Director: Jovanka Vukovic, St. Vincent, Roxanne Benjamin, Karyn Kusama
Year: 2017
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Four horror stories told by female writers and directors in an anthology format.
Review:
The Box-Returning home from a day out, a woman notices the strange behavior of her son following an encounter on the subway. When the strange affliction begins affecting the rest of her family, she resolves to uncover the truth about the whole affair. This here was quite a troubling way to start this off. The main thing is the wholesale mystery about what's causing the behavior change as the lack of interest in eating makes for a stellar premise to base this on especially once the rest of the family get sucked up with the affliction. The fact that this plays into the female's usual responsibility to cook the food makes for a great premise, and while that is a great starting point, the overall sense of tension here is severely reduced by a lack of information about what they're actually dealing with. It's a fine concept but nothing interesting is done with it since the idea at its core is flawed since what would scare him away from eating would be psychologically damaging in other areas. This troubling lack of resolution really makes this a curious piece to start the film out on. The lone gore scene is great but that's about it in terms of how much fun it is.
The Birthday Party-Preparing for her daughters' party, a woman makes the shocking realization that her husband has died during the night. Intent on not letting that ruin her plans, she tries to make sure no one finds out what happened until after the party. This was another troubling effort that really seems unsure of itself. The central premise here seems to be crying out for slapstick comedy routines, as the majority of the time is spent on her manipulating the body around the house trying to keep him out of sight with a series of close-calls as she keeps getting interrupted or moves him out of the way just before being discovered which is all that this constitutes. It looks nice and all, but the serious tone doesn't make it scary in the slightest sense and makes it a really troubling inclusion on that level.
Don't Fall-Hiking to the top of a mountain, a woman and her friends find the area littered with warning signs from Native Americans. As the group continues their glamping trip, they come to realize that something unnatural might be stalking them in the desert. This was a lot of fun and really is the highlight of the segments. The focus on more traditional horror scares with the group barging in on sacred ground, the turning into a vicious creature and the eventual onslaught of the rest of the group is entirely more entertaining here as there's a lot to like here. From the creepy location out in the desert, the build-up with the Indian markings and the scares about tormenting her before the possession and then fully unleashing the action with the different attacks gives this some traditional thrills and bloodshed that's quite comforting and enjoyable. It may be clichéd in how it plays out, but that's the only knock against it.
Her Only Living Son-About to celebrate a special birthday, a mother finds that raising her son is becoming more difficult due to his violent outbursts. Realizing that something dangerous is about to come to fruition, she sets out to prevent it from claiming him. This was a rather troubling and really bland effort. The fact that this one dwells so heavily on what a tyrant he really is yet this never seems to show or even explain anything about what he's doing is a major downfall here as we don't get any kind of reasoning as for why they're so concerned about what he's done. The second-hand stories we get are mentioned but it's not close to being good enough to handle that type of storyline present here. That really takes out a lot of the fear of this one as this one doesn't have much happening until the end which really saps the life from this one as the only part worthwhile here is the final resolution of it all since that becomes the only real horror-based elements at play here. It's great to look at and flows nicely, but otherwise not much happens.
Overview: *.5/5
An incredibly troubling anthology with far more misses than hits despite most of the stories being potentially fun in concept, the experiment has a lot to like but it's not in execution. This is really only for those who appreciate the subgenre as a whole as most others out there will be turned off by the flaws stories here.
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