It’s time to take a look at an anthology based on stories from the famous Poe. Unfortunately, I was never a big fan of this format as it really limits what you can tell in a story. There’s also the issue of the animation in this film being quite dreadful. It would have looked underwhelming 20 years ago so there’s no excuse for it. I’ll break this film down story by story.

The film started off with my favorite tale which is always an interesting tactic. Typically you want to end on a high note instead, but you can draw in the viewer this way I suppose. There were two pals who hung out together for a while, but eventually they drifted apart. Years later, they had a get together, but the friend bad changed. He could not be near sunlight anymore because of his being in the dark for so long. Making matters worse is the fact that the house seems haunted and a dead person frequents the halls. A single contact with this dead being would mean instant death.

It is a decently fun story. As I mentioned already, I thought that it was the best one on the whole batch. The sudden tackle at the end was pure hype and it was almost like a fight scene. It was a horror ending done right if I do say so myself. The main character got his happy ending but lives with the knowledge of these events so its not a total win win, but not a full loss for him either.

Another story decided to go with PS2 graphics as the CGI went full blast. A guy is thrown into an elaborate series of death traps and he has to try and survive. Are these trials real or is he just having delusions at the moment? I’m inclined to say that most of it is real at any rate. The animation was a step up from some of the other segments, but it is still very past its time. I’ve seen better animation on Cartoon Network. The segment wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t say that it was all that good either. It starts to drag on a bit after a while and I think some dialogue would have been very welcome here. Of course, the film is mostly a silent one anyway but dialogue, if written well, can really help at times.

Another segment saw a crazed man decide to destroy his teacher. The guy’s heartbeat annoyed him, which is why he decided to make the kill. It was a unique excuse I suppose, but it didn’t do the guy any favors. I was glad that the cops were pretty sharp this time though. They weren’t messing around ultimately outwitted the guy. It was too bad for the helpless old man though and at least he had a cool Eagle Eye. Actually, I think that was the excuse used by the murderer now that I think about it. Next time he’ll know better than to mess with the proper authorities.

Let’s head on to the next story. One guy decided to make a deal with a shady doctor about his life. When the guy was about to die, he would allow the other man to hypnotize him so see if it was possible to cheat death. Essentially, the dying man was hypnotized into waking up even after he was dead and it worked to a slight extent as it did prolong his life, but not for very long and the guy essentially blew up anyway. This segment was mostly just a little grotesque with the imagery and I’m sure that we all saw the ending coming. Man can never overcome death with whatever sciences are developed. You may as well try bringing a bucket to stop a flood. Next to the last segment, this was probably my least favorite one.

The final story was easily the worst one and the segment where the movie jumps the shark. It was about the seven deadly sins and how they overpowered the few human survivors. They were ready to die due to a powerful plague so they figured that they may as well lose their morals on the way to their death. Unfortunately, as this is an indie film, it has no qualms exploiting its poor animation as an excuse to show some nudity. If the animation was actually good, I doubt it would have been able to get away with such a tactic. Either way, as with Soul Eater and Skip Beat, it doomed the score and sent it into the cruncher. Without that, I’m sure that the film could have maybe managed a 3 or so, but this was the final nail on the coffin so to speak. There’s no meed to go all the way in the segment just to prove a point. I made a similar comment on the train scene in Madoka Magica a while back. Ah well, game over I suppose.

Aside from the stories, we also had a talk with a Raven and a statue who was the living embodiment of death. They talked about death a lot and the statue kept reminding the Raven that he was already dead so she had won the battle. He couldn’t really deny this and tried to distract her with red herrings and just dodging the point in general, but he ultimately could not stop her. This part was pretty interesting and while it would probably drag out for some if it lasted the whole 70 minutes, I think that would have been the more interesting film. Philosophical discussions on death are always pretty interesting to me. It could really be discussions on just about anything and it’ll typically be interesting since I get to write out my response to it or if it’s a super easy discussion, then I just say a yay or a nay.

Overall, it’s easy to see why this film is not all that popular. It’s very new and yet there doesn’t even seem to be a Wikipedia page on it. At the very least, the page doesn’t pop up right away on Google Search. One of the main problems is certainly the terrible animation. If the film had proper animation, it may have decided not to take as many risks and could have focused on telling some good stories. As it was, I wouldn’t consider any of the stories to be all that good aside from the first one. They could also tone down the violence somewhat and would need too if it had good animation since one segment had people being chopped, thrown away, and of course one guy was all but exploding in another scene. If you’re looking for your horror fix, then I suggest that you look elsewhere. Check out Scooby Doo Zombie Island instead.

Overall 0/10