Know the fable about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”? Of course you do! Everyone does! However, that didn’t stop writer/director Gary Graver (Texas Lightning) from having a woman tell it in full in Trick or Treats. It kind of makes sense later when two other characters ramble on about editors being the unsung heroes of cinema — this, too, should have been cut — and you learn that Graver also served as editor. His slasher film is utterly scatterbrained, but recommended for that very reason; it has no clue how bad it is.

Take Corey Feldman’s monster-kid protagonist from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, add 50 pounds and a My First Magic Kit, then plop him into the Halloween framework. That’s Trick or Treats, and that 10-year-old is Graver’s own son, Chris, as — here’s a stretch — Christopher. On Halloween night, the ham-headed, hair-helmeted boy is babysat by ditzy wannabe actress Linda (Jacqueline Giroux, Prison Girls). The kid — who has a working guillotine in his room — plays prank after prank on Linda, who hangs out in a silky nightgown pilfered from Christopher’s mother’s closet.

Meanwhile, Christopher’s “ex-millionaire industrialist” father (Peter Jason, They Live) chooses this very evening to escape from the mental hospital — in drag — after five years and pay his son an unannounced visit, murdering all the way. While depicted as spacious in exterior establishing shots, the institution from which Mr. O’Keefe flees looks like a one-room porn set on the inside. (Graver was a prolific director of X-rated flicks, so perhaps this place was left over from Center Spread Girls or Peaches and Cream?)

As committed as Jason is to playing crazed — stuffed bra and all — viewers will find themselves not giving a flip about that half of the movie. Trick or Treats‘ treats stem from Christopher’s oversold tricks and Linda’s overacted reactions. The kid is such an unlikable wiseass, you almost want to see Dad succeed in slicing him up. Christopher is … well, if Joe Don Baker were a fourth grader, if cans of Dinty Moore beef stew could be human … yeah, that’s this brat.

Relative star power can be found via cameos from Carrie Snodgress (The Attic) as Christopher’s mom; Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul) as a drunk hobo; Lifeforce‘s Steve Railsback, literally phoning it in (“Look, how many times are you going to see me play Othello?”); and David Carradine (Death Race 2000), who shows up just long enough to attempt molestation of Linda. The biggest name of all, however, is on the crew side, with one-time wunderkind Orson Welles credited as “Magical Advisor.” —Rod Lott

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A little-known piece of history: During the Cuban missile crisis, a Russian sub was downed by American torpedoes, causing it to spill its contents — more specifically, barrels of anthrax — deep into the ocean, thereby causing an octopus to mutate to gigantic proportions.

Flash-forward nearly four decades and an American sub carrying a Russian terrorist-cum-prisoner finds itself being slapped around by the eight-armed beast. Strangely, none of the passengers takes the news with much surprise. “From what I can tell,” says the hot oceanographer calmly, “we’re dealing with a giant sea creature.” And no one bats a freakin’ eye.

The octopus threat actually is secondary in Octopus, compared to a plot thread that has the Russian’s pals hijacking a cruise ship in order to rescue him, eventually culminating in an absurd finale where the octopus mounts the mighty liner and starts whipping the shit outta all aboard.

Directed by Shadowchaser trilogy shepherd John Eyres, this cheesy underwater monster movie is one in which the token minority dies and dead bodies have the habit of “popping out” while live bodies walk by it. The fake rock music seems lifted from that cable series where Emmanuelle was in space.

In an entire cast of no-names, Carolyn Lowery (Candyman) stands out as the oceanographer, mostly because the script gives her three opportunities to strip down to her underwear. She seems a little saucy and ditzy to be an oceanographer, but she does a good job, considering she’s in the movie Octopus. —Rod Lott

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