Two friends get together on Halloween night to tell each other spooky stories in the independent horror film Tricks & Treats. Read on for our thoughts.
Here at Screen Critix, we receive a plethora of independent films created by filmmakers at different stages of their film careers. Some are close to hitting the big time and have managed to craft some really well-made movies, others are still in film school looking for critique on their latest project, whilst some have little-to-no experience in film making but have managed to create something just for fun. It matters not to us, we will take a look and review anything and everything that lands on our desks.
Tricks & Treats is a two-hour horror film made by two friends who just love the genre. Shot entirely on a mobile phone, Tricks & Treats certainly has its problems, as director David Hershwitzky admits to, but it also has a lot going for it as well. This truly is a horror movie made by fans for fans.
Like the recent VHS movies, and the classic Creepshow movies, Tricks & Treats plays out like an anthology of spooky stories. In fact, the wrap-around story revolves around two old friends who get together annually on Halloween night to tell each other horror stories. This main story takes place in a car, and after a discussion about Super Novas and Gamma Rays, the two friends begin.
The first story, entitled Fishbones, is about a couple who are having relationship difficulties following the death of their young son, Leo, who had apparently choked to death on a fishbone. Then one night they are visited by a medium who has arrived to hold a séance in the house so the wife, Gia, can contact her deceased child. Once the event begins though, strange things start to happen in the house, like finding a fish in the bath and then finding that someone had cleaned the kitchen. Gia believes that Leo has returned, but they soon find out that something else has entered their lives too. Something sinister.
We soon push into another story called Oatmeal. A group of friends has gone camping for the weekend and, when it gets dark, all retreat the warmth of a van. After a quick game of truth or dare, one of them decides to tell the spooky story about Oatmeal. Yes, in this instance, Tricks & Treats is a film about a woman telling a spooky story called Oatmeal, where a man tells his friends a spooky story called Oatmeal, like some sort of horror Inception. Anyway, Oatmeal is about a boy who was tortured by a group of boys and had battery acid poured on his face, disfiguring him. He returns to kill the gang and apparently still roams the woods. Once the story is finished, the group of friends start to be picked off one by one, especially when they leave the comfort of their van to urinate in the dark.
There are another two stories that make up the anthology, including one that is a found footage film, but both aren’t entirely unique, yet somewhat enjoyable.
Though I don’t want to linger too much on the production of Tricks & Treats, we do have to inform the readers that the movie isn’t the greatest in terms of quality. Yes, the team had no money at all to spend on production, after all, it’s shot on a phone, it has no lighting, no sound recording equipment, no real experienced actors, but one can’t fully excuse some of the amateurish mistakes within. No attention is really paid to blocking, or framing, and you don’t need a budget to make sure your shots aren’t “crossing the line”, which happens throughout the 120 minutes.
But…..
With all the errors and bad creative decisions within Tricks & Treats, there is something inexplicably charming about it all. We too love horror films here at Screen Critix, and there is something really great and inspiring about a few horror fans coming together to create something for others to enjoy. Both David Hershwitzky and Flame Knuutila know they haven’t made the next Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Scream, or Halloween, but they are aware that they have come together to create something fun. Something that they can look back at one day and say “we made that”, and what’s more important than that?
So yeah, Tricks & Treats isn’t the greatest horror that has passed through our hands, but it didn’t have to be for us to enjoy it for what it is – a no-budget, two hours of horror fun.