Trick 'r Treat (2007) owes a good deal to the classic portmanteau horror movie Dead of Night (1944) and Amicus Productions' many horror anthologies, although its structure is much more akin to Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). Trick 'r Treat is set in the fictional city of Warren Valley, Ohio, which celebrates Halloween more so than perhaps any other small town in the United States. Trick 'r Treat (2007) features five, interwoven stories. One story centres on a woman named Emma (Leslie Bibb), who comes home with her husband from celebrating Halloween. While he loves the holiday, she hates it. Another story centres on school principal Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker), who has some most unusual ways of celebrating Halloween. A third story features Laurie (Anna Paquin), who prefers a traditional Halloween to her older sister and her friends' idea of dates and drinks. Yet another story includes a group of youngsters who visit a deserted quarry to remember an urban legend known as the "Halloween School Bus Massacre." A final story centres on Kreeg (Brian Cox), an old man who absolutely hates Halloween and trick-or-treaters. Common to all of the stories is Sam (Quinn Lord), who appears to be a small child dressed in a burlap sack mask and an orange footie pyjama for a costume. In some of the stories, Sam merely observes what is going on. In yet others, he is an active participant. Here I must stress that there is much more to the stories than I have included here. Part of the fun of Trick 'r Treat (2007) is not knowing what will happen next.
Trick 'r Treat (2007) was the brainchild of Michael Dougherty, who had written the screenplays for X2 (2003), Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005), and Superman Returns (2006). It was while he was at New York University in 1996 that he wrote and directed the animated short "Season's Greetings." The short featured the first appearance of Sam, who plays a central role in Trick 'r Treat (2007). "Season's Greetings" was released in 1996.
It was "Season's Greetings" (1996) that led to the feature-length screenplay that would become Trick 'r Treat (2007). Michael Dougherty pitched the screenplay to various production companies for years before director/producer Bryan Singer consented to produce the movie. He gave it a budget of $12 million and also set up a deal with Warner Bros. to distribute the film.
For the most part, there would be very few changes to Michael Dougherty's screenplay from the original version to the one that finally made it to the screen. It was in a 2023 Q&A with Collider for Scary Perri’s Horror Series at Landmark Theatres that Michael Dougherty revealed that the "School Bus Massacre" replaced another story in which some kids lure a girl to a graveyard only to find out that she is actually dead. He decided to replace the story because it had been done before and relatively recently at that. Another story was changed more subtly so that the nature of some of the characters was more obvious.
Although set in the fictional city of Warren Valley, Ohio, Trick 'r Treat was filmed in British Columbia. Much of the film was shot in Ladner in Delta, British Columbia, itself a suburb of Vancouver. Ladner has frequently stood in for small Midwestern towns in the United States, including on such shows as Smallville and The X-Files and such movies as Along Came the Spider (2001) and Deck the Halls (2006). Much of Trick 'r Treat (2007) was also shot in Vancouver, with interiors shot at North Shore Studios in North Vancouver.
Trick 'r Treat (2007) began production in November 2006, with photography wrapping in January 2007. The film was set for an October 2007 release date. Unfortunately, Warner Bros. dropped Trick 'r Treat from their release schedule without providing any explanation whatsoever. Trick 'r Treat (2007) then premiered at Harry Knowles' Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival in Austin, Texas, on December 9, 2007. It would be screened at several different film festivals including the Sitges Film Festival on October 7, 2008, the 2008 Screamfest Horror Film Festival on October 10, 2008, and the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2009. On October 13, 2008, Fangoria sponsored a free screening in New York City. Trick 'r Treat (2007) won awards at many of the festivals and elsewhere, including a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Film and the Audience Award for Screamfest.
Trick 'r Treat (2007) proved popular at film festivals, so much so that many festival goers tried to persuade Warner Bros. to give it a proper theatrical release. One would have thought Warner Bros. would have acquiesced to the film's supporters, but instead of giving the movie a theatrical release, the studio released it directly to DVD and Blu-ray on October 9, 2009.
Since then Trick 'r Treat (2007) has only grown in popularity and become a cult movie. The movie has produced a good deal of merchandise, including Halloween costumes, t-shirts, a Sam plush toy, keychains, coffee mugs, and much more. DC and Wildstorm have also produced various Trick 'r Treat (2007) comic books, including the 2009 adaptation of the movie, and then Trick 'r Treat: Days of the Dead, inspired by the movie, in 2015. Another comic, Trick 'r Treat: Witching Hour, came out last year. It was in 2022, fifteen years after it had been meant to be released, that Trick 'r Treat (2007) finally received a nationwide theatrical release. The movie was shown in theatres again this year, 2025, on October 14 and October 16. Trick 'r Treat (2007) has been available on streaming for many years, and is available on services from HBO Max to Philo.
As to why Trick 'r Treat (2007) developed a cult following, there may well be many different reasons. It may well be that, unlike many 21st Century horror movies, it is rooted in the history of the genre. As mentioned earlier, it owes a good deal to Dead of Night and Amicus's anthology movies and E.C. Comics. It also shows influence from the classic Universal monster movies, the Hammer horrors, and even the classic horror movies Val Lewton made for RKO.
Beyond having roots deep in horror cinema, it can be argued that Trick 'r Treat (2007) is the quintessential Halloween movie, more so even than Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Halloween (1978), or The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Trick 'r Treat (2007) is largely a celebration of the traditions of Halloween, from those going back to ancient times to those that date only from the Twentieth Century. It's as Emma's husband Henry (Tahmoh Penikett) tells her, "You know, there are rules, you should be more careful. You might upset someone." Indeed, in Trick 'r Treat (2007) it is those people who flaunt the rules of Halloween who find themselves punished. Trick 'r Treat (2007) also looks at what Halloween means for different people. For children, it is a fun time to go trick-or-treating. For teenagers, it is a time for scary stories and pranks. For many adults, it is a time to party. Yet other adults, like Emma and Kreeg, simply hate the holiday. Trick 'r Treat (2007) may not cover every Halloween tradition or every viewpoint on Halloween, but it comes very close.
Trick 'r Treat (2007) may not have been around long enough for many to consider it to be a classic, but I have to think it is on its way. It is a well-done film that is at turns frightening and funny, and that takes a reverent look at one of the most popular holidays.
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