TRICK (2019) ** ½

After Rob Zombie parted ways with the Halloween franchise, director Patrick Lussier and his My Bloody Valentine 3-D screenwriter Todd Farmer were brought in to do the next installment.  Unfortunately, that project stalled out before the cameras had a chance to roll.  As a fan of not only My Bloody Valentine 3-D, but also the duo’s Drive Angry, I’ve always yearned to see what they could’ve done with the Halloween series.  Their latest collaboration, Trick kind of gives you a glimpse of what could’ve been.  

Like Halloween, Trick features a seemingly supernatural killer who appears on Halloween to carve up his victims.  Instead of Michael Myers, it’s a high school student named Trick, who snaps on Halloween, kills his friends, and is shot by a cop, played by Omar Epps before disappearing into the night.  Epps is kind of like the Dr. Loomis stand-in as every time Halloween rolls around, he tries to warn everyone that Trick will come back, but no one believes him until it’s too late.  Each Halloween, Trick hides behind a different mask.  (The pumpkin mask he starts off with is a lot cooler than each of his successive disguises.)  

In addition to Halloween, there’s also a bit of a Scream vibe going on as the hooded killer playfully taunts his victims with a knife before cutting them up.  The fact that Lussier edited the Scream movies and the cast includes not only Scream 2’s Epps, but Jamie Kennedy only adds to the déjà vu.  Admittedly, the film’s mythology is a bit lacking when compared to those franchises, although the final twist is clever enough.  

Even though it heavily trades on the slashers of the past for inspiration, Trick is a decent enough horror film.  The emphasis on the police procedural aspect helps make it feel more like a “grown up movie” than a common-denominator Dead Teenager Flick.  The gore and bloodletting are kept at an adequate level and the body count mounts up quite nicely.  

While it lacks the out-and-out fun of their previous outings, it’s nice seeing Lussier and Farmer getting a belated chance to flex their cinematic muscles again.  On the downside, it’s a tad overlong (it’s over a 100 minutes) and suffers from some instances of shaky-cam during the suspenseful sequences.  I exactly can’t say Trick is a treat, but I’m still glad I saw it.  Besides, it’s hard to completely dismiss a movie that boasts a shotgun-toting Tom Atkins.