While Trick ‘r Treat wasn’t a smash hit at the box office, the cult-classic horror anthology featuring an adorable, murderous trick-or-treater won over the hearts and minds of many horror fans, with praise being lobbed towards the quality of each story and how they tied into Halloween festivities. Despite releasing in 2009, a sequel has been on the mind of director Michael Dougherty ever since the film first released in theaters, though plans always seemed to fall through the cracks for a variety of reasons. Now, in the age of modern horror revivals, it looks as though Trick ‘r Treat 2 is finally in active development, per ScreenRant.
But for those who didn’t know, a sequel to Trick ‘r Treat has already been available for more than seven years — as a graphic novel. Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead was released in 2015 and was officially written by Dougherty himself with assistance from four different artists, making Days of the Dead the closest thing to an official Trick ‘r Treat sequel until the film’s actual release. Until more details for the film come out, we have to ask: should Trick ‘r Treat 2 borrow ideas from Days of the Dead?
What is Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead?
Legendary Comics
Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead is a graphic novel anthology written by Michael Dougherty, Todd Casey, Zach Shields, and Marc Andreyko. It features a similar format to the original Trick ‘r Treat film, with four separate stories interconnected through the antics of Sam, a mischievous trick-or-treater with a sack over his head. But what separates Days of the Dead from the original film, other than the change in medium, are the shorts themselves. Instead of each short taking place within a typical Halloween night, Days of the Dead tells a variety of stories across time and space, from 1640s Ireland to the contemporary United States.
Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead Stories
Each segment in Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead tells a completely different tale from the last, removing itself from a traditional Halloween setting to let Sam truly run wild. While his presence is limited in each segment, it’s certainly felt.
“Seed” tells the story of a pair of lovers in 1640s Ireland, where a fear of witches and the dark arts runs rampant. A soldier has reservations about the torture of supposed witches before he’s set to personally interrogate one. However, his perspective on the world is changed as she introduces him to a new way of thinking. The duo tries to find a way to spread her magic, which comes in the form of pumpkin seeds, to the New World. It’s a more sentimental story that sees Sam largely relegated to the background.
“Corn Maiden,” meanwhile, leaps to the wild west circa 1853, where Sarah Bledsoe finds herself in the middle of a territorial dispute between gold-hunting westerners and a Native American tribe. When she learns of the “Corn Maiden,” a spirit that blesses the annual Autumn harvest, she attempts to share the spirit of Halloween with her newfound friends. Sam makes another appearance as a handmade doll, meant to represent protection from evil spirits. Not that Sam is a “good” spirit, but he’s “very old and very powerful.”
“Echoes” jumps forward another century into 1955, telling a noir story that crosses witchcraft and the Red Scare into a missing persons case. Between cults, hallucinations, and a masked killer, it’s arguably the most action-packed of the stories, with Sam making an appearance as a gigantic, looming version of himself.
What Can Trick ‘r Treat 2 Borrow?
Seeing as how Dougherty has already confirmed that none of the original cast is set to return, taking a wholly new approach to each of the shorts in Trick ‘r Treat 2 would make sense. Enforcing the spirit of Halloween beyond just handing out candy would be fresh and exciting, and given the success of period pieces like The Witch, you could argue it’d be financially sound.
“Monster Mash” is arguably the closest to the original film in terms of setting and tone. A pair of Halloween delinquents find themselves attacked by a mish-mash of classic Halloween monsters, with only their costumes protecting them from being torn to pieces. They decide to take advantage of their predicament by joining a literal “monster mash,” partying and raising Hell all over the neighborhood. However, their choices may have some severe consequences. Sam makes one final appearance in his regular form, walking among a pack of trick-or-treaters.
In doing so, we might lose a part of what made Trick ‘r Treat so compelling and effective. Despite telling four separate stories, they all combined into a singular narrative: events from one story bleed into another, culminating with the aftermath of each showcased in the film’s ending sequence. Tying together ideas that are literally centuries apart is a tall order, even for the guy who originally wrote them.
Then again, do we really want to see the same thing over again? Maybe it’d be a good thing to see Sam protect the spirit of Halloween in a different time and place. Halloween as a holiday has a rich cultural history, and even if you ignore the past century’s worth of material that you could pull stories from, there are plenty of opportunities to tell a frightening story based on the holiday. Should every story segment stand tall enough on its own, it’d be worth pursuing.
Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead is a worthy experiment in trying something new with the series. One can argue that it worked well enough to adapt to the big screen, borrowing historical depictions of the holiday for a new romp with everyone’s favorite trick-or-treater.
