Believe it or not, it’s been over 10 years since we first met the lovable pumpkin boy known as Sam in Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat, made in 2007 but not widely released on home video until October of 2009. In these past 10 years, Halloween masks, action figures and comic books have propelled Sam to iconic status within the horror genre; Dougherty’s plan all along was to create a Santa Claus-like figure for the Halloween season, and it’s safe to say that he has done just that.

Unfortunately, despite being initially announced back in 2009 and further teased at various points throughout the past 10 years, Dougherty has yet to make the sequel to Trick ‘r Treat that he’s long been itching to make. After directing the Halloween anthology film, Dougherty embraced the Christmas spirit with Krampus, and he later directed Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Dougherty is now currently attached to both Hellraiser and Nightbreed TV shows.

But Sam actually *did* come back for a series of official short films that were put together by the now-defunct FEARnet several years back. Beginning in 2011, FEARnet turned Trick ‘r Treat into the A Christmas Story of the Halloween season by airing a 24-hour marathon of the film every Halloween day between 2011 and 2013. And to promote that marathon each year, they released a handful of short films that brought Sam back in fun and unique ways.

One series of shorts laid out the rules of Halloween, while others saw Sam brought into other holidays like Father’s Day, Easter and Christmas. Most of the shorts were even directed by Michael Dougherty himself; “They’re almost like minute-long sequels to Trick ‘r Treat,“ he noted during a behind the scenes video for one of the shorts.

We may not yet have an official sequel, but these fun shorts continue to tide us over!

This article was originally published on September 22, 2017.