It’s time for another horror anthology. These are usually not so good but the last one was actually solid. Could they pull off such a thing once again? Well I’m glad to say that it was another good one. The stories work pretty well and each have a premise that doesn’t have to rely on shock value. Trust me I was a bit surprised but I’m always glad to see this coming together. Perhaps the writers have finally figured out what is needed to make this kind of story format a true success.
The movie begins with 5 folks heading to a crazy carnival attraction. There’s nothing all that scary so they basically scoff through it all until a mysterious guy says he will show them something truly scary. They follow him to the back where he has a mysterious statue. Looking at it can let you see the dark future that is coming up. Each one decides to take a peak and sees just what horrors are in store.
The first story is about Colin deciding to be a real jerk to his uncle. Colin wants his vast riches and he wants them now! The uncle warns him not to look too much into the origins of the wealth but nothing is about to stop Colin. It turns out that the money comes from a mysterious cat demon, but the problem is that in exchange for these riches, Colin must do its bidding. Colin does his best to resist but is powerless before this creature.
It’s a pretty intense one to start with. The cat is shown to have powerful telepathy and so nobody can resist it for long. Colin sure tries but is unable to stop himself from murdering several folks. This is probably the most intense of the stories with the highest body count so it’s an interesting way to start. You could say that the film is actually peaking early here even if that wasn’t the intent. Colin really dug his own grave here so it’s hard to feel bad for the guy. There’s not much he could have done to escape the situation once it had started but not being an ungrateful jerk would have helped.
The second story is about Carla deciding to mess over her friend. She intentionally sabotages a dress so that she can take the friend’s spot in a date with a powerful member of Hollywood. Carla is fairly confident in her social skills and is quickly able to maneuver her way into meeting all of the inner circle. Unfortunately this puts her right in the middle of a grand conspiracy on just how far the Hollywood elite will go in order to keep their fame.
Like with the first story, Carla is the one who got herself into this mess. Sabotaging her friend was a terrible thing to do and Carla is just shown to be absolutely merciless the whole time. Even by the end she is basically threatening the celebrities to let her in on the secret and that seems like a bad idea. Threatening the super powerful is not a strategy that will often work in your favor. Carla just doesn’t seem to be taking all of that into consideration.
The plot/twist is pretty interesting overall even if this doesn’t feel as much like a true horror. I suppose the situation is scary to be in though. It’s also another one where it would be super hard to get out of the situation once you are stuck in it. Hollywood has a lot of connections and so it would be game over eventually. They must be silencing people by the thousands since nobody has noticed the twist within the film. Definitely an interesting amount of world building here.
Next up we have a story of Leo falling in love with a lady named Dorothy. He is a world class pianist but now his skills are starting to fade a bit because he is spending so much time going on dates. His piano doesn’t like this and decides to murder Dorothy. Dorothy isn’t particularly scared of anybody because she lives life on her own terms. In most cases I’d say she should be correct here. I don’t see how you lose to a piano but I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles.
The idea of an evil object getting feelings of jealousy has certainly happened a few times. It’s an interesting premise but usually you pick something with a bit more of a punch. You can imagine a car being really dangerous after all. For a piano you just need to jump on top of it or outmaneuver it. The thing is fairly easy to break as well. Unfortunately Dorothy doesn’t handle the situation very well at all.
This situation was a bit more difficult to avoid since you’re not expecting a piano to suddenly want to murder you. That being said, you should also know better than to enter a dark room when you hear some ominous piano music. Dorothy had also been warned by this point so the best thing to do would have to just been to get out of there. It’s always one of the more tragic horror tropes to see a character run back into a room one last time, only to be murdered for their trouble.
Finally we have a story about Ronald getting to meet the world’s best Edgar Allan Poe collector. Ronald is super hyped to see all of the collectibles but unfortunately he is also incredibly crazy. The guy can barely control himself and the more antiques he sees, the more out of control he gets. The guy must know everything and will stop at nothing, including murder. It’s definitely hard to feel bad for Ronald at all here because he’s just completely unreasonable.
Throughout the movie he seemed really crazy so it was interesting to see that he was crazy in the future as well. The guy was also the only one to not really be shook by what he saw in the future. It makes for a nice contrast since usually everyone is just panicking in this kind of story. For once you instead have a villain having to go up against another one. It was a pretty solid story for sure with a nice amount of build up and a satisfying ending.
Now you might be wondering, what about the 5th character? Well he was probably the smartest one here as he decides not to peer into the future and just attacks the host instead. That is crazy in its own way to be sure but this guy was not going to go out quietly. I at least have to give him some major credit there. It’s ultimately a little futile in terms of stopping the host from doing this to others but this guy kept his sanity. It also just made for a bit of an explosive ending.
None of the stories are really going to knock your socks off but none of them were particularly weak either. That is really important for anthologies because what you don’t want is for one story to really drag the others down. This one avoided that entirely and the stories also had a whole lot of variety. As long as you enjoy some suspense and a few thrills then you’ll have a good time here. It may be a horror title but it’s not nearly as violent as you may be expecting.
Overall, The title may give you the idea that this is a super grim film but it doesn’t really play out like that. I would definitely recommend checking this one out if you’re looking forward to seeing some retro stories. The movie holds up well in the present day. It was also nice to have all of the main characters be antagonists so you don’t feel quite as bad for them. There are innocent victims in some of the stories but at least the main characters get their just desserts real fast.
Overall 6/10
