Director: Victor Catala, Brian Deane, Oliver Lee Garland, Guillermo Lockhart, Tony Morales, Nicolas Onetti, Nicholas Peterson, Daniel Rubesam, Christopher West
Year: 2021
Country: New Zealand
Alternate Titles: The 100 Candles Game
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Sitting in a circle surrounded by candles, a group of friends is forced to tell scary stories in front of a mirror in order to escape a witch's curse.
Review:
On the whole, this is a serviceable if unremarkable anthology. The initial setup here, involving the friends sitting in the darkened room surrounded by the candles and forced to tell scary stories is highly enjoyable and serves this well as an excuse to launch into this type of film. The atmosphere is effective and there’s some tension with the involvement of the mirror calling the rules of the game into play, making for an overall workable format to get going.
When it comes to the stories, it’s hit-or-miss but generally above average. The first one involving the girl in the woods is pretty solid and has a fun final twist to capitalize on, while the second story has some atmospheric images and ideas undone by the lack of action or context about the setup involving the two living together or weird twist ending which leaves the segment fun but wholly mismatched and out-of-place in this type of film.
The middle parts of the film, namely the segments involving the mischievous children tormenting the woman in her house or the mother confronting the demonic entity threatening her children, are where this one shines. Bringing forth some fun, fast-paced efforts with plenty of atmosphere and graphic kills mixed alongside the chilling action, while the period pieces involve a rather enjoyable condensed take on the demonically-possessed to be a great segment.
This does have its fair share of misses as well. The buried alive segment is an unoriginal tale with a lame finale undermined by tons of stupidity packed into a brief running time, the lone woman in the apartment has some creepy imagery and it’s hard to tell what’s going on or why we should care because of that, and the wraparound in the room feels repetitive with the same type of scares we’re constantly told mean nothing anyway, making for some pointless segments here.
Overview: **/5
While not the greatest anthology around, that there’s some good and bad in here makes for a generally unremarkable if still watchable effort overall. Give this a look if any of these aspects are intriguing, you’re a fan of the style or of any of the creative crew while most others should go into this one with some caution.
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