Tricked Out

It’s not too often a major studio heads into the October Country (unless that studio is Dimension and it’s looking to team Michael Myers with another aging rap icon), let alone in the form of an anthology film, so when Dread Central broke the rumor that The Usual Suspects/Superman Returns director Bryan Singer’s company was producing a big-studio horror film set at Halloween called Trick ‘r Treat, to be written and directed by Singer’s Superman co-writer Michael Dougherty, I got far more excited about the project than the other Halloween-themed release coming this fall.

In fact, I kind of view the premise behind Trick ‘r Treat (which reportedly interweaves four loosely related short horror tales) as the Halloween treatments that never were. There was allegedly a time when Halloween producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill pushed to continue the Halloween franchise as an anthology series of new storylines unrelated to the Myers saga (ala the controversial Halloween III: Season of the Witch) but all set at or inspired by Halloween, which, considering the limitless potential, is a glorious idea. Especially given how the series has actually progressed. While Trick r Treat’s stories are apparently linked via a single central character (most likely one of evil intent), its anthology approach is ambitious and daring, considering most anthology films fail at the box-office no matter how good they are (the last major studio horror anthology to hit theaters was the underrated Tales From the Hood in 1995).

Equally bold and intriguing are many of the details and stills from Trick ‘r Treat that have been creeping out (like the haunting image above), giving me hope that this might be the 2007 equivalent of Haute Tension or The Descent -- sharp, potent movies outside the common boundaries of Hollywood horror (not surprisingly, both were imports) that nonetheless received wide theatrical releases.

That might be why the flms’s official trailer, which snuck onto the net last week, feels like just a bit of a buzzkill. As good previews should, it features some dynamic imagery and compelling hints, particularly regarding that schoolbus sequence, but there are a lot of moments in it that look like typical horror hokum.

The argument’s not new, but it’s clearly still valid: the most effective trailers are the ones that reveal the least. While the trailer for Trick ‘r Treat is hardly cause for writing off the film, it does undermine its own goals by removing the film’s mask a little too early.

The Bodies Count: The Curious Value of Character in the Friday the 13th Flicks

From the time I was eight-years-old, not a single Friday the 13th has passed without my special observance, first in the form of caffeine-fueled adolescent sleepovers and USA’s Up All Night movie marathons, then later raucous Friday drinking games and illicit, hockey-masked runs through forested nooks and cemeteries, and, in the digital age, faux Jason interviews and ridiculously detailed and lengthy online articles on everything from the top 13 sex-related deaths to “those damn enchiladas” from Friday V.

Thus, though my interest in the series has waned over the last few years and it’s a little on the fringe of this joint’s thematic intent, when Final Girl Stacie Ponder issued an open call for Friday-centric blog posts, I couldn’t resist throwing something together and pimping what I feel is one of the more under-appreciated elements of the series, something this lingering saga of a lovable backwoods mamma’s boy and his bond with a severed head is not particularly well-known for: its characters.

In the slasher genre, where 95% of all individuals are quickly introduced specifically for the purpose of a sensationally graphic or even comic demise soon afterwards, first impressions are essential, but seldom lasting. In most traditional slashers, the killer is really the star, if not the killings themselves. Nobody remembers Mabel from My Bloody Valentine for her wholesome, small-town, apple-pie charm; they remember her for her death via tumble dryer. Understandably, as the Friday franchise was dragged into its teen years by Jason Goes to Hell and, with Jason X and Freddy Vs. Jason, into its early- to mid-20s, all attention was increasingly focused solely on Jason and some high-profile and highly illogical slayings (or, in the case of the latter example, Jason, Freddy, and Monica Keena’s irritating, nasally whine).

But over the last few years, as my thoughts returned to Crystal Lake with every Friday the 13th, and as I’ve tried to understand and explain to others why the early Paramount-era movies are so much fun while the later-day New Line ventures make Uwe Boll seem like the Orson Welles of horror, I’ve found myself remembering and caring less and less about Jason and his exploits and focusing more attention on the freaks, tramps, and bad dancers who’ve helped make the series so endearingly awful. These days, when I talk about the movies with friends, nobody mentions the infamous sleeping bag death from Part VII or the dimensionally popping eye from Part III; we talk about bicycle-riding soothsayers, post-coital handstands, and “Star Mummy.” We talk about screen-wide denim cut-offs, strip Monopoly, perverted morgue attendants, Crispin “Dead Fuck” Glover, and, of course, those damn enchiladas.

The Halloween movies are memorable for their palpable dread, their unsettling, genuine ambiance, and their stark approach to the concept of evil. The Nightmare series enraptures with fantastic visuals and an equally fantastic twist on the American dream, appealing to teenage audiences by catering to the idea of parents as an adversarial force responsible for their own progeny’s undoing. I think the Friday the 13th franchise stands out from the slasher pack because of its cast of inexplicably and yet irresistibly compelling anthropological sideshows – a collective group not too dissimilar from a bunch of Jerry Springer Show rejects gone to summer camp. The guy with the mask and the machete is just a bonus.

If your celebratory plans call for revisiting the series, as many will today, pay a little extra attention to the characters that populate its wacky world, the equally wacky things they do; just remember to stay away from those damn enchiladas.

Happy Friday the 13th!