20 Horror Films Where Humans Are The Real Monsters

19. Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Unlike most of today’s horror anthologies (looking at you, V/H/S), Trick 'r Treat manages to take a series of disparate stories and genuinely unify them into a single piece, creating a sprawling, criss-crossing, and cohesive collage of events on Halloween night in the town of Warren Valley, Ohio.

Sam, the pint-sized trick-or-treating spirit with a hessian sack mask, is our totem, watching over the town’s chaotic and blood-soaked night, and intervening when the revellers break with Halloween tradition. There are plenty of creatures stalking the streets this evening, including a busload of the living dead, a girl gang of werewolves, and, well, plenty of bog-standard human ne’er-do-wells. And few hae e’er done worse than Principal Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker).

The head of the local school, Steven dominates the first story of the film, murdering children who don’t respect Halloween, and burying them in his garden. A man of contradictions, Steven is a wholesome, well-rounded, tie-wearing pillar of the community, but a monster underneath, slaying one child with poisoned candy and beating another to death with a shovel. Thankfully, he gets his comeuppance when he journeys out on Halloween night dressed as a vampire and bites off more than he can chew with a group of hairy twenty-something girls…