Michael Patrick Dougherty is the mind behind the now cult classic, Halloween horror movie Trick ‘r Treat—which is an anthology story that redefines horror movies tropes and changed the anthology film game. In the movie, Halloween is that night when monsters of both the past and present come back to terrorize those who disrespect the holiday or its traditions. The film plays on expectations and does the opposite of what is expected of it.
There are a ton of monsters in Trick ‘r Treat, like the stereotypical young women who dress up as promiscuous versions of classic fairy tale characters only to turn out to be werewolves who are stronger than the evil monster Principal Wilkins or the audience thinks. And there’s also the bus full of dead zombie children who drowned on Halloween in a flooded quarry at the hands of their bus driver—a real-life monster who took the lives of eight disabled children. But the main monster in the movie is sort of an evil vigilante or protector of Halloween traditions who also acts as a link between the different stories.
The child-sized trick-or-treater is dressed in an orange, footie pajama set and remains mysterious because of the mask they wear—which is a burlap sack covering its head with buttons for eyes. The iconic character also has an iconic weapon. The character carries a lollipop, which it later bites into to produce jagged edges which can stab and slash the character’s victims. At one point in the movie, the character goes to an old man’s house (who happens to be the killer of the Halloween School Bus Massacre) to teach him a lesson about disrespecting Halloween traditions. The old man Mr. Kreeg takes the sack off the evil trick-or-treaters’ head to reveal a pumpkin-shaped skull, and he also reveals the body of the child-sized enforcer of Halloween is also made of pumpkin.
This character is known as Sam, and he is a god-tier demon who appears in a different town every Halloween to enforce the traditions and rituals of the holiday. Mr. Kreeg was spared by chance when a candy bar fell on his chest right where the viewer believes Sam had just stabbed him with his broken lollipop. But Sam actually stabbed into the candy bar, taking a bite of it and moving on in reference to the tradition and name of the movie—trick, or treat? Sam also attacks and kills a woman in the beginning of the movie (which also happens to be the kill that wraps up the time loop anthology story) brutally because she chose to take down the Halloween decorations before the night was over. It’s tradition to keep Halloween decorations up all night to scare away spirits of the dead, and Sam was not about to let Emma ruin the tradition.
So where did this character, Sam, come from? Quinn Lord (who was the child actor that played Sam) said he believes Sam is a demon born in a pumpkin patch. Though the character is child-sized in appearance, he is portrayed to be a very old, demonic spirit of Halloween that may have existed since the start of the holiday and its traditions. Because of Sam’s rather old looking costume with simple materials like burlap and buttons, it suggests at the very least that Sam is quite old. Creator of the movie Michael Dougherty said Sam’s head is somewhere “between an embryo and a pumpkin.” An embryo is an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, so this may explain why Sam still acts childlike and mischievous though he is a scary demon.
In theory, Sam could have been a premature stillborn who was taken to a pumpkin field where perhaps a witch or another demonic entity put a curse on him to bring him back to life on Halloween night, but as a consequence for being brought back to life, Sam can only appear on Halloween night and must be a servant enforcer of tradition. Sam drags around a dirty, burlap sack throughout the film, but the contents of the bag are never revealed. Perhaps, the bag contains the bones of his former human body. Originally, Dougherty created Sam as an alter ego of himself, but also thought of the character as a way to give the Halloween holiday an iconic figure similar to other holidays, like Santa for Christmas or Cupid for Valentine’s Day. Dougherty drew the concept sketch for Sam in 2002, which was considered when making the 2007 film.
After the release of Trick ‘r Treat, Halloween horror fans around the world have come to accept Sam as the Halloween mascot who people say is both frightening but also the cutest character they’ve ever seen. Though Sam does inspire fear, his childlike nature makes him adorable to fans of the movie.