If you know me at all, especially around Instagram, you probably already know that I’m obsessed with the movie Trick ‘r Treat, and its iconic character, Sam.
The movie has really gained popularity over the last few years, especially since Spirit Halloween started selling merchandise, but what you may not know about Trick ‘r Treat, is that it got off to a bit of a rough start. Originally planned for 2007, the movie wasn’t officially released until 2009, direct to DVD save for a few screenings here and there. I recall seeing a little blurb about it in a pamphlet about new movies that we used to get with video rentals at the grocery store. This was probably some time in early 2007. Not much was said about the movie in that pamphlet, I can’t recall if there was even any kind of picture or logo included with it, but being a Halloween movie, I instantly became excited to see it.
Halloween 2007 passed, with no signs of Trick ‘r Treat being released, and after awhile, I kind of just forgot about it. I knew that sometimes things happened, things get canceled for some reason or another, and basically put it out of my mind.
Until one day in late 2008.
I used to be very active on LiveJournal. I basically used it as a substitute for paper journaling, and it was a fun way to meet people. I mainly had friends that I’d made from the doll collecting community, but at some point I’d decided to join some Halloween communities from my main journaling account. They weren’t half as active as the social media Halloween community is today, usually dying down once Thanksgiving hit, and picking up again in mid-summer, but it was a sudden, off-season post that really got my attention.
Someone had posted a bunch of pictures of a figure (more of a doll given the size) they had bought, asking if anyone had ever heard of a movie called Trick ‘r Treat. This person had apparently continued to follow the progress of the movie, and was intrigued enough to buy this amazingly detailed figure of the main character, Sam, that was made by a company called Sideshow Collectibles. I was in love with the look of the character right away, a cross between a trick-or-treater and a scarecrow, with the head of a mutant pumpkin underneath his burlap mask. I found myself tempted to try and buy this figure for myself, but it cost a decent amount of money, even when it was first released, and I just couldn’t bring myself to spend so much on something relating to a movie I had yet to see, on the off chance I would wind up not liking it. So I let that Sam figure go, but he reminded me to keep an eye out for news relating to the release of the movie, and future merchandise. I eventually wound up getting a much smaller figure, around Christmas 2008, when the movie was finally released on DVD in 2009, I lucked out and found a lone copy in a now long-gone FYE store and, I suppose you could say the rest is history. I wound up loving the movie, amassed a pretty impressive Sam collection, and Sam became my one true icon of Halloween.
But I never forgot that Sideshow Collectibles Sam. Even after getting the Mezco MegaScale figure (which I do still have, he’s just lost somewhere in storage) which has basically the same proportions, I couldn’t help but want the original Sam. The one that jogged my memory of the movie and helped me find the Halloween icon I’d been looking for my whole life.
Last year, after getting my tax return, I found one on eBay for a price I was comfortable with, but sadly was not allowed to buy it because I’d had to create a new eBay account, and therefore had zero feedback at the time. I was devastated that the seller wouldn’t even look at my messages, just denied the payment and blocked me. After that experience, I truly thought that this Sam was one grail item I’d never get to own, because no way was I going to pay between $400 and $600 for it, as they usually tend to go for on eBay. But lo and behold, last week, another, much more reasonably priced one appeared, and I wound up getting it for even less than I would’ve paid the first time!
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