R.I.P.: Gualtiero Jacopetti

Gualtiero Jacopetti
4 September 1919, Tuscany – 17 August 2011, Rome

Gualtiero Jacopetti was the Italian director who, in conjunction with co-writers/co-directors Franco E. Prosperi and, occasionally, Paolo Cavara (4 July 26 – 7 Aug 82), traveled the world to film the strange, the shocking, the disgusting for a series of "documentaries" of oft-questionable verisimilitude. Gualtiero Jacopetti himself claimed himself to be – and is commonly seen as – the creator of the genre now known as the "shockumentary" with the 1962 classic documentary Mondo Cane, a title which translates into "a dog's world". Mondo Cane, nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, was also graced with one of the true masterpieces of easy listening, Riz Ortolani's haunting melody More, which was even nominated for an Academy Award in 1964. (It lost to Call Me Irresponsible.)
Jacopetti, who was born in Barga in Tuscany, began his career as a journalist, something he supposedly considered himself to be until the very end. According to the NY Times (quoting Italian obituaries), Jacopetti assisted the Allied troops when they invaded the land of Mussolini in WWII and also lent a helping hand in starting the popular Italian magazine L'Espresso. He was a producer of newsreels prior to making feature films. As was the case of the makers of "white-coaters" in the USA during the late 60s and early 70s, one of the reasons Jacopetti turned to the documentary approach was to get by the censors.
Though often accused of staging the events he filmed, Jacopetti claimed to only have ever staged one scene, a reenactment (in Mondo Cane 2) of the famous AP photo of the self-immolation of a Vietnamese monk. In 1966, in the aftermath of the shockwaves left by Africa Addio / Goodbye, Africa, he also saw in necessary to return to Africa to gather testimonies that he had not paid mercenaries to arrange executions for him to film.
As mentioned previously, Jacopetti is commonly credited with having invented the shockumentary, a claim that is echoed equally by historian, fan and dweeb, but a claim that totally fails to take into account earlier "non-fiction" films such as Edward A. Salisbury's 1928 documentary Gow The Headhunter (re-released with narration in 1931 as Gow the Killer) – a "goona-goona" documentary deemed exploitive enough to be worth re-releasing by the great US exploitation film producer David F. Friedman, who re-released it as Cannibal Island in 1956 – or, even closer to the general search for shocks so evident in Jacopetti's films, Ray Phoenix and Cedric Worth's 1957 Naked Africa which, in the post Mondo Cane world, was re-released as Mondo Africana.
While it may be arguable whether or not Jacopetti is really the father or the stepfather of the shockumentary, what is without a doubt is that his film was the most influential. Mondo Cane is a much imitated and lastingly influential piece of exploitation, the creative sperm behind untold imitations, including the perennially popular but often staged Faces of Death films. (Click here for a short documentary of the first of the series.)
As the influential maker of the kind of documentary A Wasted Life enjoys, herewith we pay our respects to Gualtiero Jacopetti, who died in Rome on 17 Aug 2011.
May he rest in peace — or somehow send us a documentary on the weird sexual and social practices of the afterlife.

The photo at the top of Jacopetti was taken from the great website dangerous minds.

For your listening pleasure, the theme song to Mondo Cane, Riz Ortolani's classic More:

The same song, with lyrics, slaughtered by The Supremes:

European Nights (1959, dir. Alessandro Blasetti)

Original title: Europa di note. Jacopetti's first feature-length film credit, this time around only a writer, a credit shared with Ennio De Concini. European Nights is a relatively traditional and non-shocking documentary of the biggest acts of Europe in the 50s; as the definitely non-mondo segment below reveals, the ironic commentary Jacopetti's films are known for is already present.

A scene from the film, featuring a magic performance by Channing Pollock:

World by Night (1961, dir. Luigi Vanzi)

Original title: Il mondo di note. Written by Jacopetti, the film did well enough to garner a sequel the next year, World by Night No. 2, with no input by Jacopetti and directed by Gianni Proia, who went on to do a few mondo documentaries following the success of Mondo Cane. According to Les Adams at imdb: "What if Ed Sullivan had taken his Really, Really Big Show show on the road to Amsterdam, Blackpool, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Las Vegas, London, Sydney, New York, Paris, Stockholm and Tokyo? The result might have been similar to this duller-than-dirt travelogue featuring dancing whales, stripping females and a non-performing performing dog. Not to mention the Kim Novak look-alike Ricky Renee, the Bluebell Girls of Paris, strippers such as Feline and Rapha Temporel (the houri of the hammock); juggler Marco of Stockholm, Wild Willie Harris and the Tiller Girls of London. Come to think of it, this looks more like the State Fair of Texas than The Ed Sullivan Show. Plus, the Fair also offers Fletcher's Corney Dogs and three-pound turkey legs..."

Che gioia vivere (1961, dir. René Clément)

Jacopetti supplied the story to this comedy starring no one less than Alain Delon, the second film Delon made with Clément, entitled The Joy of Living for its English-language release. According to lapratho at imdb: "[T]his is one of the most hilarious movies I remember! [...] If you want to see a classic bomb tossing match [...] look no further! You need to have a certain sense and mindset to watch this kind of movie though. Simple, straightforward, lighthearted comedy with the over the top exaggerated flair only older French and Italian movies were able to generate and get away with. Just don't watch it if you hate, for example, Louis de Funes or other European comedians, because this movie is in their style [...]."

A very long scene from the film, in Italian, that in no way makes me think that the film might be funny – but then, I can't stand Louis de Funes:

Mondo Cane (1962)

The influential classic, written by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Paolo Cavara, directed by Jacopetti, Cavara and Franco E. Prosperi. The uncut version runs 108 minutes, the cut version 85. As the website Pop Matters puts it: "Mondo Cane is structured as a series of juxtapositions between contemporary and traditional cultures. Wealthy pet owners in Pasadena bury their beloved bow-wows in chic graveyards, while tribespeople in Taipei braise Bowser for Sunday supper. Los Angeles housefraus indulge in Vic Tanny luxury spa treatments while the women of Tabar are fattened to increase their fertility. Hilarious, sad, and minimally gruesome, Mondo Cane is everything you think it is and something you might not expect, that is, intelligent documentary by way of droll comedy."

US Trailer:

La donna nel mondo (1963)

AKA: Women of the World. Uncut run time: 107 minutes. Directed and written by Jacopetti, Cavara and Prosperi. Pop Matters says: "Boring and repetitive, narrated by Peter Ustinov, the film showcases women of all races, creeds, sexual orientations, and occupations. Deploying National-Geographic-style nudity and violence familiar from the Cane films, Women lacks a clear agenda. It's only in the final 10 minutes, a section called 'Some Missionaries,' that the old Jacopetti and Prosperi Mondo 'magic' kicks in. In response to a fashion show featuring French models, heavily ornamented African tribeswomen in Nigeria beg to have their stubby nails polished, while the glamor gals look mystified and uncomfortable. Similarly, the crosscutting between European women suffering through modern dermabrasion techniques and Bedouin women in the Middle East smearing camel dung on their cheeks, shows that both groups seek 'rejuvenation' through ritual. Unfortunately, these sequences are too little too late." Wikipedia details the content a bit more: "Among those featured are women training in the Israel Army, a female priest in Sweden, window prostitutes in Hamburg's red light district, bed models in Hollywood, California, professional mourners in Sardinia, Lamaze classes in Switzerland, a fashion show given to the Maasai, divorce ranches in Nevada, United States Treasurer Elizabeth Rudel Smith, eyelid-shaping surgery in Japan, and spent ordnance scavengers in Western Sahara."

Trailer:

Mondo pazzo / Mondo Cane 2 (1963)

Bye-bye Cavara, who must have been busy with his own shockumentary, 1964's Malomondo (soundtrack). This film seems to exist in multiple running times, ranging from 108 to 72 minutes, depending on the source you look at. At imdb, Sujit R. Varma writes: "The original shockumentary sequel made up of episodes in the life of man and beast, filmed all over the world - New Guinea, Germany, Singapore, Portugal, Australia, America and beyond. This time around, the voyage includes vivisection, recreations of old west lynchings, a visit to a mortician's school, transvestites, wild sex clubs and alligator hunting."

Italian Trailer:


US Trailer:

Mondo Africa / Witchdoctor in Tails (1966)

Paolo Cavara was back onboard with Jacopetti & Prosperi for the last time before moving on to feature films, helming such fun fare as The Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971 / trailer) and Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears (1973 / trailer). Uncut, 139 minutes; unrated English version, 128. Narrated by a slumming George Sanders, who sank even further in 1967 to costar in the Sonny and Cher film, Good Times (trailer). Worldwide Celluloid Massacre says: "A somewhat condescending rare Mondo from Jacopetti, returning once again to their favorite subject: Africa. The approach is relatively tamer on the theme of wild Africa newly infected with Western civilization comforts and culture backed by a pretentious narrative. Witchdoctors become politicians, women give up their piercings and tattoos for face cream and lingerie, a white man teaches them how to smile small and subtle, black teenagers try to pose like Schwarzenegger, primitive African behavior and lifestyles are contrasted with new Western comforts, tom-toms with phones, and African dance with calisthenics. As usual, the viewer is left wondering how much is staged or just spliced with a fictional narrative, there are random scenes of strange African rituals, dances, punishments, and various ways to acquire a wife, and the obligatory nods towards shocks are also here including slaughterhouse gore, leprosy and tribal circumcision."

Africa addio / Africa Blood and Guts (1966)

"Europe has abandoned her baby just when it needs her the most."

Narrator

Directors and writers Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi decided to keep their focus on Africa and produced a shockumentary often maligned as one of the most racist, pro-colonialist ones around. Roger Elbert ripped into it when the film came out, and perhaps the nicest thing he had to say was: "Africa addio is a brutal, dishonest, racist film. It slanders a continent and at the same time diminishes the human spirit." Jacopetti was taken to court in Italy for supposedly paying to have some of those killed on film killed specifically so he could film the event; he was acquitted. In Berlin, incensed students managed to get the film pulled – primarily by destroying the cinema; the protest is seen as being one of the first anti-racism protests of Germany, a country not exactly known for racial sensitivity. At imdb, once again according to Sujit R. Varma: "[T]his [is a] violent document of a continent in transition; the change from white colonialism to independent black statehood. Often times, this resulted in the wholesale massacre of thousands of people and the indiscriminate extermination of wild life. Captured on film are mercenary killer squads wiping out entire villages, executions, Mau-Mau massacres and more!"

Trailer:

Goodbye Uncle Tom / Addio zio Tom (1971)

Directed and written by Jacopetti and Prosperi, with music by Riz Ortolani – why break up a good team? Original running time, 136 minutes; unrated English version, 123 – available in so many versions, who knows which was/is the "real" one. Most of the film was shot in Haiti with the full cooperation of dictator "Papa Doc" Duvaluier and the Tonton Macoutes. The film is a crossbreed of shockumentary and docudrama, in that it is about a documentary film team that gets sent back in time and is thus able to film the true conditions under slavery.
Roger Elbert did not like the film: "The vile little crud-squad of Jacopetti and Prosperi has been getting away with movies like Farewell Uncle Tom for so long now that maybe they think audiences will stomach anything. This time they don't even kid us that they're sincere; their vomit-bag of racism and perversion-mongering isn't even covered up with the usual slime of sanctimonious BS."
Pop Matters has a nicer view of the "fictional documentary": "[...] Jacopetti and Prosperi turn their twisted focus to the atrocities committed against African slaves in the U.S. South. Following a cargo of human chattel as it is sold, tortured, and debased, Goodbye, Uncle Tom is a searing denunciation of slavery as an institution and way of thinking. Filled with images of haunting beauty (pastel Southern belles on Louisiana plantations) and gut-wrenching injustice, the movie walks a difficult tightrope."

Trailer:

Mondo Candido (1975)

Four years after their "docudrama", if Farewell Uncle Tom can even be called that, Jacopetti & Prosperi turn away from filming "facts" and make a real feature-length film, co-written by some unknown named Claudio Quarantotto and inspired by Voltaire's Candide. Cinephile 101 says: "This movie has it all! There's sex, violence, and philosophy. It's an epic surreal arthouse/exploitation/comedy adventure. Most noteworthy about the film is how littered it is with gorgeous yet cartoonish symbolism and props. It's like something out of El Topo combined with Monty Python." Shock Cinema says "It's like Ken Russell's The Devils meets Laugh-In." Any and all write-ups about the rare art film make it sound like a true a must see – as do both the clips below.

Slow motion scene with babes, bullets, boobs, blood, Palestinians and music by the great Riz Ortolani:

Italian Trailer:

Fangio - Una vita a 300 all'ora (1981)

After six years Gualtiero Jacopetti returns (without Prosperi) as writer for this documentary directed Hugh Hudson – anyone remember Chariots of Fire (1981 / trailer), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984 / trailer) or Revolution (1985 / trailer)? – about (!!!) Juan Manuel Fangio, five times World Champion and "one of the great Formula One drivers of all times." (I wouldn't know; Formula One bores me to tears.)

Ong-bak II (Thailand / 2008)

Way back in 2003, a Thai martial arts film entitled Ong-bak made some justified big waves and introduced a new martial arts master, Tony Jaa, to the world. Ong-bak was an at times violent and at times almost sweet film that had a plot so old that it literally creaked, but the visual trickery of director Panna Rittikrai's camerawork and the amazing physicality of the main star made the film a thrilling cinematic treat. It was, and remains, a film well worth watching.
Ong-bak II is also well worth watching, though it is indeed a different cup of tea than the original Ong-bak. For one, despite its title, it is hardly a sequel to the first film, and its definition as a prequel appears as little more than pure unadulterated and calculated mercantilism.* The original film took place in today's Thailand; Ong-bak II may still take place on the same continent, but the setting is set almost 600 years earlier. And whereas the first film was about a young villager out to do the right thing (i.e., regain the stolen idol of his village) who is more-or-less continually forced to use his abilities in martial arts, Ong-bak II is an unadulterated revenge flick, no less and no more.
But what the hell, Ong-bak II is also all the better for such differences, for it stands alone as a film all of its own, and as such is much more enjoyable than a simple rehash of the first would probably have been. And like the first film, many a scene in Ong-bak II literally leaves your jaw on the floor in amazement or has you noticeably winching in commiseration for the pain that those on the screen must have felt when making the film. The film literally leaves you feeling bruised black and blue without once ever being touched.
The plot is hardly complicated, you've seen it a thousand flicks before, but it serves well enough as a framework for the outstanding action and fight scenes. An evil empire, the Kingdom of Ayutthayan, wants to expand and is killing everyone standing in its way. Young Tien (Natdanai Kongthong), a royal student of dance, is saved by a lone loyal soldier when his nobleman father, Lord Siha Decho (Santisuk Promsiri), is assassinated along with his wife. Tien ends up in the hands of violent slave traders, and deemed too incorrigible to control, is tossed into an alligator pit. He survives thanks to a knife tossed to him by Chernang (Sorapong Chatree), the leader of the Pha Beek Khrut, a group of marauders, who takes the young Tien as a young son and trains him to be a great warrior. But Chernang has secrets of his own, and they come to light after the adult Tien goes to avenge his parents by killing the warlord, Lord Rajasena (Sarunyu Wongkrachang), who had his father killed...
Ong-bak II suffers from some prime bad-fitting wigs and glued-on beards, but whenever the action kicks in the filmmakers and actors are all obviously in their mettle. And despite its rather generic plot, it's also a surprisingly ambitious one; it may be a simple revenge tale, but it obviously strives hard to be an epic tale of revenge – the surprise twist of the final fight (and death) is almost Shakespearean in nature.
But it is also the obvious desire to make an epic that almost undoes the movie. All the problems that went into the making of the film aside – for the details, read the production info here at Wikipedia – the sucker-punch ending comes so out of the blue and unexpected that it is less disappointing than unsatisfying, especially since the final voiceover about karma initially give the impression that the film is really ended. The fact of the matter is that the film was too ambitious to fit into one movie, causing the film to develop into a two-parter during its troubled production.
Good so, for were Ong-bak II truly to end where the film does, the film would seem less one with a Hemingwayesque ending than one with no real ending.* Seldom has a film left the viewer feeling left more in the cold water – the nearest comparable sudden endings that come to mind would be the Hollywood productions The Empire Strikes Back (1980 / trailer) or Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006 / trailer), which both end, so to speak, mid-sentence. The desire for more more more is also extremely amplified by the fact that the last big fight scene introduces at least a half-dozen characters that literally cry for more screen time, the most memorable being "Crow Ghost" (Chupong Changprung), who seems to be the main antagonist of Ong-bak III (2010 / trailer).
Ong-bak II, despite the obvious commercialism of its title, is solid and exciting martial arts flick that barrels along at top speed and offers both top-class and painful fight scenes as well as actions sequences – a run over the backs of running elephants, for example, or the fight with the alligator in a mud pit – that literally leave you stunned. The film is killer!
Now to dig up Part III from somewhere!

*This statement was written prior to seeing Part III, the review of which will follow in a few weeks.

Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo (1995 / Michigan)

Slowly but surely, up on my DVD shelf at "W", a line of wendigo-themed horror DVDs is growing. Not on purpose, mind you, for the wendigo is not really a creature that makes me think "Hmm, I bet that's gonna be a fucking good horror film." Naw, most of the DVDs came as presents from friends who know my penchant for bad flicks or as the "added attraction" that some eBayers add to the main purchase to help ensure a good review. (Anyone that gives me a free film, no matter how lousy it is, always gets five stars – yes, I am buyable. Makes me think I should have become a politician instead of an over-aged slacker. One day, maybe.)
Frostbiter was one such flick, given to me by someone who couldn't get rid of it on eBay, and it has sat a long time on my shelf – my fingers even got dusty taking it down, which makes me think I should shoot my cleaning lady. (But that would mean suicide, and I'm not ready for that yet.) After wiping off the dust, I spied that the DVD was from Troma and after reading the back-cover blurb from the defunct German trash rag Gory News that said "graphic splatter sequences [...] successfully atmospheric", my interests were piqued. All that I can really say now, after having actually watched the film, is that famous quote from the great PT Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute." Yep, I was born, too.
Filmed in 1988, Frostbiter is a non-Troma Troma release – in other words, they didn't make it, but picked it up after it was made, much as they did with Rabid Grannies (1988 / trailer), Combat Shock (1986 / trailer), Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1991 / trailer) and dozens of other "Troma" films. And thus Frostbiter finally found itself on the lower video store shelves in 1996, already looking ever-so-slightly out of date, brimming with everything that one has come to expect from a Troma film, whether bought or an in-house production: atrocious acting, inane storyline with no continuity, bloody but bad effects, stupid-to-inspired humor (but mostly stupid), shoddy production values, lots of padding, no tension and, as always at least for one scene, unappetizingly saggy breasts. Shot on an estimated budget of $25,000, Frostbiter looks and plays very much as if those involved siphoned off part of the budget for drugs – but regrettably, despite all these flaws that should logically add up to a truly trashy film and a truly good time, Frostbiter is not exactly a joy to watch. There are many a better bad film out there – such as, to list but a few examples, Robot Monster (1953 / trailer), Scream Bloody Murder (2003) or almost any given flick starring Megan Fox or Bela Lugosi.
In truth, Frostbiter might have been a mildly entertaining crapfest were it not for a few major mistakes other than the ones listed above that usually make bad films fun and funny. No, the two killer flaws with Frostbiter are that it has one too many un-funny scenes – all the news reports, for example – that come across as obvious padding and forced (and failed) humor and, likewise, the filmmakers literally sabotage their film with their soundtrack. Most of the songs are actually pretty good, but their placement is often wrong and their presence much too long, especially since the songs are often played at a volume so loud as to make the dialog unintelligible. In all likelihood, the drowned-out dialog probably isn't even very good, but that's aside the point: only being able to hear bits and snatches because of a too loud soundtrack sucks hairy balls.
And the plot? Well, it takes place somewhere on one of the two Manitou Islands in Lake Michigan, and though it is never said which, one must assume the north one since it is the one that once had tourist-based deer hunting. In a brief intro voiceover "The Guardian" explains how as a lone hunter he met and defeated the evil wendigo and trapped the spirit within a circle of skulls. Decades later, Ron Asheton, the former guitarist of The Stooges shows up drunk with a redneck friend and shoots the guardian dead, thus releasing the wendigo. (Of Ron Asheton – as " Gary," the asshole who causes the shit to hit the fan – Iggy Pop once said: "I’ve never met a convincing musician that didn't look kind of ill and kind of dirty, and Ron had those two things covered!" He was right, and though Asheton, the only original Stooges band member that never got into heroin, was a crappy actor – he died in January 2009 – he did make a convincing asshole.) The spirit of the Guardian goes and tells a girl named Sandy (Lori Baker) that she is the chosen one and so she hops a plane to Manitou Island, but the pilot loses his head and they crash – luckily enough, on the island. In the meantime, Gary and a bunch of other hunters are now trapped in a cabin as the wendigo begins to terrorize them. The numbers dwindle and everything leads up to a big stop-motion clay figurine final – which is actually the most entertaining aspect of the film, next to the man-eating chili monsters.
A popular film to compare Frostbiter to seems to be the original Evil Dead (1981 / trailer), primarily because a poster of Evil Dead 2 (1987 / trailer) hangs in the cabin everyone is in, the film thanks Bruce Campbell in its credits, and the flick comes from Michigan. Sorry, but the comparison does serious disservice to the Rami films, which even at their cheesiest reveal directorial talent and a lot of creative energy. True, Frostbiter was made on less than even half the budget of the older low-budget classic, but it hardly even shows any technical finesse let alone creative promise. But as said before, such a lack of anything resembling filmic capabilities can result in an entertaining film, something that Frostbiter sometimes even approaches being – had it only not pumped up the fucking volume of its soundtrack. It seriously ruins what might have been a good – or at least decently passable – bad-film experience.

The attack of the chili monsters in Frostbiter:

Trick 'r Treat (USA, 2009)

Trick 'r Treat is one of those films that make you think that studio bosses must have their heads buried so deep in their asses that they really can no longer tell the difference between shit and Shinola, maybe because their sense of smell is probably as addled as their brains from all the coke. How the hell can a flick as enjoyable and fun as this little mother sit two years on the shelf and then end up a direct-to-DVD release in 2009, but a turkey like The Invasion (2007 / trailer) gets national release?
Oh, I understand: what the world really needs is yet another tepid and uninspired (and big budget) rehash of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 / trailer) with big name stars instead of a low budget, enjoyably funny and fun and horrific anthology film with familiar faces. We need corn sugar, not cane sugar. Cheez Whiz not Cambozola. Imitation syrup, not maple syrup. Cloned meat, not free-range Angus. Bud instead of Pilsner Urquel. Well, folks, just remember: you are what you eat...
But to quote Roger Egert, I digress. Let's get back to the movie at hand, the feature-length directorial debut of Michael Dougherty, who also wrote the film's nifty and nicely entangled little script. Nice job, dude! You don't just get an A+, but as of now I have personally forgotten that you helped script both Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005 / trailer) and Superman Returns (2005 / trailer). (Couldn't help but notice that you use the same opening trick in UL:BM as T'rT, but since it's still fun and actually works better in T'rT, no points are subtracted.)
The roots of Trick 'r Treat, however, are actually older than either of the above two mentioned scriptwriting credits. The script to T'rT was Michael Dougherty's spec script, which is an original script written simply to convince the powers-that-be that the given writer is indeed capable of writing. To what extent the film script was inspired by his early Halloween-themed Season's Greetings short film (embedded at the bottom of this articles) is open to conjecture,* but what is definite is that Sam (Quinn Lord of The Hole [2009 / trailer]), the supernatural, homicidal trick-or-treater in dirty orange pajamas and a burlap sack over his head who wanders through all stories and plays a significant part in both the opening sequence and the last episode, makes his debut in the short. (The short, in fact, clarifies exactly what is in the dirty bag he is dragging along the street in one of the early shots of the movie.)
As mentioned in the first paragraph, Trick 'r Treat is a horror anthology film, a genre that goes way back to the silents, starting with the forgotten German silent anthology Eerie Tales / Unheimliche Geschichten (trailer) by the forgotten director Richard Oswald in 1919. (Unheimliche Geschichten came out two years before the lost 1921 US non-horror silent Bits of Life, which is commonly – and incorrectly – acknowledged as the first anthology film.** Ironically enough, aside from being denied its proper credit as the first anthology film, Unheimliche Geschichten is also usually ignored as the first horror anthology as well, usually in favor of the German expressionist silent Waxworks / Das Wachsfigurenkabinett [first 10 minutes], which came five years later in 1924.)
Unlike most anthology films, which tend to have a framework situation that leads to the narration/presentation of a variety of non-related story, in Trick 'r Treat the four tales as well as the framework situation are all interconnected: presented individually as closed episodes, they nonetheless all happen on the same Halloween night in the same fictional town of Warren Valley, Ohio, and characters of the individual tales often make fleeting appearances within one of the other narratives as paths cross ever so coincidently (sort of like a Robert Altman ensemble film).
In this sense, Trick 'r Treat owes almost as much to the traditional anthology film as it does to Pulp Fiction (1994 / trailer), with which Dougherty's film also shares a narrative structure that jumps back and forth and across time. The opening segment, for example, actually occurs after every other episode of the film, and is seen to start in the concluding minutes of the film. Also like Pulp Fiction, Trick 'r Treat integrates many creative concepts of its genre and takes many unexpected turns to create a truly satisfying filmic experience that masterfully combines both black humor and true horror. Furthermore, Dougherty has a creative eye and offers a wide array of effective visual and directorial flourishes that greatly enhance the cinematic experience, and he seems to have a way with actors because they all deliver fine performances. He truly hits a bull's eye in every way with Trick 'r Treat.
In truth, if every one of the annual Halloween celebrations of Warren Valley have as big of a body count as the one presented in Trick 'r Treat, it seems almost odd that the town hasn't canceled the event; in the night of the film, the death count is already nine excluding the large but indeterminate number who die as werewolf fodder. Following a short intro in which Emma (Leslie Bibb of Midnight Meat Train [2008 / trailer]) pays dearly for breaking tradition, in The Principal we meet a homicidal principal (Dylan Baker of Happiness [1998 / trailer] and Fido [2006 / trailer]) who runs into problems when disposing of some bodies. Next, in The School Bus Massacre Revisited, a prank of four kids on a fifth goes horribly wrong when a school bus full of pissed-off mentally handicapped kids returns from the dead. Then, in Surprise Party, the "virginal" Laurie (Anna Paquin of (Darkness 2002 / trailer]), dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, is attacked by a killer on her way to a nearby party – but things take a surprising turn when she decides that it's time to lose her virginity. Finally, the narrative moves back in time to events occurring concurrently to The Principal, and we see what happens when Kreeg (Brian Cox of X2 [2003 / trailer], The Ring [2002 / trailer] and Manhunter [1986 / trailer]), the principal's crabby Halloween-hating neighbor Meet[s] Sam. The film ends with a short scene leading up to the opening sequence as well as Kreeg getting another unexpected visit which serves to tie together all narrative strands of the movie...
Trick 'r Treat is a great film that deserved more respect than a simple straight-to-DVD release. Well made, funny and scary, it is a film that not only deserves but also lives up to all the positive word of mouth it has been given since it hit the store shelves. It could easily become as much of a Halloween viewing tradition as, dunno It's a Wonderful Life (1946 / trailer) is a Christmas one. Be the first one on your block to start it.

*Trick 'r Treat was originally likewise entitled Season Greetings, but the title got dumped because it sounded too much like a Christmas film. Trick 'r Treat was finally decided upon, but the spelling was alliterated because Trick or Treat was already taken by a mildly diverting horror film from 1986 (trailer).

**In theory, it would seem to me that one could argue that D. W. Griffith's 1916 masterpiece Intolerance (full silent film) is truly the first non-horror anthology film, an argument undermined only by the fact that the four stories are intercut and run concurrently instead of being presented one after the other.

Animated Season's Greetings from the director – the first film appearance of the character Sam and the inspiration for the feature film itself.