Can Sam From 'Trick 'r Treat' Die? Here's Director Michael Dougherty's Take

The Big Picture

• Sam from Trick 'r Treat has gained immense popularity as a Halloween mascot and iconic character, comparable to Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.
• Director Michael Dougherty hints that Sam may be immortal, suggesting he is an unstoppable force of Halloween that can't die.
• Trick 'r Treat 2 is in development and will explore new spooky stories while giving Sam a worthy adversary and potentially testing the limits of his immortality.

From a pop culture perspective, Sam from Trick 'r Treat is immortal among Halloween mascots. The holiday horror film has only grown in popularity since its 2009 release on home media, becoming a staple film to celebrate the spooky season while Sam himself has become an icon and popular costume choice mentioned in the same breath as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. In the lore of the film, however, it's possible the burlap sack-wearing trick-or-treater truly can't die. During a Q&A session following a screening of Trick 'r Treat for Scary Perri's Horror Series, director Michael Dougherty teased to Collider's Perri Nemiroff that Sam may be an unstoppable force of Halloween.

Dougherty is fairly guarded when it comes to revealing anything about Sam. He told Nemiroff that the demon's lore only really exists within his head alone, opting to let everyone else speculate on the mysteries that lie beneath his burlap sack and footie pajamas. When asked about whether he can die though, the director revealed that he's "leaning towards immortal" in Sam's case. It would fit with how Dougherty writes him as a sort of folkloric being. In Trick 'r Treat, he seems nigh unkillable considering he survives being blown apart by multiple shotgun blasts from Mr. Kreeg (Brian Cox) with nary a scratch. Nothing seems capable of preventing this good boy from keeping Halloween traditions alive. Moreover, Dougherty recalled a short film about Sam he created for Fearnet that explains how he is reborn every year around Halloween and Samhain:

"Yeah, because if he dies – actually, one thing I'll give you is that I like to think that – because we have done a short that sort of establishes this. Fearnet used to run the movie for 24 hours on Halloween, and so they commissioned me to create a series of short films to help promote it. And so one short we showed, we called it November 1st , and it showed the aftermath of a Halloween party. You go into a backyard, you see decorations, costumes everywhere, and then you see Sam's dead body. You see this wilted, withered corpse of what was Sam in his pajamas, and you see the pumpkin seeds and guts laying in the dirt, and then you see one seed sort of giggle and implant itself into the dirt. So, in my mind, he dies every November 1st, but with the help of certain others, certain seeds or guts are retained, and then he grows back every October."

'Trick 'r Treat 2' Will Resurrect Sam for Another Halloween

Perhaps we'll finally get more answers on what Sam is and is capable of with Trick 'r Treat 2. After years of languishing in development hell, the anthology sequel is closer than ever to popping out of the ground says Dougherty. In the same Q&A, he revealed that he had a "really great script" at the ready with help from fellow Krampus scribes Todd Casey and Zach Shields. Not only that, but it'll finally give Sam a worthy adversary to rival Cox's grumpy Halloween-hating curmudgeon and maybe test the limits of the demon's immortality. More than anything, the sequel is a chance to explore new spooky stories in another town ridden with monsters while the little pumpkin boy continues ensuring everyone celebrates with candy, costumes, and decorations aplenty.

Trick 'r Treat 2 is still a long way from reaching screens, but you can always check out the original, featuring Cox alongside Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker, Leslie Bibb, and Rochelle Aytes, this Halloween by streaming it on Max in the U.S.

Watch on Max

You can watch Nemiroff's full conversation with Dougherty below.

Trick 'r Treat

In a small town on Halloween night, those who break the rules of the holiday do so at their own peril.

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