Rating: C-
Dir: Michael Neel
Star: Luis Negrón, Judith Kalaora, Chris Fidler, Larry Jay Tish
There are a number of decent ideas in this horror anthology, to the point where you can see what almost every segment was attempting to achieve. The problems are much more in the execution, which ranges from competent, to should have been consigned to “the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.” [Hey, I am writing this on Towel Day, in case you wondered] The obligatory connecting segment takes place at a drive-in after the apocalypse – technically, two of them – where The Projectionist (Negrón) shows films to whatever survivors, or things, care to show up for the movies.
We begin with Pig, not exactly a strong opener. Roseanne (Kalaora) captures her rapist, glues him to a bath-tub, and tortures him. I guess this deserves credit for being years ahead of #MeToo, but has nothing meaningful or interesting to say, and doesn’t say it in an interesting manner either. Things improve slightly with The Closet, in which Jamie (Fidler) find the monster in his closet useful for getting rid of annoying relatives. It’s a fun idea, but the performances aren’t up to it, Fidler especially being the epitome of “annoying kid actor”. The third segment, Fall Apart, might be the best combo of concept put into practice, with Dr. Patrick Mazursky (Tish) catching a very nasty disease from one of his patients and…
Well, if the title doesn’t clue you in, the picture top should. After some wobbly effects initially, they get better as it goes on. It ends up an effective piece of body-horror, anchored by a fine performance from Tish. The fourth segment, The Meat Man, has a good idea – two siblings become convinced their father is the titular serial killer. But again, we have the “bad kid actors acting badly” problem which I just couldn’t get past. And we finish with The Watcher, which sees your archetypal group of young campers in the woods, being stalked and killed by something which most definitely is not a bear. More’s the pity for this site, perhaps. While it’s okay, there’s nothing new or of interest.
That all the parts are written, directed and edited by the same people (Neel working on the scripts and editing alongside creative partner Greg Ansin) gives them a consistency of style. I also appreciated the way they seemed to be trying to cover a broad range of sub-genres, from torture porn through body horror to spam-in-a-cabintent. I think it was the performances which acted as a sea-anchor, dragging the impact of almost every segment bar Fall Apart down towards the ocean floor. When there isn’t any acting going on, it’s probably for the best, with Neel having a decent idea of where to point the camera, and the editing is professional enough. This had the potential to be a cult classic, only missing by about a million dollars and some good actors.