[6.9/10] *Trick ‘r Treat* is shallow Halloween fun. There’s nothing much to its smushed-together horror anthology. The characters are shallow and cliched. The tales are largely archetypal, playing on the usual folklore and ghost stories of All Hallow’s Eve. And the spooks and scares are solid, but standard issue. Despite telling multiple tales at once, the film doesn’t offer a whole hell of a lot that's genuinely new.

But the movie has two things going for it. One is its sense of subversion. The group of teenagers trying to get laid around a holliday is a tired trope, even for a film not far removed from *American Pie*. But there’s a fun punchline when it turns out that Laurie and her sister aren’t hunting for dates, but rather for victims to be consumed by their pack of werewolves. The dimestore young adult shtick to get there is still kind of a pain, but the *Buffy*-esque reversal of expectations adds an amusing punchline to the escapade.

That subversiveness suffuses the film. Despite a somewhat juvenile tone to the whole thing, the film rightly takes the stuffing out of grim, horror-filled outings set around the holiday. Everything from a murderous Ned Flanders type, to children with disabilities getting a little poetic justice, to the spirit of Halloween delivering outsized punishments for violating Halloween traditions, there’s a sense of *Trick ‘r Treat* as operating in a demented, off-kilter world that plays with your expectations. That at least adds an element of surprise to what are, ultimately, a stock set of stories.

The other is the fact that the quartet of macabre vignettes at the center of the film are interconnected, taking place on the same night with little linkages between them. In truth, this doesn’t actually amount to much. The only significant plot connection between them is that the murderous principal from the film’s best segment meets his deadly comeuppance in the teenagers’ segment. Otherwise, the ties between the various stories are mostly set dressing.

That said, the connections come with an *Arrested Development*-like sense of whimsy when you catch the little ties between various stories, particularly when the protagonists (or survivors) all walk past each other in the movie’s bookends. And while this isn’t exactly *Pulp Fiction*, the non-linear storytelling with small moments of intersection to help the audience put the pieces together does add an extra sense of fun and cleverness to the proceedings.

*Trick ‘r Treat* can also boast a memorable little mascot, for lack of a better term, with an interesting M.O. Sam, the burlap-headed, pajama-footed, pint-sized spirit of the season is the right blend of Hot Topic cute and legitimately unnerving. He moves with a disturbing, childlike gait, and though the special effects are hit or miss (see also: the werewolf puppetry), the design is memorable as all hell.

The same goes for his terrifying raison d’etre. Sam is not Santa Claus. He doesn’t care whether you’ve been naughty or nice. He just wants you to honor the rituals of Halloween, from keeping your jack-o-lantern lit, to handing out candy when trick-or-treaters come around. The idea of miniaturized, supernatural slasher who *isn’t* out to punish the wicked, just to viciously enforce the spirit of the season, makes for a fun conceit.

The stories themselves are a bit hit or miss on their own terms. Even though the aforementioned “teens on the prowl” segment ends with pizzazz, it offers generic young adults making generic mischief for most of its runtime. The closing transformation sequence has some visual verve, and the irony of the Little Red Riding Hood flip is amusing enough, but it’s easily the weakest of the four segments.

The middle-schooler contingent fares a little better, but not by much. Thereto, writer/director Michael Dougherty is content to offer off-the-shelf kid archetypes that pull from the Amblin playbook and presage the likes of *Stranger Things*. The mean girl telling ghost stories with a sympathetic young gentleman has something to it, particularly in capturing the campfire story vibe of young kids on Halloween, but for the horror veteran, there’s nothing you haven't seen before.

That said, the moments where Rhonda, the neurodivergent girl who accompanies the group, gets pranked by her erstwhile companions and eventually they all get pursued by the real ghouls, make for the scariest moments in the film. And there is a poetic sense of just deserts, both in Rhonda turning a blind eye when the people who misled and manipulated her get some recompense for their disrespect, and in the fact that the supernatural beings delivering that punishment are the spirits of other children maligned or marginalized for their differences. That's something!

The story of Sam attacking Mr. Kreeg is a solid component of the film’s narrative. Brian Cox is a pro as always, and elevates what is a pretty standard slasher scenario with his reactions. THe mere presence of diminutive, deranged Sam gives this one a boost as well. And this is the segment where Dougherty’s direction buoys the proceedings as well, with a nice Looney Tunes-mixed-with-*Halloween* vibe to the whole thing, which is buttressed by the cinematography and pacing of Sam’s pursuit.

The reveal that Mr. Kreeg *is* the bus driver from the middle schoolers’ ghost story, who gets his late comeuppance despite his attempt at reforming for the Halloween holiday, makes for a nice twist and connection to cap off the film.

But the head and shoulders winner of the bunch is Principal Wilkins’ wacky murder misadventures. The contrast between Wikins’ outwardly square and wholesome persona, mixed with his bloody and vengeful bent, makes for a surprisingly hilarious combination. Dylan Baker, another ringer, pulls the balance off to perfection. The 1950s sitcom-style hijinks of him trying to hide a dead body are uproariously funny in a blackly comic way, and every moment he’s on screen brings a perfect mix of mirth and menace that's hard to match elsewhere in the movie.

*Trick ‘r Treat* is every so slightly more than the sum of its parts. Taken individually, most of the macabre story threads the film presents would be pretty forgettable, with only a last page reversal to really make them stand out. But given that small air of subversion, and smashed together with enough little connections to add a thread delight to the interwoven horror, the various tales have just enough combined verve and blood-soaked vividness to pass muster. The film isn’t a classic, but it’s light and easy and full of enough surprises to keep your attention for a quick spooky season watch.