Eegah! It’s already October! And here I was, all ready to suck in the loveliness of September. Turns out I just slept through the entire month because I can’t believe that it’s already time for Halloween!

Now, usually in October I just like to revel in everything Halloween-y, but that doesn’t mean I set out to watch anything specific during the month, bar the last week. (And that one time I watched The Day After Halloween which was…a choice.) But this year, I thought subtly be damned – let’s go all out!

And it’s not very surprising how many Halloween themed horror movies there are. Though I’d be curious to see which holiday has more movies from the genre dedicated to it, Halloween or Christmas.

Choosing the first movie for October was pretty easy. Upon opening Prime a couple weeks ago, Trick or Treats was the first recommended movie for me. And the lure of Halloween, pranks and Peter Jason was great.

Shame the movie didn’t live up to expectations…

Trick or Treats is one of the million copycats that arrived in the wake of John Carpenter’s original Halloween film and its sequel. But this one doesn’t even try to be subtle about where it gets its inspiration from:

A young actress, Linda, is called on Halloween night to babysit a child. But the family she’ll be working for have a secret. Years earlier, the husband, Malcolm, was thrown into a asylum because of his wife, Joan. And it just so happens that on Halloween night, Malcolm has made his escape.

Linda spends most of her night being harassed by the young boy, Christopher. He’s an aspiring magician who loves to play pranks. Does that sound like a fun movie to you? If so, you’re in luck! Large swathes of these 90 minutes are dedicated to stupid pranks.

Meanwhile, Malcolm is finally making his escape. Why was he put into the asylum to begin with? Well, there’s no reason other than a throw away line about him being “mad as a hatter”. So.

Malcolm assaults a nurse and takes her uniform and wig. With that, he makes his way out onto the city streets. He eventually sheds his nurse garb after being harassed by strange men. He steals the clothing from a homeless man. Oh and on the way he keeps making calls to his old home, wanting to threaten his ex-wife Joan. But silly boy somehow doesn’t realise that Joan and Linda don’t have similar voices.

So the whole night makes Linda frustrated. It gets significantly worse for her once Malcolm makes his way into the house.

And well, that’s it really. It’s really just is the plot of Halloween but with pranks to pad out those 90 minutes. I was surprised to see that the running time was so sort, especially since it felt like I was watching one of the longest movies of my life. There’s just some really strange choices when it comes to storyline.

Trick or Treats feels like a parody of a Halloween film. It’s incredibly farcical. The characters make completely silly choices and have the weirdest dialogue. So maybe that was the point? But I’m not convinced either way.

There’s a lot not to like about this movie. At least Peter Jason as Malcolm is a treat? Though it isn’t nearly enough to make this movie watchable. If you like kids playing stupid pranks for a couple hours, I guess this one was made for you.