This October you don't just have the Trick 'r Treat movie to watch throughout the Halloween season... Sam is back in four new tales in Trick 'r Treat: Witching Hours graphic novel on October 13th! Michael Dougherty is joined by an all-star team of writers and artist, and I caught up with Dougherty to discuss the making of the graphic novel. He also gives a status update on Trick 'r Treat 2, he talks about the Halloween incident that led to the birth of Sam, and he shares his favorite Halloween candies:
When did the idea come up to develop new stories with Sam as a graphic novel?
Michael Dougherty: I think it started, gosh, two years ago now. It's been a very long road. Legendary approached me in late '23 about doing another graphic novel because the previous one had been received so well. We all quickly realized 10 years had gone by, which is crazy to consider. But I quickly said yes, because, like you, I love comic books and graphic novels and we had such a fun time on [Trick 'r Treat:] Days of the Dead. And also returning to the world of Sam and Trick 'r Treat is always just a blast for me, especially in comic book form because you aren't confined by the same restraints that you are when trying to get a movie off the ground. You know what I mean?
You can dream as big as you want.
Michael Dougherty: Yeah, exactly. You're not worried about budget and schedule as much as you are in a movie, so we can think bigger, think outside the box. I got together with some of my closer collaborators—people I've known for years—and we just started riffing and it came together very quickly. I would say that the scripts came together very quickly. The art was definitely a longer process, but it's been a joy to chip away at it and watch it come together over the past couple of years.
For these stories, were they all ideas that the co-writers pitched to you? Or did you have the seed of an idea and they took it and ran with it?
Michael Dougherty: Every story came together differently. For example, on Halloween Country, Breehn Burns, my co-writer on that one and the artist for that story, had a rough idea that he had been kicking around in the back of his head for quite a while. So he pitched me a rough shape of it and we refined it together. And then with One Last Halloween and Did You Miss Me, which I co-wrote with Zach Shields and Todd Casey who co-wrote Krampus with me, we just sat in a room and just came up with both of those together.
And then the funny origin for Harvest Moons was that I was riffing with my assistant, Curtis Waugh, and I was even joking around, if I remember correctly, about how the last thing we want to do is send Sam off into space like we see a lot of our favorite horror icons do from Pinhead to Leprechaun and Jason. For a while, we were just shipping them all off into space because why not? And I was just sort of ragged on the idea and then I was like, "Well, wait a second, maybe there's something here. Wouldn't it be fun to watch Sam wake up some Halloween and find himself on an interstellar spacecraft filled with colonists who have forgotten what Halloween was?" And it just wrote itself and we leaned into the absurdity of it.
It was just perfect, especially for the last story because they're all modern set and then I'm like, "Sam's going to space!" It is required for any horror icon that eventually, as you know, they show up in space.
Michael Dougherty: Exactly.
Also, I especially loved One Last Halloween, definitely had The Twilight Zone vibes there. They're all great, but that one particularly stuck out to me.
Michael Dougherty: Thanks. Fully acknowledging the inspiration of "Kick the Can" from The Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone's always been a huge influence on me because whatever I do, I always sort of imagine, "Well, could this have been a Twilight Zone episode?" Because that was, to me, the highest bar as far as genre storytelling is concerned.
When these comic books are being made, how exciting was it for you to get pages and be able to see these ideas brought to life in a different way, where you're seeing the pencils, inks, colors, and letters?
Michael Dougherty: Oh, it's great. I've never had kids, but I assume that's what it's like getting a sonogram of your baby as it's growing because the art tends to come together a lot slower than the writing does, naturally. It's always fun, because the artists are all working remotely from different corners of the globe, to wake up and get sketches from them and watching it grow from just these very loose doodles and then grow, and then you get the cleanups and then the inks, and then sometimes it gets passed off to a colorist. It's like making a movie in slow motion. And it takes me back because I started as an animator and an illustrator, and I really enjoy collaborating with other artists and inviting them to come play in the Trick 'r Treat Sam sandbox, as it were. It sort of felt like a virtual Halloween party happening every day.
I write comic book scripts and what I really enjoy is when I have something in the script and the artist comes back with a change to the page or something different in the panel or extra panels... something that makes the story better than anything I could have come up with alone.
Michael Dougherty: Yeah, it's like working with actors on a scene in a movie where ideally every single step of the way you're watching it get better and not just match your vision but exceed it. And our artists were so talented; that's exactly how it panned out. Every panel, every page just added something new that we didn't really consider.
I love that there's different artists on every story. It really helps make the anthology feel more like stories that are being passed down because they all tackle Halloween a little bit differently.
Michael Dougherty: Yeah, exactly. That was the intention. The goal was to show Halloween from different perspectives, whether it's different age groups, obviously different locales. I've always been fascinated with how Halloween is celebrated very differently in New York City than it is in the suburbs, obviously in the far reaches of space, and wanted to take it to places that neither Trick 'r Treat had been to even in the previous graphic novel.
I know you probably hear it all the time, and I have to ask for our readers... any updates on a Trick 'r Treat sequel?
Michael Dougherty: I was waiting for that. My latest joke is that's the newest Halloween tradition. There's pumpkin pie, apple bobbing, trick-or-treating, decorating your house, and then asking Michael Dougherty about the status of Trick 'r Treat 2. And then on top of that, it's like me laughing nervously and trying to find an answer that makes people happy, but doesn't over-promise.
I'm ready to go. We have a great script. We have 700-plus pages of storyboards. I've never done this before in one of my movies, but I worked with a storyboard artist and we boarded the entire movie—every scene, every shot—from the set pieces of Sam running amok to just people in a room having a conversation, which you don't normally do. Usually, you focus on the big stuff.
But I was like, "I'm having such a good time. Why don't we just storyboard everything and see what happens?" And then Breehn Burns did dozens of full-color, beautiful paintings of concept art. So we have a great package of material that's ready to go, but I only control so much. I can only do so much. And ultimately, the decision itself is not really in my hands, but both I and my collaborators are ready to go at the drop of a hat should we get the green light.
As you know, watching Trick 'r Treat is a Halloween tradition now for so many people and with Halloween season getting into full gear, I wanted to talk to you about your Halloween experiences. Do you have a favorite memory of trick-or-treating when you were younger or favorite costume?
Michael Dougherty: I have so many memories, but I'll share this: One of the Halloween incidents that helped give birth to Sam was actually a not very happy memory of Halloween because I experienced what is a core trauma on Halloween night where my friends and I were probably only around, gosh, 10 or 11 at the time, but it was one of those first Halloweens when you go out without your parents, right? And there were probably eight to 10 of us all together, and we were just going door to door, and these older kids mugged us. They came out of the bushes and just descended on us like barbarians and tried to grab our candy bags.
Looking back, I don't know how much older they really were. Maybe they were freshmen in high school or thereabouts, but they were very forceful. And the worst part about it was that this was happening in a cul-de-sac in full view of grownups. Adults were just watching this happen and not doing anything about it to the point where we were banging on people's doors for them to help us and let us in, and they were just flat out ignoring us.
That's horrible.
Michael Dougherty: It was unreal. One kid tried to grab my candy, and I would not let go. I held onto that thing, and I started smacking him over and over again with my flashlight until he finally did let go. I was like, "I'm not giving up that candy." And finally, they took off. One neighbor finally charged out and she helped scare them off, but it was so scarring that it sort of sparked this Batman-style desire for revenge in my mind, and Sam was sort of the answer to that. I didn't think up the character until much later, but it's like the idea of some supernatural entity that could right that wrong. That singular event helped plant that seed, no pun intended.
Sorry you had to go through that. I was talking to somebody the other day about it, that Halloween was a lot more dangerous decades ago, pre-2000s. There weren't curfews, and this stuff could still technically happen today, but it felt like before it was a little more Wild West, at least when I was younger.
Michael Dougherty: Yeah, that's part of the rite of passage is it is about going out into the night and facing your fears, whether they be imagined or real. That's why I do take issue with trunk-or-treat, because it's that sort of design just to let kids get as much candy as possible by not going door to door. They're just walking from parked car to parked car, which feels lazy and way too safe. It's like, no, you should be going out into the night and knocking on strangers' doors and facing these fears and getting to know your neighbors along the way. And without that sort of rite of passage, kids are growing up a little less brave than they should be.
You miss some of that Halloween magic for sure. Well, on a hopefully happier note, do you have a favorite Halloween candy?
Michael Dougherty: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or Snickers. Basically anything that combines peanuts and chocolate, I'm there.
I remember loving peanut butter cups, but they don't taste like they used to! They made them easier to eat, so it tastes a lot less like actual peanut butter.
Michael Dougherty: Yeah, I heard about that. Probably filled with bullshit ingredients, probably more ingredients that cause health issues over time.
I also used to love Twizzlers that they only made for Halloween bags. They were a bit chewier and hollow in the middle during Halloween, so I'd always hunt for those. Those were always my favorite.
Michael Dougherty: Those are winners too, for sure. I always leaned towards chocolate. I was never really a fan of the citrus or fruit-flavored candies. It was always about the chocolate. And I remember one specific candy haul discovering the joy of dark chocolate, Hershey's dark chocolate, and dark chocolate's now my go-to.
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About TRICK 'R TREAT: WITCHING HOURS:
"From the deliciously dark imagination of Trick ‘r Treat creator Michael Dougherty (writer/director of Trick 'r Treat, Krampus, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters -- screenwriter of X-Men 2 and Superman Returns), comes Trick 'r Treat: Witching Hours - an original graphic novel featuring four (4) new, never-before-published stories featuring everyone’s favorite mischief maker: SAM."
Creators:
Stories:
ONE LAST HALLOWEEN
At a rundown nursing home, a group of lonely patients summons the spirit of Halloween in order to celebrate one last spooky holiday together, with unexpected and frightening results.
DID YOU MISS ME
When a man returns from the dead on Halloween, he’s given one night to find closure and reunite with his beloved wife, only to discover a horrifying and tragic secret.
HARVEST MOONS
Far across the galaxy and untethered from the now-defunct roots of Earth, a group of kids on a conservative space colony will discover that Halloween is more than a long-lost tradition.
HALLOWEEN COUNTRY
Deep in Wyoming corn country, three ranch hands break up a strange occult ritual and find themselves hunted by a half-formed creature straight out of Halloween folklore.
After more than a decade as a consultant in the entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his passion for horror. He takes immense pride in Daily Dead's talented team of writers, who passionately explore and celebrate horror as a respected art form capable of telling complex, character-driven stories with deep emotional and cultural impact.
Over the course of his career, Jonathan has written more than 10,000 articles and hosted panels at major conventions, including New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con. He is also consulted with as an expert on horror and pop culture, offering insights on horror history and the latest trends through media outlets, film festivals, and conventions.
After more than a decade as a consultant in the entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his passion for horror. He takes immense pride in Daily Dead's talented team of writers, who passionately explore and celebrate horror as a respected art form capable of telling complex, character-driven stories with deep emotional and cultural impact.
Over the course of his career, Jonathan has written more than 10,000 articles and hosted panels at major conventions, including New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con. He is also consulted with as an expert on horror and pop culture, offering insights on horror history and the latest trends through media outlets, film festivals, and conventions.
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