History Film / TalesOfHalloween

* NoodleIncident: Seeing Ray's headless body being loaded into a body bag is said to remind [=McNally=] of a case of a man who stuck his head in a blender.

* BearTrap / BurningBagOfPoop: Both tropes are combined here. Mordecai, as Billy, places a flaming bag on the doorstep of his dentist neigbhor and rings the bell. When the guy goes to stomp it out, the bag contains a bear trap that snaps shut on his leg.

* DarkIsNotEvil: The Demon of All Hallow’s Eve is a monstrous being straight out of ''Film/{{Hellraiser}}'' or ''Videogame/SilentHill'', but he's also a punisher of people who torture the weak.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Lynn walks by the pumpkin from "Bad Seed" during her walk home, it face glowing red.

* NiceGuy: Though Boris assumes him to be a nuiscance with a horrendous attitude, Dante shows himself to be pretty chill, even complimenting Boris' decorations and how he gets into the spirit of Halloween as much as he does. Boris doesn't take this in, only thinking of the rocker's words and tone as mockery, and it's only when he gets violent does Dante get violent in return.

* ProjectileVomit: Rusty spews bile in Dutch's face when he fakes crying to gain freedom.

* WickedWitch: Bobbie's true form is of one, and she breaks it out

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Mary's ghost is a homicidal being that resembles a rotting corpses, who will do anything to achieve her goals.

* MyCarHatesMe: Lynn's old car, which has already been described as a "piece of crap", stalls on her when she drives home and refuses to start again. As she tries to fix the engine, she accidentally breaks her phone by shutting the hood on her phone, keeping her from calling a tow truck and forcing her to leave the car there while she walks the rest of the way home.

* ProperlyParanoid: Leaving candy bar by his door saves Mikey from getting butchered by Sweet Tooth. Unfortunately, it doesn't save him from getting arrested.

* InMemoriam: The film is dedicated to Creator/BenWoolf, who plays Rusty, the film being released after he died.

''Tales of Halloween'' is a 2015 American HorrorComedy AnthologyFilm. It features ten interlocking stories, all taking place in one neighborhood on UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve, punctuated with commentary from a radio show host (Creator/AdrienneBarbeau).

* AerosolFlamethrower: In "Trick", one of the murderous children uses an aerosol flamethrower to torch one of the adults.
* AnAesop: "Sweet Tooth" makes sure you know not to gorge on all your candy the night you get it.
* AsHerself: Adrianne Curry makes [[TheCameo a cameo]] as herself in "The Night Billy Raised Hell", with Billy and Mr. Abaddon carjacking her.
* AssholeVictim:
** [[spoiler: Caitlyn and her friends are brutally murdered by a group of kids... who wanted to rescue their friend and avenge all the other kids Caitlyn's group murdered for laughs.]]
** Alice, Isaac, and Bart -- all three of whom are cruel, murderous teens -- end up killed when the child of two of their victims summons a supernatural vigilante as revenge.
* AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: "Bad Seed" has a killer pumpkin.
* BearTrap: Combined with BurningBagOfPoop in "The Night Billy Raised Hell". Billy places a flaming paper bag on the doorstep and rings the bells, but when the householder goes to stomp it out, the bag contains a bear trap that snaps shut on his leg.
* BigBad:

** "Friday the 31st": [[SerialKiller The unnamed killer.]]
** "The Ransom of Rusty Rex": [[spoiler:Rusty Rex]].

* BiggerOnTheInside: In "Ding Dong", Bobbie's oven looks normal from the outside, but is large enough inside to [[spoiler:take the body of a full grown man]]. (However, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane this may be a case of]] ThroughTheEyesOfMadness.)
* BloodyHilarious: All over the place, but "Friday the 31st" takes it to the logical extreme.
* BookEnds: "Bad Seed" serves as this for the film, as it brings together elements from the previous stories. Lynn's "hysterical blindness" from "Grim Grinning Ghost", Boris and Dante's fistfight from "This Means War", Mordecai's crime spree from "The Night Billy Raised Hell", and the UFO from "Friday the 31st" are mentioned in reports that Captain Zimmerman shows to [=McNally=]. A pair of officers also mention to [=McNally=] that Mikey from "Sweet Tooth" had been arrested for supposedly killing his babysitter.
* BurningBagOfPoop: Combined with BearTrap in "The Night Billy Raised Hell". Billy places a flaming paper bag on the doorstep and rings the bell, but when the householder goes to stomp it out, the bag contains a bear trap that snaps shut on his leg.
* TheCameo: All over the place, considering that the film carries an all-star cast. Examples include:
** In "Sweet Tooth", Mikey's parents are revealed to be Creator/GregGrunberg and Creator/ClareKramer, reprising their characters from ''Film/BigAssSpider.''
** As mentioned above, Adrianne Curry appears AsHerself in "The Night Billy Raised Hell", with Billy and Mr. Abaddon stealing her car.
** "The Weak and the Wicked" has Creator/JackDylanGrazer play the kid dressed as a cowboy who the bullying trio torment in the alley. He also plays Jimmy Henson's younger self in a flashback.
** In "Grim Grinning Ghost", Creator/BarbaraCrampton, Lisa Marie Smith, Mick Garris, and Creator/StuartGordon are guests at Lynn's mother's Halloween party.
** In "This Means War", Creator/AdultSwim voice actor Andy Merrill is among the neighbors who watch Boris and Dante's fistfight.
** "The Ransom of Rusty Rex" has Creator/JohnLandis play Rusty's "father" Jebediah Rex.
** "Bad Seed" has Creator/JohnSavage play police captain J.G. Zimmerman and Creator/JoeDante as Prof. Milo Gottleib, creator of the super-pumpkin.
* CaptainErsatz: The slasher from "Friday the 31st" is a big deformed man wearing a mask and wielding a machete, a dead ringer for Jason Voorhees from ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' series. Heck, Just look at the title.
* CatScare: In "Grim Grinning Ghost", Lynn has arrived home safely and is brushing her teeth: having almost convinced herself that the ghost was just a figment of her imagination. Suddenly the bathroom door swings open and she looks round in panic, only to discover that her dog has just pushed the door open.
* ChainsawGood: In "Friday the 31st", the killer uses a chainsaw to cut off Dorothy's arm during their final fight.
* ChildEater: Bobbie, from "Ding Dong," spends the entire segment trying to get a child to eat. It is kept ambiguous whether this is literal or metaphorical.
* ColdBloodedTorture: [[spoiler:The main characters of "Trick" are revealed to be serial torturers of children.]]
* DangerousKeyFumble: In "Grim Grinning Ghost", Lynn runs up to her front door, convinced that she is being chased by a ghost. As she attempts to unlock the door, she fumbles and drops her house keys.
* DarkIsNotEvil:
** The Demon of All Hallow’s Eve is a monstrous being that looks like something fresh out of Hellraiser and Silent Hill, but he is also a punisher of the guilty.
** The creepy children are AxCrazy killers who cut down the homeowners on Halloween night. Its later revealed that [[spoiler: the creepy kids were GoodAllAlong and were hunting down the homeowners who were revealed to be [[EvilAllAlong sadistic child murderers.]]]]
* DenserAndWackier: "The Night Billy Raised Hell" is definitely one of the most comedic stories of the film, with Mr. Abaddon and Mordecai pulling off various morbid pranks on the townspeople, punctuated with [[StockSoundEffects wacky cartoon sound effects.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution:
** Sweet Tooth began his evil career by murdering his parents for eating all his Halloween candy.
** Mr. Abaddon frames Billy for a killing spree because the kid egged his house.
** Boris is upset that his new neighbor outshined him in Halloween decoration and is playing loud music during a party, so he destroys his property and assaults him, ending in both getting impaled on a sharp piece of wood.
* DomesticAbuse: Bobbie in "Ding Dong" regularly smacks and beats her husband. It's not clear if this is because she really is a monstrous witch, or if that's how Jack sees her as because of her abuse, but either way he's terrified of her . [[spoiler:He got a vasectomy behind her back because he knew she'd be just as harmful towards any child they might have]].
* DownerEnding:
** [[spoiler:"The Night Billy Raised Hell": Billy is released from his bounds and shot dead by the police for the crimes he was framed for.]]
** [[spoiler:"Grim Grinning Ghost": Our heroine manages to get home and escape the ghost trying to remove her eyes... who's on her couch.]]
** [[spoiler:"This Means War": What starts out as a comedic battle over haunted attractions ends with a murder-suicide.]]
* EscalatingWar: "This Means War" is about a war between neighbors over Halloween decorations that gets completely out of hand.
* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler: The lead characters in "Trick" are actually psychopaths who kidnap and torture children, and what the trick-or-treating kids are doing to them is part of a rescue mission to save their current victim.]]
* EvilVsEvil: In "Friday the 31st", a HillbillyHorrors SerialKiller faces off against the possessed corpse of one his victims which has been reanimated by an alien [[spoiler:[[ToServeMan with a taste for human flesh]]]].
* ExtremelyShortTimespan: Covers the events of one Halloween, combined with a couple of short flashbacks.
* FiveSecondForeshadowing: The last surviving homeowner in "Trick" dials 911, but does not call. When we cut back to her, she's frantically deleting pictures off her phone, of her and her boyfriend seemingly working on gruesome Halloween makeup effects. [[spoiler:Then lights come up, where she's hiding is revealed, and we learn those "makeup effects" are, in actuality, very real.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The main characters in "Trick" discuss how a lot of kids are dressed as pirates for Halloween, with one joking they might all be missing eyes. [[spoiler: It turns out they've been torturing kids by cutting their eyes out, making the joke [[EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor especially heinous]].]]
* ForHalloweenIAmGoingAsMyself: In "The Night Billy Raised Hell", Mr. Abaddon is horned demon. On Halloween night, he strolls the street with his horns out, with everyone assuming that he is in costume.
* GreekChorus: Creator/AdrienneBarbeau plays a radio DJ whose comments provide a strangely appropriate commentary to events going on in the town, despite not knowing what is happening outside the studio.
* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:"Ding Dong": Jack is shoved in the oven after his wife learns he had a vasectomy.]]
* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: According to the police captain, every Halloween this town goes completely crazy.
* HumanJackOLantern: In "Friday of 31st", the SerialKiller has mounted the head of one of his victims inside a jack-o'-lantern.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: "This Means War" ends with Boris and Dante both impaled on a broken wooden stake in Boris' front yard.
* LouisCypher: In "The Night Billy Raised Hell", CrankyNeighbor Mr. Abaddon turns out to be [[{{Satan}} the Devil himself]]. Abaddon is the name of the angel of the bottomless pit in the ''Literature/BookOfRevelation'', whom some scholars identify as {{Satan}}.
* MacheteMayhem: At the start of "Friday the 31st", the SerialKiller is wielding a machete as a ShoutOut to ''Franchise/FridayThe13th''.
* ManEatingPlant: The monster in "Bad Seed" is a self-mobile, man-eating pumpkin.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: "Ding Dong". It is unclear whether Bobbie truly is a demonic witch who wants to eat children, or if this is a metaphorical visual trick to show that she is really just an abusive and unstable woman who wants to be a mother, her appearance as a child-eating witch representing the abusive mother she would definitely be to a child.
* MultiArmedAndDangerous: In "Ding Dong", Bobbie sprouts several extra arms in her WickedWitch persona and uses them to attack Jack.
* MurderByCremation: In "Ding Dong", [[spoiler:Jack is shoved inside the flaming oven--which is much larger on the inside than it has any right to be--by his wife after she learns he has had a vasectomy.]]
* MyCarHatesMe: In "Grim Grinning Ghost", Lynn's car (which has already been described as 'a piece of crap') stalls out when she has stop suddenly on her drive home, and refuses to start again, forcing her to walk the rest of the way home. On her walk, Lynn becomes convinced that something is following her.
* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: In"Bad Seed", the [[ManEatingPlant man-eating jack-o'-lantern]] hides from Detective [=McNally=] in a display of jack-o'-lanterns.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: These are HornedHumanoid monsters who can take more human forms and love murder. However, despite that descriptor, they aren't AlwaysChaoticEvil. Some are vigilantes who bring KarmicDeath on the wicked.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: These are homicidal beings who resemble rotting corpses and will do anything to achieve their goals.
* PityTheKidnapper: In "The Ransom of Rusty Rex", two kidnappers abduct what they believe to be the son of a millionaire. However, their victim actually turns out to be a malicious goblin that has been plaguing the millionaire's life for years. Now that it is gone, he has no intention of ever taking it back.
* ThePublicDomainChannel: The film consistently uses the old horror standby of ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968''.
* PyroManiac: Alice in "The Weak and the Wicked" likes to burn things. When first encountered she about to burn the lost trick-or-treater with her cigar; she later douses the Stranger in high-proof alcohol and tries to light him up; and a flashback shows that, as a child, she killed the Stranger's parents by burning down their caravan with them inside.
* RealAfterAll: In "The Weak and the Wicked", Alice and her gang of bullies discover too late that the Demon of All Hallows Eve the stranger claimed to have summoned is actually real.
* RewatchBonus: There are a lot of subtleties in "Trick" that are picked up on a lot easier after TheReveal.
* ShearMenace: During her showdown with the killer in "Friday the 31st", Dorothy stabs him in the neck with a pair of scissors.
* ShoutOut:
** The candy that is left for "Sweet Tooth" is a [[Creator/JohnCarpenter Carpenter Bar]].
** "Friday the 31st" is basically [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]] [[CoolVersusAwesome vs.]] [[Franchise/EvilDead a Deadite]] with the serial numbers filed off. The design of Possessed Dorothy is very similar to Evil Dead makeup effects, and the gore is in the BloodyHilarious style of Sam Raimi.
* SinisterShiv: In "The Night Billy Raised Hell", a dentist gives Billy a toothbrush instead of candy. Mr. Abaddon sharpens the toothbrush into a shiv, and then sends Billy back to the dentist's door, where Billy stabs the dentist to death.
* StrappedToAnOperatingTable: In "Trick", [[spoiler:the little girl who is missing an eye]] has been taped to the table that [[spoiler:Catlyn and her friends]] are using as an operating table for their perverted experiments.
* TeensAreMonsters: In "The Wicked and the Weak", Alice and her gang torture and murder people ForTheEvulz. However, a flashback shows that [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour they were like this]] ''[[EnfanteTerrible even when they were children]]''.
* TooDumbToLive: The adults in "Trick" don't try to call the police for help and one stupidly leaves the house to start her car, leaving her open for the other kids. [[spoiler: Of course, this is because if the police came, they'd find out about the pool house being used by the four to torture children. The last member of the group is shown considering dialing 911, but instead opts to delete the photos of her and her friends carving up a young boy's eyes.]]
* ToServeMan: [[spoiler:The twist of "Friday the 31st" is that the alien is trick-or-treating for human flesh.]]
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour:
** The murderous children in "Trick" attack and kill the homeowners silently and with no expression on their faces, using a variety of weapons including knives and an AerosolFlamethrower. [[spoiler:However, the kids are actually the good guys, attacking a gang of {{Serial Killer}}s to rescue one of their friends.]] Their behavior is still creepy and unsettling.
** In the flashback in "The Wicked and the Weak", Alice and her gang are shown as children, casually watching as two people burn to death in a fire that she set.
* VigilanteMan:
** "Trick": [[spoiler:The murderous children are revealed to be vigilantes going after the main characters, who are serial child torturers.]]
** "The Weak and the Wicked": The Demon of All Hallow's Eve acts as a supernatural vigilante, bringing vengeance on all who harm anybody who performs the ritual to summon him.
* VillainProtagonist
** [[spoiler:"Trick": The main characters are revealed to be serial child torturers.]]
** "This Means War": Boris is a controlling, sexist prick who resorts to property damage, assault and [[spoiler:murder-suicide]] over his neighbour's haunted attraction overshadowing his own.
** "Friday the 31st": This segment follows an unnamed backwoods SerialKiller.
** "The Ransom of Rusty Rex": Hank and Dutch are two bank robbers who have taken up kidnapping.
* VomitingCop: When the cops arrive to find Boris and Dante ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice in "This Means War", one of them immediately throws up.
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler: "Trick" reveals the main characters are a bunch of psychopaths who kidnap children and torture them by removing their eyes.]]

* ShoutOut: The candy that is left for "Sweet Tooth" is a [[Creator/JohnCarpenter Carpenter Bar]].

* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Halloween.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Caitlyn and her friends are brutally murdered by a group of kids... who wanted to rescue their friend and avenge all the other kids Caitlyn's group murdered for laughs.]]

* DenserAndWackier: "The Night Billy Raised Hell" is definitely one of the most comedic stories of the film, with Mr. Abaddon and Mordecai pull off various morbid pranks on the townspeople, punctuated with [[StockSoundEffects wacky cartoon sound effects.]]

* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler:The twist of "Friday the 31st" is that the alien is trick-or-treating for human flesh.]]

* TeensAreMonsters: In "The Wicked and the Weak", Alice and her gang torture and murder people ForTheEvulz. However, a flashback shows that [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour they were like this ''even when they were children'']].

* "The Weak and the Wicked": Alice, Issac, and Bart, a group of leather-clad sociopaths (Creator/GracePhipps, Creator/BoobooStewart, and Creator/NoahSegan), are interrupted from tormenting a kid dressed as a cowboy when they are confronted by a teenager dressed as "The Demon of All Hallow's Eve". Despite warning them that the demon will come for those who harm the weak, the bullies pursue him into a dead end, where they learn that he is a person from their past. When they move into finish the teen off, the bullies end up meeting the real Demon of All Hallow's Eve, who shows them exactly what happens when the wicked torment the weak.

* "Friday the 31st": Deep in the forest, a backwoods slasher with a mask ([[Franchise/FridayThe13th not that one]]) pursues his latest victim, a young girl dressed as [[Film/{{TheWizardOfOz}} Dorothy Gayle]]. After he finishes off the girl with a spear through the chest, a UFO suddenly appears overhead. A tiny, costumed alien greets the killer and repeats "Trick-or-Treat!" constantly. Unable to give the alien any candy and annoyed with his constant repetition, the killer ends up crushing the alien with his foot. The alien's remains slither the mouth of the killer's victim, causing her to become possessed. The possessed girl goes after the killer, who discovers that the tables have turned and attempts to fight back.

* "Bad Seed": Ellen Bishop watches in horror as her husband Ray, who had previously been carving pumpkins in the kitchen, has his head bitten off by a sinister looking pumpkin that escapes out the back door. Detective [=McNally=] (Kristina Klebe) is called in to investigate the crime scene, and after some initial disbelief, the forensic team proves to her that the killer was indeed a pumpkin. Police Captain J.G. Zimmerman assigns [=McNally=] to track down the monstrous pumpkin before it can cause anymore damage to the neighborhood, but discovers that the pumpkin may not be the only member of its kind.

* TeensAreMonsters: In "The Wicked and the Weak", Alice and her gang of bullies torture and murder people ForTheEvulz. However, a flashback shows that [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour they were like this ''even when they were children'']].

** In the flashback in "The Wicked and the Weak", Alice and her two sideboys are shown as children, casually watching as two people burn to death in a fire that she set.

* "The Weak and the Wicked": Alice, Issac, and Bart, a group of leather-clad sociopaths (Creaotr/GracePhipps, Creator/BoobooStewart, and Creator/NoahSegan), are interrupted from tormenting a kid dressed as a cowboy when they are confronted by a teenager dressed as "The Demon of All Hallow's Eve". Despite warning them that the demon will come for those who harm the weak, the bullies pursue him into a dead end, where they learn that he is a person from their past. When they move into finish the teen off, the bullies end up meeting the real Demon of All Hallow's Eve, who shows them exactly what happens when the wicked torment the weak.

[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tales_of_halloween_poster.jpg]]

'''''Tales of Halloween''''' is a 2015 {{Horror}} comedy AnthologyFilm. It features ten stories all taking place in one neighbourhood on UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve, punctuated with commentary from a jist radio show host (Creator/AdrienneBarbeau).