Foreverisacastironmess
Oh my god, I did not just say that.. Right, so this is taken off a short story, and I thought that Michael Dougherty did a competent directing job here, it's very faithful to the tiny short story by Gary Raisor which only ran a couple of pages long if I remember correctly. The atmosphere is eerie and compelling as you see this freaky stuttering kid alone on Halloween Night going from house to house trick or treating, and you wonder what on earth he's up to as he sneakily leaves his own special candy in the people's jars when they're not looking, but you just know it's something that can't be good! And you don't get the shocking twist until right at the end when it's revealed that the timid quiet boy who is bullied and shunned by the other children because of his stutter was actually the victim of a cruel sick prank the previous Halloween involving candy that he ate that had razor blades hidden inside, and presumably the injuries to his mouth are why he can't speak normally. And what he decides to do, is that the way to have friends is by "making" other kids like him by tainting their candy in the same way and putting them through the same misfortune. It's kind of muddled here, but it's a lot clearer in the story that the kid wasn't doing it out of malice or spite, but that he's just too young to comprehend the horror of what he's doing. Ethan Khusidmah as Denny gives a good performance, but everybody else was pretty poor, especially the actress playing the mother. And that's something that I didn't get that seemed kind of unnecessary, and it was the only real thing added to the story, it's when it shows the mother in the final scene and she appears to have a suggestive smirk on her face, like she was glad her son was getting some revenge. I also didn't like how they kept repeating the line that spelled it all out to the audience what the twist was, it spoiled the impact a bit for me. Dougherty also displays some of the Halloween fetish that we'd later see a whole lot of in the "Trick 'R Treat" anthology. Anyway this is nothing super-memorable, but it was fun and well shot and it did have the cojones to have a child doing some dark stuff so a thumbs-up to that! Great stuff, well done to you sir!
