Yeah it’s a fad cash-in. But there’s something about this movie that goes beyond the satanic panic theatrics and the evils of heavy metal album art. Something barely audible underneath all that noise, but it’s there, and it still resonates. You only need to turn the clock backwards to hear it.
I was that kind of kid. Not Eddie Weinbauer exactly, but close enough that watching Marc Price shuffle through those hallways felt like looking in a mirror I’ve been trying to avoid since the mid-80s. The one who wore the wrong clothes, liked the wrong music, didn’t have the right words when they mattered. The one who ate lunch alone not because he wanted to, but because sitting with the wrong people was somehow worse than sitting with no one at all.
High school has a particular kind of cruelty to it. It wasn’t always fisticuffs at 3 o’clock high – though those came too, it was the casual, daily erosion. The way certain kewl kids could just decide you were worthless, and everyone else would go along with it because disagreeing meant you might be next. The way teachers would look right through you when it was happening, like if they didn’t acknowledge it, it wasn’t real – just some dumb kids being dumb kids. They all grow out of that sociopathy…
The thing about being bullied back then, and maybe this is still true, I don’t know, is that nobody really wanted to hear about it. Adults would tell you to ignore them, as if cruelty just evaporated when you stopped acknowledging it. They’d tell you to stand up for yourself, as if three-on-one odds were just a matter of gaining confidence through a workout montage. They’d tell you it builds character, which is just another way of saying your pain doesn’t matter until it creates damage.
So you retreated. Into music, into movies, into anything that felt like it understood. For Eddie, it was Sammi Curr – a guy who’d been through the same fire and came out the other side swinging an axe. Someone who said the things you were thinking but could never say out loud, someone who made being angry feel righteous instead of shameful.
That’s where Trick or Treat understands what most revenge-fantasy films ignore: the fantasy isn’t really about the joys of getting even. It’s about someone, anyone, acknowledging that what’s happening to you is real. That it matters. That you’re not crazy for feeling like you’re drowning in a public pool while everyone else is laughing and pretending the water’s fine.
When Sammi Curr comes back, when the music literally fights back. It’s not your typical horror trope payback, it’s validation.
And that can feel like the universe finally admitting that yeah, you deserve better.
But the film doesn’t let that sentiment stay unchallenged. Because revenge, even righteous revenge, has a body count. And Eddie has to look at what he’s unleashed and decide if this is really what he wanted. If becoming the thing that hurt him is actually winning, or just another way to lose yourself.
I think about that sometimes.
About the kids I knew who got ground down by high school and never really came back from it. The ones who turned that pain inward, or outward, or just carried it around like a stone in their pocket for the rest of their lives. About how close any of us came to letting it define us completely.
Trick or Treat trapped something unique about that moment – being young and powerless and so angry you could barely see straight. About finding your voice in the wrong places because the right places wouldn’t listen…
…About the cost of letting that anger consume you, and the harder work of learning to put it down.
And so Trick or Treat rightly belongs on the shelf with Carrie and Christine.
This one remains a favourite among those of us who not only survived the Satanic Panic of the early 1980’s, but survived High School ostracization. Sometimes when I stop and think about some of the Heavy Metal I religiously listened to at the time – and I wonder what possessed me. -Pop
Wuxtry:
My annual tradition to mark this auspicious release, is to have a Family Ties Monster Movie Marathon:
- Trick or Treat (1986) with Marc Price
- To Sleep with a Vampire (1992) with Scott Valentine
- Tremors (1990) with Michael Gross
- The Frighteners (1996) with Michael J. Fox
- Ben (1972) with Meredith Baxter
- Deadbolt (1992) with Justine Bateman
- Mikey (1992) with Brian Bonsall
..and Crash Course (1988) with Tina Yothers. There’s just nothing scary on her resume, so going with this Made-for-TV classic to top it all off.
Shala la la….
Trick or Treat arrived on Video Store shelves today in 1987, almost a year after its October 24th, 1986, theatrical release. So as to cash-in on Halloween. Twice.
And it would only set you back a cool 79.95 in 1987 money.