Director: Alex T. Hwang
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology; Supernatural
Plot:
After capturing a legendary demon, a cop and his priest friend decide to exorcise her in order to stop a rampage she’s carried out taking over the bodies of other women that need revenge carried out for them.
Review:
Young Love-After meeting up with her crush, a scorned student commits suicide when her pregnancy reveal is renounced and their relationship dismissed when no one else can help her. When her friends decide to exact payback, they find their plans interrupted by a spirit seeking revenge for his actions. Overall, this was a pretty solid beginning to this one. The early setup for the various characters, from the way the girls manage to exude their goofy, laidback relationship together against the guys and their back-and-forth banter, sets up what’s going on rather nicely. Once the result of their tryst and betrayal is learned, the shock and grief that emerges for them to attempt to pull off the plan they do is sound enough to see what they were trying. The resulting chases and encounters as her supernatural revenge offer up the kind of fun rampage that’s highly enjoyable with some decent deaths and indie gore spread throughout here for a fun time. While the finale is rushed to where it seems to end just as it was generating some fun, it’s not much of a drawback to be had here.
Care Taker-Arriving at a nursing home, a strange woman begins treating her disabled client who’s somewhat put off by her resemblance to his deceased wife. As time goes by and he realizes the demonic intentions behind her visit, he realizes what he needs to do to get her to leave him alone. This was a solid and enjoyable effort. The setup involving their unease with each other about her appearance is an intriguing touch, much like the eventual reveal about who she really is and what she’s there for is a fine touch, especially when these factors lead to far darker buried secrets that cause some fun brutality in what’s going on. That this is generally dialog-based could cause some discomfort here since there’s not much going on until the ending reveal so this has the potential to be quite slow-going for this kind of build-up although there’s still a lot to like.
Lust-Trying to fix their relationship, a guy addicted to online porn stays home while his wife decides to head to a religious retreat to work on herself. At his friends’ insistence, he books a special call-girl to help his problems only to realize the woman he’s invited over isn’t who she claimed to be. This one was enjoyable enough but did have some issues. The early setup for their marital woes and the need for the friends to get involved creates some interesting storylines here, especially with the manner in how the prostitute gets involved. Their scenes together are somewhat erotically charged and sensual before the changeover into the more brutal, hardcore trappings which is a nice turn since we know what’s going on yet he doesn’t until the hallucinatory sequence involving the creature taking him out in graphic matters. It does seem highly illogical that this would play out as such even with the marital problems and the friends’ urging to do so which strains the credibility somewhat yet overall, there’s likee else to dislike beyond how long it takes to get going.
Serial Killer-after Stopping on the side of the road, a man abducts a stranded woman and takes her back to his place in order to continue his brutal torture and dismemberment. When he’s about to finish his work, a stranger appears that threatens his perfect plans. This was a rather impressive and enjoyable segment. The swarmy attitude and matter he has during the abduction is a fun way to set off the red flag about what's he's going to do, while the calm and collected means he portrays while torturing her psychologically manage to effectively paint him as creepy without being over-the-top about it. When the twist occurs and he's forced to confront the very kind of treatment he inflicted on others it’s quite enjoyable leading to the fantastic reveal of the new demon in the room. It's not nearly as graphic enough as it could've been for the kind of storyline that goes on but it's not enough to lower this segment.
Overview: ***.5/5
A highly enjoyable and fun anthology effort that manages to feature quite an impressive style and approach that offers quite a lot to like, there’s not much to dislike here which makes this one a solid feature for the most part. Give it a look if you’re a fan of this kind of indie genre efforts, intrigued by the approach, or a fan of the creative crew while others who are less interested in those factors or turned off by those factors should heed caution.
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