Rating: C+
Dir: Clarke M. Smith
Star: Walter M. Nowosad Jr., Randy Davison, Rachel Elizabeth Ames, Christopher Cendana
Considering the budget here was only around five thousand dollars, this isn’t a bad little anthology flick. The framing device is the titular late-night radio show, hosed by the affable George Bell (Nowosad), which tells spooky stories to his listeners, who appear entirely to be truck drivers. The stories then unfold for the viewer, in part with Smith’s stock repertory cast – you’ll recognize some players showing up in more than one segment. While there are two contributions from other directors, it largely is a showcase for the director’s previous short films, going back as far as Crazy Joe, originally made in 2013. Some were made as part of film competitions, such as The Loyal Remnant, where participants were given a biblical verse and a week to make their movie.
This range of origins does explain some inconsistency in terms of video and audio quality. The use of CB radio initially also had me wondering if this was intended to be set back in the eighties – I mean, who listens to AM radio these days? But period atmosphere otherwise isn’t present; well, unless you consider 2013 as history. As with all anthologies, some stories work better than others. It begins strongly enough with Stover Hill, in which a dinner party becomes ground zero for an extraterrestrial invasion. There are some quite impressive digital effects here, to depict the alien possession (top), and it’s nicely self-contained. Here’s a quick summary of the other five entries:
Crazy Joe – A father trying to come to terms with loss. Surprisingly poignant, but few things are worse than bad child acting.- Dark Chocolate (dir. Ramy A. Hassan) – Russian roulette with poisoned chocolate. I was left rather underwhelmed by the ending.
- The Loyal Remnant – Less post-apocalypse than post-Rapture. Didn’t hold my attention particularly well. And I watched it twice.
- Discontinuance (dir. Leon Behar and Diego Robles) – A decent alien abduction story, but it seemed to end just as it was getting going.
- You Are Me – A robotics engineer plans to cheat death. I liked this one a lot; felt like an unused idea from Black Mirror.
So, it’s the usual mix – almost exactly an even spread of the good, the bad and the indifferent. But also as always, the fun thing about anthologies is, if you don’t particularly like this story, there’ll be another one along in a minute. Several of the entries do feel like they have room potentially to be expanded to feature length. I believe that was originally the plan for Stover Hill, but a lack of funding kept it as a short. The ideas for the segments here are generally interesting too, although converting that potential onto the screen is more of a mixed bag. Smith has expressed interest in further entries, incorporating other filmmakers’ shorts, and there’s definitely scope for it. I’d not mind another trip down this highway.
The film is currently available on Tubi and YouTube, among other places.