Trick ‘r Treat (2009)

Film and Plot Synopsis

On the night when demons andtortured souls are free to walk the earth alongside mortal revelers,four tales of terror–of a staid high school principal who is aHalloween serial killer, a college-age virgin seeking that special guy,a woman who hates dressing up for Halloween and whose husband isobsession with the holiday and a group of young teens who pull a cruelprank–will make you laugh even while scaring you. (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

‘Trick ‘r Treat’ Movie Summary

Annually, Halloween night brings a massive, wild festival to the Midwestern town of Warren Valley, Ohio. On this night, Emma and Henry return home from the festival drunk and horny. However, Emma, a Halloween scrooge decides to blow out their jack-o’-lantern before Halloween ends, against a superstition Henry strongly believes in. While Henry passes out in their house, watching a porn flick, Emma Scrooge begins breaking down the Halloween decorations in their yard. While cleaning up, Emma gets viciously attacked by a mysterious creature, murdered in cold blood, and hung on one of their decorations, with a jack-o’-lantern lollipop lodged into her mouth. A drunken Henry comes to hours later and finds his wife mutilated in their front yard, amongst all of their Halloween decorations.

Earlier in the evening, a young boy, Charlie, travels down a Warren Valley sidewalk destroying every jack-o’-lantern in sight, while dragging a dirty pillowcase full of candy behind him. Charlie gets caught red handed stealing all of the candy from Principal Steven Wilkins’ unattended candy bowl. Principal Wilkins chastises Charlie for not respecting Halloween’s traditions and gives Charlie a full size candy bar as a peace offering. After Charlie chomps down on the candy bar, he begins to feel nauseous and eventually begins violently vomiting all of the chocolate he’s eaten, along with a belly full of blood. Charlie dies on Wilkins’ front porch as the principal reveals that Charlie should have checked his candy, because the fatal candy bar was laced with cyanide.

Principal Wilkins works double-time to hide the dead boy’s body, as he continues to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, including a mysterious child in an orange onesie and a round burlap sack on its head. The murderous school principal buries Charlie in his backyard, where he keeps all of his other victims. While preparing to cover the body, Wilkins is continuously interrupted by his son, Billy, elderly next door neighbor, Mr. Kreeg, and Mr. Kreeg’s dog, Spite .Once the bodies are finally buried, Principal Wilkins returns indoors where he takes Master Billy to their basement and proceeds to make a jack-o’-lantern out of Charlie’s decapitated head. Wilkins proudly displays all of this to Billy, who finds pleasure in knowing he will make a fine serial killer one day.

Next up, we are introduced to Macy, Chip, Schrader, and Sara, a group of mischievous young teens who are walking about Warren Valley trick-or-treating and collecting jack-o’-lanterns. The quartet meets up with a meek, Halloween purist, Rhonda. Macy leads the group to a local quarry, where she tells them about the “Halloween School Bus Massacre,” a very disturbing Warren Valley legend that may, or may not, has taken place. The “Massacre” allegedly took place on a Halloween day, long ago, when the parents of eight mentally handicapped children bribed a school bus driver to kill them all by driving his bus into the quarry while they were all chained to their seats. However, before the bus driver could execute his plan, one of the costumed children escaped from his chains, moved into the driver’s seat, and, knowing any better, drove the bus off of a cliff, straight into the quarry. The legend states all of the children drowned, the bus driver was never seen, or heard from, again and the entire Warren Valley community avoided the scene, without a formal investigation.

Macy then leads the group to the lake in the quarry where they are planning to leave eight jack-o’-lanterns, as a tribute to the deceased children. Macy, Schrader, and Sara take an elevator down to the lake, intentionally leaving Chip and Rhonda to take the second trip. When Chip and Rhonda get to the bottom, they hear their friends screaming in terror, so Rhonda elects to get out of the elevator to investigate. She is chased by monster-esque figures in the dense fog, before falling to the ground at the edge of the lake.

Realizing Rhonda is hurt and crying, the quartet reveal that they were all pranking Rhonda, while wearing terrifying costumes and pretending to be the eight dead children from the “Massacre” story. After arguing with the group about the prank going too far, Macy punts a jack-o’-lantern into the lake, triggering the actual zombified children to emerge from the lake in the quarry and attacking the teens. Rhonda, the true Halloween purist, gets her revenge on the quartet by locking herself in the elevator, making her way back to the surface, and leaving the group to die at the hands of the deceased bus children. Walking away from the quarry, Rhonda passes a mysterious child in an orange onesie and a round burlap sack on its head.

Earlier in the evening, a quartet of sexy young ladies arrives in Warren Valley to experience the festival first hand. Laurie, her older sister Danielle, and their friends Maria and Janet get introduced to the town while shopping for tight, revealing costumes at a local shop. All four girls select costumes that will present them as fairy tale princesses, with Laurie choosing to party as Little Red Riding Hood. During the festivities, Maria and Janet pick up random guys along the street and invite them to a party in the nearby woods. Danielle tries to bring her sister out of her shell and have her party in the woods with the rest of the girls, but Laurie decides to roam the streets and have fun at the festival alone. Later in the night, Danielle calls Laurie and tells her they have found a date for her at their party. As Laurie makes her way through the woods towards the party, a mysterious man in a hooded vampire costume attacks her.

The couple struggle and a loud howling can be heard off screen as the hooded man attempts to bite Laurie. The girls at the party are startled by the howl but are scared shitless when a figure, wrapped in the red cloak Laurie was wearing, flies through the air and falls next to their bonfire. When they unwrap the red cloth, they find the man in the hooded vampire costume injured, fearing for his life. Laurie joins the party goers, revealing that the man bit her in the neck. When they unmask the “vampire,” Principal Steven Wilkins is revealed to be the mysterious man who tried to kill Laurie. An adrenaline rush from these events prompts Danielle and her pack of friends to dance around the bonfire, strip out of their Halloween costumes, and shed their human skins, revealing that they are actually werewolves. Excited that she has finally found that special someone to be her first kill, Laurie straddles Principal Steven Wilkins, transforms into a werewolf and sinks her teeth into the homicidal school administrator. While the wolf pack dines on their dates, a mysterious child in an orange onesie and a round burlap sack on its head sits nearby, watching the feast.

We are reintroduced to Mr. Kreeg, a cranky old bastard, who hates everything about Halloween, uses a voice amplifier on his tiny dog to scare off trick-or-treaters. On this Halloween night, Mr. Kreeg is visited by a mysterious child in an orange onesie and a round burlap sack on its head. The mysterious Halloween purist terrorizes Mr. Kreeg by egging his house, covering his lawn with dozens of jack-o’-lanterns, and creeping through his house, after entering via the doggy door. The dated and disgusting interior of Kreeg’s house gets covered with traditional Halloween and old world Samhain messages, including a flaming jack-o’-lantern in Kreeg’s bedroom.

Mr. Kreeg gets attacked by Sam, the mysterious creature in the orange onesie, who has a round burlap sack on his head. During the attacks, Sam is unmasked by Kreeg, who see’s Sam’s jack-o’ lantern shaped skull and face for the first time. Old man Kreeg shoots Sam with a double barreled shotgun, but is unable to kill him. Sam recovers from the gunshots and resumes his brutal attack on Mr. Kreeg. Sam grabs one of Mr. Kreeg’s favorite candy bars, stabs Kreeg in the leg with it, then backs off after teaching the old man the Halloween tradition of hanging out candy. Sam spares Kreeg’s life, but has scared the old man into believing in Halloween’s rules. As Kreeg recovers from the attacks, a group photograph of the children killed in the Halloween School Bus Massacred burns in Kreeg’s fireplace. As we zoom in on the entire photograph, we learn that Mr. Kreeg was the bus driver who was paid to execute the children and never heard from again.

Later in the evening, Mr. Kreeg’s doorbell rings. The born again Halloween traditionalist is more than happy to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters as he attempts to heal his wounds. As Kreeg looks out towards his neighborhood, he sees a young Billy Wilkins sitting on the porch, handing out candy. Kreeg sees Rhonda walking down his street pulling a wagon of jack-o’-lanterns behind her. Laurie, her sister, and their friends drive down the street, laughing and enjoying the holiday. Across the street, Emma and Henry arrive home from the festival. Sam watches Emma blow out a jack-o’-lantern and proceeds to kill her as a punishment. Mr. Kreeg goes back inside of his house but is immediately forced to return to the front porch when he hears a knock at the door. When Kreeg opens the door, he finds the undead children from the school bus massacre waiting for him. They proceed to enter Kreeg’s house and murder him, avening their Halloween demise.

Trick r Treat!