Trick 'r Treat (2007)★★★★☆

I like this movie. It’s another Halloween anthology film, though all four (well, technically five) of the stories are by the same writer and director (Mike Dougherty) in this one. Four stories are called out but Leslie Bibb and Tahmoh Penikett star in the fifth story that’s effectively a prologue (…epilogue).

It’s not quite as gripping as Tales of Halloween was – there are a few slow parts to this one. But largely it’s well acted and very interesting, and it does a great job paying tribute to classic horror films while still being original itself. Oh, and did you catch the use of “Cry, Little Sister” somewhere in there?

I like the nonlinear presentation of the stories – it keeps you guessing and makes the outcomes hard to predict. I also like how all the stories tie together and everything is wrapped up neatly by the end.

Anna Paquin and Brian Cox are the two cast members I was happiest to see in the film, but Sam is by far my favorite character. I assume Sam is everyone’s favorite character, though. I’m upset with myself for not getting the Sam doll at Comic Con before someone else did and have been waffling on buying one (or all) since.

Anyway, “cute” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of this film. It stays just on the right side of not-too-bloody and not-too-scary to be broadly appealing and generally entertaining.