There are plenty of Trick ‘R Treat rules that Sam enforces, and the unlucky few who break them pay the ultimate price. Michael Dougherty directed Trick ‘R Treat, an anthology film set on Halloween night in a small town. Horror comedy is a tricky genre, as the scares and humor can easily cancel each other out. However, Trick ‘R Treat walks that tonal tightrope while subverting genre clichés and stereotypes. John Carpenter’s Halloween may be considered the best movie about the titular celebration, but Trick ‘R Treat also stands the test of time as a cult Halloween classic.
Trick ‘R Treat and its Halloween stories involve zombies, werewolves, and slasher killers, but it’s all held together by Sam. Trick ‘R Treat’s Sam looks like a young trick-or-treater, but he’s a demonic being who enforces the rules of the holiday; his name also derives from Samhain, the Gaelic festival that inspired Halloween. For most of the movie, Sam is just an observer, but he takes action if he sees a Halloween rule being broken. When someone breaks the sacred rules of Halloween, there is truly Hell to pay in this minor Halloween masterpiece.
All Of Sam’s Trick ‘R Treat’s Rules
Sam Demands Respect For The Halloween Holiday
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Sam’s Trick ‘R Treat Rules |
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Rule 1 |
Always wear a costume |
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Rule 2 |
Always pass out treats to trick-or-treaters |
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Rule 3 |
NEVER blow out a Jack O’Lantern before midnight |
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Rule 4 |
Always check your candy |
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Rule 5 |
Always respect the dead |
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Rule 6 |
NEVER take down your decorations before November 1st |
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Rule 7 |
NEVER hurt the innocent |
The Trick ‘R Treat rules that Sam enforces with his great wrath are mostly rules that exist to make Halloween a fun and safe holiday for children and adults alike. Some rules are mostly for fun, such as always wearing costumes and always passing out treats. However, he passes on other rules that are for safety reasons, such as checking the candy and never hurting the innocent (such as children).
Sam demands respect for the dead.
The others are more about superstitions, such as not blowing out a Jack O’Lantern or taking down decorations until Halloween ends. Sam demands respect for the dead. Sam comes across like a child. He is mischievous and loves candy. However, at the end of the day, Sam is essentially the living embodiment of the celebration, and he takes his Halloween rules seriously. When someone dares to infringe on the rules (and spirit) of Halloween, Sam takes action.
Everyone Who Breaks The Trick ‘R Treat Halloween Rules
Sam Takes Deadly Action Against The Rule Breakers
The rules are explicitly broken twice – starting with the rule about blowing out a Jack O’Lantern. This is seen in Trick ‘R Treat‘s opening story, where a woman named Emma (Leslie Bibb) – who hates Halloween – attempts to take down the decorations early. While Henry begs her not to do so, she makes it clear she isn’t a fan of Halloween and takes them all down early, even blowing out the Jack O’Lanterns. Emma wants all the decorations gone before her mother visits the next morning, saying the yard looks like a crime scene. Blowing out the candle before the night was over marked her for death.
Sam soon shows up and stalks her through the yard. While Henry is inside waiting for her to finish taking down the decorations, Sam hides under one of the ghost scarecrows in her yard. Sam then slits her throat with his lollipop and puts her on display as a gruesome new Jack O’Lantern. When she doesn’t return, Henry goes outside and finds Emma’s severed head hung up on one of the ghost scarecrows.
The dead children return as zombies and claim all the teens except for Rhonda, who encounters Sam as she leaves.
Later, the corpses of a group of schoolchildren murdered years before rise and attack a gang of teenagers who broke the “Always respect the dead” rule. The teens went to “pay respect” to the dead kids by offering eight jack-o’-lanterns as a tribute, but then mocked the moment by pranking a girl named Rhonda. The dead children return as zombies and claim all the teens except for Rhonda, who encounters Sam as she leaves. While Sam didn’t kill the kids, he was there, showing he likely had a hand in this. Rhonda walks back to the elevator and sees a small boy in orange pajamas, and she nods to him. He nods back while the screams of the other kids are heard in the background.
In the final story, Trick ‘R Treat’s Sam attacks Brian Cox’s Mr. Kreeg, who refuses to give candy to trick-or-treaters. Sam viciously attacks the old man throughout this segment and is even unmasked and revealed to be a creature of some sort. Rather than kill Trick ‘R Treat’s Kreeg – whose look was based on John Carpenter – Sam instead takes a candy bar he’s holding and departs, seemingly satisfied with the offering.
However, Kreeg is the bus driver responsible for the deaths of the schoolchildren at the lake, and Trick R’ Treat ends with the zombie children coming to his home and ripping him apart, gaining the ultimate revenge.
The Consequences Of Breaking The Rules
The Movie Shows That No One Can Escape Their Punishment
There are other deaths in Trick ‘R Treat other than the rule breakers that Sam exacts revenge on. However, it is his revenge for breaking the rules that really helps drive the story forward. The anthology movie starts with the broken rule when Emma blows out the jack-o-lantern and ends up dead and used as decoration by Sam. It is a good way to start the anthology, as it sets up the idea of disrespecting Halloween resulting in death.
It is Charlie’s disrespect of the jack-o-lantern that resulted in his death.
The next few segments of the anthology movie show other modes of disrespecting the holiday, but without having Sam directly involved with the fallout. This includes a serial killer named Wilkins killing a young vandal named Charlie who destroyed a jack-o-lantern. He is hinted at killing another kid named Billy, but he does not, although it is shown that he decapitated Charlie and is carving the boy’s severed head like a jack-o-lantern. It is Charlie’s disrespect of the jack-o-lantern that resulted in his death.
A sign on the porch instructs kids to take only one piece of candy, but Charlie fills up anyway. When Charlie begins to cough, Wilkins explains the most important rule of Halloween: “always check your candy.” Charlie violently vomits blood and chocolate and passes out.
Furthermore, Wilkins later dresses up in a Halloween costume with the full intention of killing a young woman named Laurie. Using a Halloween costume to attack someone was disrespectful of the holiday as well, which means that he was going to meet his maker based on the rules the film had set up. This happens because he had no idea the girl he attacked was a werewolf, and he ended up as dinner for the pack that night. The vampire who attacks Laurie (Anna Paquin) is revealed to be Principal Wilkins, and he is begging for help. Laurie, a 22-year-old virgin, reveals that this means she has never killed before, and Wilkins will be her first.
This all leads to the final death of the movie, that of Kreeg. While he was finally respecting Halloween after Sam’s visit and handed out candy to others, his past crimes were irredeemable. Since he killed the children on the bus, his death was inevitable, and it showed that even respecting Halloween at the last minute might not be enough to save someone from Sam’s Trick ‘R Treat rules.
- Release Date
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October 6, 2009
- Runtime
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82 minutes
- Director
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Michael Dougherty
