It’s time for another horror anthology film. You know what that usually means, lots of sadness as the anthology format ends up limiting everything. Well this time I can at least say that the anthology is pretty reasonable. It’s still nothing great but the format is used well enough. For example the first special is fairly solid but if it had been dragged out you get the feeling that it would not have been nearly as good. None of the shorts are super bad either although the second one is certainly the weakest by far. This one’s actually not in English so I got to really experience the subtitled experience here. I’ve seen my share of subbed films of course but it’s always an interesting change of pace.

The first story starts off with a lady named Rosy receiving a distressing phone call. A guy named Frank is showing up. This guy should be in prison but he recently escaped and Rosy’s testimony is what sealed the deal. Now he’s saying that he is going to destroy her and the worst part is that he can seemingly see her at every turn. How can he when she isn’t even by the windows? Her only hope is to call in her ex-friend Mary. The two have not been on speaking terms for some time now but Rosy can’t win this on her own. Will her old friend prove to be dependable?

So it’s a pretty tense story from the jump and it really does make a world of difference to have even just one more ally with you at such a time. Mary ends up stealing the show here as an interesting character. She loves her dark humor and while Rosy doesn’t really appreciate that side of her, at least Mary isn’t scared. Mary even has a large knife at the ready and is generally very sure of herself. We never find out exactly what the issue was that came up between them but hey Mary showed up. Ultimately I would have liked her to have done a little better during the short but that’s how it goes. Naturally there are some twists that show up during this short. One of them I have a little bit of a hard time buying into though. The film drops us a half hearted explanation that resorts to incredibly accurate guessing…but that’s not really satisfying. I’m not sure what you could have done without making this supernatural though.

The opening short does have some random fanservice so I wouldn’t call it super high brow entertainment though. There’s a lot to like here so I could still recommend it but the ending is a bit weak compared to the rest of the setup. I can say though that it is considerably better than most films about a scary phone call though so it does have that going for it. Check this film out even if just to see how this plot should really be handled rather than those over the top slasher films.

Then we have the second story where Vladimir stops by a house real quick after seeing a dead body. Basically it turns out that there are zombie type creatures running around known as Wurdulaks and they are incredibly dangerous. They can still move, run, and talk like normal humans but they can no longer eat and are driven by only one desire, to murder the one they love the most. It’s really a rough curse when you think about it because it’s actually using your own friendship against you. Vladimir doesn’t know how to end this curse but he ends up falling in love with one of the women there so he offers to at least take her with him and get out of there. Unfortunately she feels like she needs to stay with the rest of the family. They’re all worried that the father has been turned into one of these monsters because he’s been gone for a few days. Well he returns one day and seems a bit shady….should they destroy him or wait to see what happens?

Part of what hurts this short is how everyone makes the worst decisions possible. So it’s painfully obvious that the father has already been turned into a monster so just take him out! Now if there’s any doubt that’s fine, do some tests. Have him try to eat some food or at least put him in restraints. Instead they all just kind of stand there. The father goes to pick up the baby and they whine about it but let him take the kid. They all then go to bed as if everything was fine…..sure they have one guy as a night watchman but what were they thinking? Obviously these creatures have super strength so you’re not going to be doing much with just one guard. The whole story is really annoying because you just don’t see how this could have possibly happened. It really makes no sense the whole time. So inevitably when the body count starts rising you just know that all of the characters are to blame.

They open the door when monsters show up, constantly panic and split up, etc. Even Vladimir doesn’t look very good as he tries to leave initially but splits up of course. Then when he goes back to save the girl he doesn’t suspect that she might be turned and goes for the full body hug? Noooooo, this guy was asking for trouble. Horror characters are famous for making the wrong calls at every turn but this really has to be up there in the running for one of the worst films in that regard. The sheer frequency of all these bad decisions is completely mind boggling. Trust me you’re going to be shaking your head left and right. Throw in that the story is a bit darker as well with a dog getting shot and a kid being murdered…well this isn’t going to be winning any awards I can tell you that much.

Finally we have the last story which is a classic cautionary tale against greed. Basically it starts with an older lady named Helen being called in because an even older lady has died and so they have to get everything sorted out for the burial. Helen notices that the old lady has a really nice looking ring though and decides to take it for herself. Finders keepers and all that right? Well she puts it on and all seems fine for about 2 seconds but then she starts to hear some water tapping on the surface. No matter how many faucets she turns off it keeps up. This can be annoying but perhaps not a dealbreaker right? Well that changes once the dead lady starts appearing to reclaim her ring. If Helen isn’t careful then it will be all over for her. Can she relinquish the ring and make things all right or will she continue to double down over and over for as long as it takes?

So Helen definitely dug her own grave here. Sometimes it’s really as simple as just not stealing something. Whenever there is a film where the villain is attacking because the hero did something bad then it’s harder to have sympathy. Helen stealing from a dead person is just completely uncalled for and makes her look so bad. You simply can’t do that at any point. No amount of money is worth doing the wrong thing like that. The short definitely has a lot of fun playing with the colors here and it’s definitely a reminder that those old houses with lots of shadows are a bad matchup against a vengeful ghost trying to sneak up on you. You’re just giving it way too many hiding spots to try and get you at that point. The ending of the film is pretty satisfying with how the cycle keeps on going. Also the cops finally get involved there so you if we got a sequel it would be interesting to see how much they could deduce here. In a supernatural case it can be hard to really get any clues since they don’t really know enough from the jump but it would still be a fun premise.

Overall, This was a pretty decent horror special. Certainly wayyy better than the average horror anthology at least. There’s a good amount of intrigue here and some fun stories. The middle story definitely holds this combo back the most though and it isn’t quite up to the level of the other two. I can’t really picture re watching this one at any point but still it wasn’t bad. I would put it right in the middle. If you’re looking for some horror titles to watch then this could definitely work. At the same time, it’s not going to be the top horror title to check out or anything like that.

Overall 5/10