TRICK (2019)

Studio:      RLJE Films
Director:    Patrick Lussier
Writer:      Todd Farmer, Patrick Lussier
Producer:  Ita Kennedy, Ellen Wander
Stars:     Omar Epps, Ellen Adair, Kristina Reyes, Jamie Kennedy, Tom Atkins, Max Miller, Thom Niemann, Kya Taylor Brickhouse, Aaron Dalla Villa, Robert McKay

Review Score:

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Summary:

An FBI agent and a small town sheriff hunt a seemingly supernatural serial killer who reappears every Halloween.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Benton, NY – Halloween 2015 – Wearing a jack-o-lantern mask, 18-year-old Patrick ‘Trick’ Weaver suddenly murders several high school classmates at a costume party. Cheryl Winston, who is hosting the party, stops Trick by stabbing him in his stomach with a fireplace poker. With Cheryl in shock, football team captain Troy Meeks takes credit for taking down Trick. Cheryl’s friend Nicky Taylor survives Trick’s stabbing.

Sheriff Lisa Jayne and Detective Mike Denver begin investigating the case at the hospital, where Dr. Steven treats Trick. Trick gets free of his cuffs, attacks Mike, and kills multiple staff members while attempting to escape. Mike and Lisa shoot Trick several times after he takes Cheryl hostage. Trick falls through a window to the ground below. When Mike and Lisa make it outside, they find Trick missing. EMT Len tells Mike and Lisa that he swerved his ambulance to avoid Trick.

Mike and Lisa’s subsequent investigation reveals no one knew Trick’s true identity or address. Mike believes Trick survived, possibly through supernatural means, but Lisa closes the case by concluding Trick probably drowned in the Hudson River.

Riverton, NY – Halloween 2016 – Someone wearing a white demon mask kills multiple people at another costume party. Mike tells Lisa he believes Trick has resurfaced.

Hudson Village, NY – Halloween 2017 – Trick’s cult following continues to grow when more murders are committed with his m.o.

Shady Creek, NY – October 30th 2018 – At a bar, Mike tells fellow FBI agents Sam Swift and Christina Mendez that he believes Trick is moving his murders further down the river every year. Due to the different DNA found on each mask worn by the murderer, bartender Brooke suggests a copycat may be responsible.

Trick captures Swift in the bar’s bathroom and decapitates him outside with an elaborate trap. Trick also kills Mendez, which results in Mike being fired from the FBI.

Benton, NY – October 30th 2019 – Lisa summons Mike to a crime scene when deputies Wan, Slater, Green, and Iris Reddick discover Mike’s name written in blood as an apparent taunt.

Cheryl goes to the hospital to visit her bedridden father, who mysteriously fell from a factory roof. Cheryl’s father sees an ominous face appear on his room’s TV, but he is unable to communicate with Cheryl or Dr. Steven.

Mike chases Trick through a cemetery, but Trick gets away. Trick lures Deputy Green to a barge where he impales her with a trap before decapitating her with Agent Mendez’s tombstone.

Mike and Lisa investigate Cheryl’s former house where the 2015 party took place. They find evidence that Trick was there. Someone steals Mike’s SUV while he and Lisa are inside.

Cheryl and Nicky take Nicky’s younger siblings Janice and Greg to a church fundraiser where diner owner Mr. Talbott entertains locals with a horror movie marathon inside and a haunted maze outside. Troy Meeks sneaks into the event with Smooth Jonny and several other buddies, although Talbott catches them.

Deputy Reddick reports finding Mike’s stolen SUV outside the church. Mike and Lisa race to the event and find Reddick dead.

Wearing skull makeup and a black hoodie, Trick murders several scare actors in the maze. Trick stabs Nicky. Trick also kills Talbott in the projection booth. As panicked patrons evacuate, Mike rescues Cheryl, Janice, and Greg and sends them to the hospital with Nicky.

Mike and Lisa find Troy. Mike and Lisa warn that they believe Trick wants to kill Troy for stabbing Trick with the fireplace poker in 2015. Tory confesses that Cheryl actually stabbed Trick. Mike and Lisa race to the hospital to warn Cheryl.

Cheryl visits her father while at the hospital. Surveillance video suddenly plays on the TV revealing Trick caused her father’s accident by throwing him from the roof. Cheryl pulls back the bed sheet to discover her father gutted. The hospital’s power goes out as Trick attacks Cheryl.

Mike and Lisa find Cheryl tied up. Trick viciously stabs Lisa, Mike, and then Cheryl. Following a fight between everyone, Cheryl recovers a gun and shoots Trick several times. Mike then tackles Trick through a window and onto a car in the parking garage beneath them. Mike sees that the murderer is actually Smooth Jonny wearing the skull makeup and hoodie.

Len, the EMT from 2015, and Brooke, the bartender from 2018, arrive in skull makeup and hoodies to collect Smooth Jonny while Mike remains helpless from his wounds. Deputy Wan and Deputy Slater also arrive. Slater reveals he too is wearing skull makeup when he shoots Wan. Bound to a wheelchair, the real Patrick Weaver joins the group. Trick explains that he and his accomplices were part of an elaborate plot to create the illusion of a supernatural boogeyman. Slater stabs Mike and leaves him with Trick before exiting with Len and Brooke.

Mike manages to pull Trick out of his wheelchair. Cheryl comes to help Mike. Cheryl realizes who Trick really is when she sees the scar from the fireplace poker on his stomach. Cheryl lets Trick go, but follows him back inside where he deletes surveillance footage from the hospital’s security system.

While Dr. Steven treats Lisa, Slater returns to report what happened in the garage. Lisa notices makeup on Slater’s neck.

Cheryl confronts Trick. Following a violent fight, Cheryl stabs Trick to death.

Cheryl wheels Trick’s body into Lisa’s room. Cheryl explains that Trick is more than one person. Lisa calls out Slater, who suddenly attacks. Cheryl and Lisa kill Slater together.

With plans to expand their plot, Len and Brooke leave town with Dr. Steven, who is also part of their conspiracy. Cheryl and Lisa team up to track them down with Mike, who recovered from his injuries.

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Review:

Trick-or-treating. Jack-o-lanterns. Haunted maze attractions. Colored lights. Costume parties. Latex masks. “Trick” definitely has the Halloween feeling down pat, which should be welcome news for fans of October-flavored fright films.

As much overtime as it works to capture the spirit of the season, “Trick” puts in even more effort to mirror “Halloween” the movie. Just look at this single-sentence summary of the story: “An FBI agent and a small town sheriff hunt a seemingly supernatural serial killer who reappears every Halloween.” Replace “FBI agent” with “obsessed psychiatrist” and what does that sound like to you?

In addition to the overall premise, “Trick’s” beats include investigating an abandoned house where past murders took place, a stolen tombstone used as a haunting taunt, the killer tormenting two babysitters, and more than one sequence of stalking and slashing set inside a hospital. I can’t tell if screenwriter Todd Farmer means to wink at an in-the-know audience with all of his references or if he just challenged himself to see how many Carpenter-Hill plot points he could sneak into his own script.

It’s not quite a first-person view from behind the eyes of a mask, but a handheld camera walks us into the opening scene. It’s Halloween 2015 in Benton, New York, a place with an inordinate amount of on-duty deputies and available law enforcement personnel for a township of 4,400 people. Actors in their twenties play high-schoolers in their teens at a house party attended by quiet loner Patrick ‘Trick’ Weaver. Trick snaps during a game of ‘Spin the Knife’ and suddenly starts stabbing his classmates.

A jock, easily identified because he still wears his letterman jacket four years later at age 22, subdues Trick with an assist from good girl Laurie Stro- oh, Cheryl Winston. Trick ends up handcuffed in a hospital, although he doesn’t remain there long. Trick stomachs several slugs from Sheriff Jayne and Detective Mike Denver before falling from a second story window during an escape attempt. When they get outside however, Jayne and Denver find only empty ground where Trick’s body should be.

The cops conclude Trick probably drowned in the ice-cold Hudson River. Detective Denver isn’t so sure. When another masked murderer creates chaos at a costume party the following year, Denver suspects the true Trick resurfaced, yet remains as elusive as ever.

By 2017, Trick’s notoriety grows to creepypasta proportions as he continues becoming a bizarre boogeyman idolized by the internet. In 2018, Trick’s killing spree takes out two of Denver’s FBI associates, leading to Denver’s ouster from the bureau. Denver may be officially off the case, but Trick isn’t anywhere near getting out of the determined detective’s mind.

Back in the heyday of horror franchising, “Trick” would have been five separate movies. Instead, “Trick” gets us through the first four films in under thirty minutes, catching us up to 2019 as Trick finally returns home to complete the horror he started.

“Trick” deserves the hard time I’m cynically giving it in good humor. From the stereotypical lawman devoting his life to one unsolvable case to the immortal masked killer with a seasonally specific modus operandi, the circumstances surrounding these crimes only occur at the cinema or in comic books. And “100% preposterous” doesn’t come close to reflecting the ridiculousness of the revelation tying the truth of Trick’s holiday homicides together.

Director Patrick Lussier and writer Todd Farmer’s creative collaboration indulges itself on impossibilities much more than makes sense for practicality. Excessive jump scares overload to a point where they lose their pop after the hundredth volume-boosted jolt. While I appreciate that the deputies aren’t named Romero, Hooper, or Craven, I’m not sure naming them after filmmaking friends Wan, Green, Slater, and Reddick is an improvement on that particular “takes me out of the movie” trope. Shave out sillier inclusions such as comedian Jamie Kennedy pulling a ponytail over his bald spot to portray a surgically-skilled doctor and the movie might have more convincing credibility.

But by the time your eyes roll with an incredulous “oh, c’mon!” over the endgame, you’ve been entertained consistently enough to forgive the film’s mustache-twirling fiction. “Trick’s” fleet feet move at a breakneck speed. The movie features nearly nonstop slaughter, several setups that would make Jigsaw jealous, and plenty of pumpkins to appease people who can’t get enough Halloween in their horror. This is Farmer and Lussier invoking all the savagery and snark they can muster to manufacture a good old-fashioned slasher with snappy style. Even though the last act specifically is ludicrously written, the fun this film has translates into a slickly made production that satisfies the job it sets out to do as homage horror.

Review Score: 65

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