Book Review: Trick 'r Treat: Tales of Mayhem, Mystery & Mischief

The moment I saw the cover and the publisher, Insight Editions, I had very good feeling about the book. Why? Because Insight Editions had previously published one of the very best art books, The Art of Monster House, which I liked very much.

This book is also frightening good. Wait a minute, Monster House is also a horror movie. What a coincidence.

This is a scrapbook style art book for the live action movie, Trick 'r Treat. The movie is written and directed by Michael Dougherty, who also contributed to some of the art in the book.

First part of the book is about the making of the movie. It's a behind the scenes look at how the movie was produced and shot. Included are details like how Michael Dougherty came up with the script, drew the art and pitched the movie. There are challenges with costume designs because they had to avoid trademarked characters. Also very interesting are how they set up scenes visually and create special effects like the exploding a bag of pumpkin-like goo.

The second part are the five short stories in the movies. In between these stories are accompanying quotes from movies and captions from the staff. There are also pages devoted to several aspect of Halloween, for example the origins of Jack o' Lanterns, the significance of 31 October, what's with the black cat and many other interesting stuff.

Throughout the book is filled with lots of goodies. They include little booklets, stickers, postcards, pumpkin paper cutouts, a Halloween mask and a poster at the back. It's scrapbook goodness. So much that I really had a hard time doing the flipping-page video.

The hardcover book comes in a soft cardboard casing. The glossy pages are of amazing paper stock. The high resolution photos and artwork are reproduced brilliantly. I must also add that the page design and layout are fantastic. The author John Griffin has done a fantastic job with the book. This book is a visual delight.

Once in a while, there will be a book so good it will appeal to everyone. This is that book.

It's highly recommended to all, except those who don't like movies or art.

Trick 'r Treat: Tales of Mayhem, Mystery, and Mischief is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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