Director: Torin Langen
Year: 2016
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Living in a small town, the disappearance of three children while trick-or-treating is soon met with a series of grisly notes left behind for the residents to uncover the mysteries surrounding their warnings.
Review:
Fondue-After taking a trip to a store for some Halloween masks, a woman and her boyfriend encounter a string of unsavory characters throughout town as they make their way for a holiday celebration. Overall, this is an intriguing and highly enjoyable way to start this off. The whole concept of this one quickly moves through the idea of seeing them intermingle with numerous others of their kind which all helps to make the ending reveal all the darker and more brutal. The ending twist to this one is quite shocking and unexpected with some really cool imagery capped off which helps to offset the lack of talking to underscore their motivations and interests during this section.
Malleus Maleficarum-After moving to a new town, a woman and her family are confronted with the town ideologies which are directed opposed to their practices of witchcraft that soon puts them on a dark road together. Overall, this was a fairly solid and enjoyable outing that gets the most out of its ideologies which near-silent presentation. The idea of them going to such lengths as kidnapping, torture and murder which directly imposes on the long-standing cleansing rituals that are supposedly in place, that iswhich given a rather brutal twist later on with a fantastic sequence showing their deviance and brutality. This one probably could've used dialog the most to flesh out the motivations and everything but it's still fun as it is.
Stash-After hiding their Halloween candy in a remote spot in the woods, jealousy erupts between a group of friends as they look to get their hands on the bounty of candy hidden away. This one could've been the most fun, but it has issues. The series of confrontations they have through the city and out in the woods on its own is fine enough, but this is another entry that really needs dialog to properly sort itself out as a lot of these scenes rely on visuals that don't have the same impact since they're just going through the motions of it all. The finale has a brutal edge to it all, but it still needs more to make it stand out.
Delivery-Concerned about the series of missing persons' cases in the area, a pair of police officers go around trying to uncover the source behind it all only to come across the sinister head behind everything. Functioning as a continuation of the wrap-around, this was a decidedly underwhelming way to end it all as there's a decent idea here behind the series of clues left for the deliveryman to find out what's going on. However, once it segues past those interstitial parts and becomes more about the police officers it just loses steam and doesn't really become all that interesting with the blank motivations not making this one come together that much for a disappointing end.
Overview: ***/5
An interesting enough experiment that does have some worthwhile features, but there are still some flaws here as well as a gimmick that might not be immersive for all out there makes this a hard one to go on. Those who are intrigued by the concept behind this or are massive anthology fanatics will want to try this out but those that can't see past the main gimmick might want to heed caution here.
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