Director: Aaron K. Carter
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
While waiting for an assignment to carry out, a pair of hitmen decide to pass the time telling scary stories to each other.
Review:
Valkyrie's Bunker-Heading out to the forest, a group of girls looking to score a mythical weed depository instead find the area's home to a condemned war bunker. Hoping to fulfill their mission, they suddenly find themselves disappearing as they all come face-to-face with the real-life figure behind the legendary location. Overall, this was quite a bit more fun than expected. The lengthy opening setup, detailing the connection to Nazi history to the location which already gives this a great backstory, ties into the actual disused look that's apart of the bunker. The slow disappearances of the group around the property offer some nice suspenseful moments, but the payoff isn't really worth it due to a resolution that feels entirely lacking and almost like it's a setup for the real resolution only to suddenly be onto the next story, leaving no on-screen kills or gore in the process.
Assacre-Arriving at a local restaurant, a vlogger attempts to record his appearance at a competition devouring a massive food item with several other performers. When an upstart upsets him and wins the competition, he provides the winner with a pepper that takes longer than expected to dish out its side effects. This was a rather odd entry. The main issue here is the rather silly and goofy storyline about undertaking a food-eating competition and eating a special pepper that turns a person's insides into mush that is soon expelled in increasingly violent means which you have to really buy into in order to believe this one. Although the final payoff is quite worthwhile and has a great finale, it's all about the setup here that really affects this one.
Hog Hunters-Joining up on a new bowling team, a man joins the rest of the team as they head out to a nearby farm in order to engage in a round of hogging. When they arrive at their intended target and instead find a race of man/pig hybrids living there, they try to get out of the situation alive. This was a solid and somewhat engaging effort. The central premise of this one, based around the concept of the group going out to the farm with their reluctant and hesitant friend only to come across something far more deadly than they were expecting, is a rather intriguing setup that turns into cheesy fun with the hunters going after the hog-people. However, it's almost entirely undone by the cheap and utterly awful make-up work on the hogs which almost look like flimsy Halloween masks. It may be enough to knock it for some but not all.
An Hour to Kill-Attempting to carry out an assignment, a pair of mob hitmen find that they've arrived at their destination an hour earlier than expected and decide to pass the time by telling stories to each other. When they finally get to their target, they realize the true nature of the setup. Overall, this wrap-around is a fine indictment of the kind of film we're going to get as the awkward confrontation in the bar and lame shootout sets the stage for the movie as a whole. The fact that the majority of this segment is simply hanging around with these two that really shouldn't be in the mob at all. Even the flashbacks to the beatdowns in the past or the exploits of the two recalling previous interactions serve no purpose and the overall cheap attitude runs rampant here. While it serves as a pretext to get the stories told, it's not all that impressive.
Overview: **/5
With some intriguing elements but undone way too often by its low-budget nature and some rather bland stories, this one becomes a passable if not entirely effective effort. Only go into this one if you're a hardcore anthology aficionado or curious about these kinds of efforts, while those looking for a more demanding effort or find themselves completely underwhelmed by the flaws should heed caution here.
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