Director: Jacob Perett
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Told by the Collector, a series of short horror-stories are told involving the peril that could befall teens and young kids.
Review:
Goodnight, Daddy-Preparing for their school dance, a group of friends find their plans derailed when they hear about a slew of missing person cases in town. Knowing that a serial killer is haunting the town and trying to keep his identity a secret, they team up with a family member to stop the culprit. This was a solid effort. The idea of the killers’ secret identity means a solid list of red herrings throughout here which provides some great suspense during the series of encounters here that try to shift the blame to various individuals. When the real identity is known, the stalking becomes fun and has some nice kills here as a result, which is only undone by the somewhat overlong finale which is quite cliched and makes no sense.
Night of the Sitter-Agreeing to babysit for the night, a teen meets his girlfriends’ weird brother and dummy that he keeps around to protect him from the monsters in his closet. Realizing the stories were true all along, the two team up to save his house from the predatory creature inside. Overall, this was a highly enjoyable segment. The early setups involving the babysitting antics and all the routines he has to go through might be a tad bit corny but serve this one well with the lead-in to the traditional setup where his stories were right all along. Even though this section skimps on actual confrontations or even a full-on look at the creature, enough happens to keep it fun and lighthearted which is endearing and enjoyable.
The Incubus-Feeling under the weather after a shoot, a pron star awakes the next morning with strange marks on his neck and a rather odd revitalized bit of energy. Realizing that he’s become a vampire, he tries to keep it a secret from his friends and coworkers only for his true self to fully emerge out-of-control. This was a somewhat underwhelming effort. While the initial setup and premise would have provided this with a lot of fun, the fact that the revelation to his condition takes too long for others to figure out makes this section seem bland where he goes through all the traditional means of keeping his true identity hidden with everyone completely unaware of what’s going on. As it can’t keep what he is strange and hardly anything happens, it’s rather disappointing.
Cosmic Terror-Landing in their backyard, a couple of teen girls befriend the alien inside and bring it into their home to prevent others from seeing it while they figure out what to do with him. When he disappears while under their watch, they race to find him before the deadly secret he has inside him gets loose. This was a decent enough if somewhat flawed effort. The setup with the friendly alien living among them and wanting to learn about human culture gives this a nice starting point to realize he’s not all that bad until the turn occurs, while the influx of his culture into theirs turns the tables from being a lighter family outing into a much creepier outing. The rampage at the party is somewhat fun if slightly too cheap to really exploit the potential, that’s a negligible flaw in this segment.
Overview: ***/5
As with most anthologies, there’s a segment or two that might not fully work for some but this is still a wholly enjoyable indie effort that has a lot to like. Give this a look if you’re a fan of these kinds of genre efforts or appreciate indie-styled films of this type while non-genre fans or those put off by the format of the film might heed caution.
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