod there.

In the very beginning, like in the opening scene, there’s a, an ominous figure and a white mask standing across the street, staring ominously, very reminiscent of Michael Myers. It’s just these little knots and I’m sure I missed others. There was popping 

Todd: up all over the place. There was another musical one.

Um, at some point I’m trying to remember where it was a sweet dreams. Of made of this were, were, was playing in the background. It was a, it was like yet a third remake of it. It wasn’t the original, the fast tempo. It wasn’t the slow one, the Marilyn Manson one that was in scream, but it was a, it was almost a third one I’m kinda curious to look at.

Yeah, 

Craig: but it was fun. I mean, as a, as a fan of horror. And if you are a fan for, why would you be listening to this if you’re not, but if you are again, it’s just those little payoffs, the little details that really show that, you know, these folks. We’re making a movie for fans. Oh yeah. 

Todd: Oh, and they beginning, uh, just the, um, the way that the credit sequence went, it was a total takeoff of a creep show and credit sequence there where they kind of had the 

Craig: comic books in there.

Previews all of the stories introduces you to the main characters. It’s it’s, it’s pretty to look at. It’s good stuff. Just great. Did we cover all the stories we had? Um, the little red riding hood. We had the principal, we had the urban legend one. Oh. And then there’s a, kind of the final story deals with this old grumpy guy I on, on the street who, you know, hates Halloween and hates kids.

And, uh, his house is the only one on the street that’s not lit up. And then he, you know, kinda. Pays the price for, again, I guess not honoring Halloween, but also he’s tied into another story in a way that you probably don’t see coming until it kind of a little bit later on. So you find out that he’s actually paying for other sins, right.

As well, and shown 

Todd: a little bit of mercy, this, uh, interestingly enough. And that was what made that story unique. And I like that. I like that. Even in this anthology, not only are you shaking it up a little bit by weaving them together and. And doing that and finding little ways to twist and take on other things.

You’re also getting a tale that ends with sort of a happyish ending in a sense, in a way that he’s sort of shown the error of his way. So he’s given a sort of penance for his earlier sins. And that also is so reminiscent of the ISI comics, you know, the fifties, they would occasionally have those stories where it was less about killing somebody who killed somebody else and more about, um, in a very sinister way, sort of reforming a person if you will.

And he certainly gets reformed by the 

Craig: end of it. Right. And then still kind of gets his come up and say anyway, a little bit. 

Todd: Now, now one part I didn’t quite catch, and maybe you can explain this to me is, um, his house was the one that the girl dresses of which Rhonda from the other one actually is coming from.

Yeah. 

Craig: Is it? I know, I remember when, um, they pick Rhonda up and this is in the urban legend story. The girl that these kids are playing a trick on is, uh, They, they refer to her as an idiot savant. I don’t know. She just seems a little different. Um, yeah, that was totally unfair 

Todd: by the way, right? 

Craig: Yeah. But she, yeah, she comes out of this house when we first meet her in this house is completely, you know, decked out in, uh, tons and tons of, uh jack-o-lanterns.

And then at the end of the film, uh, the old guy, his house is completely devoid of any kind of decorations, but then he hears a knock at the door and it’s those darn kids. And he goes to the door and somehow. Seemingly miraculously, all of a sudden his lawn is completely decked out. Were they the same house?

I thought 

Todd: it was, maybe they were. I thought that was part of the, of the 

Craig: deal. Maybe they were, if 

Todd: they, I don’t know if they were though, how would she have ended up there? But it was to me, it’s too fine of a point though, to, uh, To be similar between the two. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, she kind of ends up being the hero, I guess, of, of her story.

And, uh, the heroes in this movie are certainly kind of, you know, dark anti-heroes. So maybe, uh, uh, maybe there’s more going on with her than I originally 

Todd: thought. Well, it’s interesting because I wondered if she wasn’t associated with the old man in some way, shape or form, just because her story and his story.

You know, have that, that crossover 

Craig: point. Yeah, they do. Maybe we’ll shoot. Maybe we’ll have to watch it again. It wouldn’t be a bad thing. No. Uh, the other thing, I mean, it’s just, it’s a, it’s a clever movie. It’s so much fun. If you can get your hands on it for Halloween and you really want to get in the spirit, I would recommend this.

To anybody who was looking for, you know, a Halloween movie, it just doesn’t get much, much better. And it’s, there are just so many little it’s funny. There are clever little ones. I don’t even know what that was. Coach Taylor was in a hardcore costume, but in a pig, I think that’s just not, I mean, you don’t get lines like that very often.

Um, and just a little. Just little jokes that they laugh at you every once in a while that don’t come across as corny. It’s funny, it plays well, it’s it fits with the tone of the 

Todd: movie. And you know, it, that’s funny you bring up that, cause that came in a scene where the kids are trick or treating and they go to what’s a very adult Halloween, Halloween party going on.

It’s neat how the movie does sort of honor the spirit of the holiday. It touches on almost every little Halloween sort of tradition that you can think of. The jack-o-lanterns of the street parties, uh, the costume kind of masquerade kind of aspect with the bonfire party out at night, the trick or treating.

Everything. I mean, all you’re missing is bobbing for apples and really who does that? Right. So you pretty much got it all in there. And that’s what makes this movie so much fun. And I mean, this is the time of year to watch it. Absolutely. Now they’ve been threatening to make a SQL 

Craig: list for some time now.

And I so hope they do, you know, if they can maintain the spirit and tone of this one, I w I watch, you know, a whole series of these things. It was so well crafted, but they’ve, you know, they’ve been talking about doing it for years. Um, but everybody involved is still saying it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen.

We don’t know when, but it is going to happen. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Yeah. Um, one thing I don’t think we can not talk about. Um, one of the other pieces of connective tissue throughout the whole movie is, uh, I don’t know how to pronounce it. S uh, Sam Haim, one character in the, in the film pronounced it once.

And it sounded like she said, saw one, saw one, but there’s this, this character, this, uh, kind of mysterious character, seemingly a child, the size of a child, but in this. Really really old fashioned. I mean, we’re not talking like fifties and sixties, we’re talking like depression, era, Halloween costume, which by the way, I’m sure you’ve seen those pictures of the depression era.

Halloween costumes are, they’re pretty terrifying and creepy. And so he’s in this kind of weird, old fashion. He’s dirty, he’s scruffy and he just pops up everywhere. He pops up in every single story. He’s silent. He’s just kind of this looming presence. He even pops up in the, uh, the urban legend story, which supposedly was supposed to take in place decades ago.

Um, and then he plays more of a central role, uh, in, in one of the final scenes, but this spooky little guy and he’s kind of become. An icon in his own. Right. You know, when you see, I, you know, I look at a lot of horror websites and things, and a lot of people put up their artwork and, um, he is now kind of appearing in all of those collages with all the other great movie monsters and villains and just a spooky, uh, uh, little element to the, to the story.

But yeah. Kind of central. I mean, I guess that he’s supposed to be representative of kind of the spirit of the 

Todd: holiday. Yes. Well, exactly what they’re going for, especially because he, you know, showed up in that, in that flashback or it’s Halloween, they’re driving by and he’s kind of out in the field, stabbing a bat or something, but, but silent and quiet and, and has that sort of, uh, guardian aspect, like I’m just watching you from afar.

I’m making sure that you’re following the rules. Yeah. And if you don’t follow the rules, maybe I, myself, I’m going to come after. 

Craig: Right. And you do get the sense that he’s definitely taking sides in these stories, you know, uh, uh, you, you find in the, in the final act that he really can pose a threat. In and of himself, but the characters who behave accordingly, I guess he just leaves them alone.

It’s almost like he kind of gives them a little, a little nod, a little 

Todd: nod and a pass and walks 

Craig: right by, uh, interesting. And, and, uh, fear net, I guess, which I don’t get does a 24 hour marathon of this, every Halloween. And they do little spots, advertisement spots with, uh, Sam, the little character. If you haven’t seen him, you should take a look.

There’s some pretty cute ones. Uh, in fact, the whole movie is based on a short called seasons greetings and, and the short, uh, introduces th this, this character, the character of Sam, uh, it’s a little animated short. It’s really brief. It’s cute. I just watched it for the first time today. They were initially planning on calling the film seasons greetings, which is what the original short was called.

Uh, but they were worried that it sounded too Christmasy. So they went through, they went through some other stuff and landed on trigger tree. Is that available 

Todd: online? Yeah, it’s on YouTube. We’ll put a link to that. We’ll put a link to that town or website. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah. Well, once again, thank you so much, Craig, for, uh, for recommending just a fantastic Halloween movie.

We’re going to be on here again for two more weeks. We’re redoing a couple more Halloween movies. If you liked this podcast, please share with your friends. If you are interested in reading a few more, uh, movie reviews, I have my 31 days of horror going on. We’re watching one horror movie at one horror movie a day and writing a review about it.

And we will be back to you next week with Two Guys and a Chainsaw. This is Todd and Craig season’s greetings .