Director: Mars Roberge
Year: 2025
Country: Canada/USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Standing on a street corner, a man tells various stories to any passersby he meets.
Review:
Story 1-While working in a county morgue, a worker is inadvertently possessed by the blood of a serial killer and finds his hands forced to carry on the killer's legacy. Overall, this is a pretty solid way to start things out. The premise is nothing original, but it comes across well enough, with the physical interactions showing how the possessed hand is controlling him, with him doing obscene things without his consent, and alerting others to his behavior. While it's not nearly all that scary with the possession forcing him to grope women unexpectedly or pocket items in a store rather than more overtly dangerous or malicious antics, this is still a fun way to get this going.
Story 2-Being hired for a new play, a woman tries to acclimate herself to the director's regular troupe of actors and actresses, leading into a major performance. For the most part, this was a pretty decent story. This is based heavily around the ending twist that gives everything that comes before it some context, offering up the kind of intriguing concept that is far more chilling than expected. Once we know that, this one does manage to tie back into the various interactions and comments that highlight everything leading up to that point, which is a lot of fun if only building up to this factor, without having much of anything else going on here other than the twist.
Story 3-Carrying out a deadly experiment, a mad doctor and his nurse try to keep their patients from uncovering the truth about his experiments despite their vegetative state. This was a pretty disappointing entry without much going for it. The wacky nature of the relationship between the doctor and the nurse makes for the best elements to like here as their interactions give this a life that's undone quite a bit by series of lame, unfunny dialogue between the spectral, disembodied voices of the guys that tries to paint this as some kind of purgatory that requires the nurse to reveal her past history with the one guy and bring about the real reason why she's there. Hardly any of it is funny, and being split into two segments that take up a third of the film's overall running time only makes this stand out even more as a kind of lame and generally silly approach that has little genre content about it.
Story 4-After adopting a child, a couple discusses how they're going to acclimate him to the new environment they've moved to. A one-note joke that doesn't have enough time to do anything with it, this is way too short to be of much use and is worthwhile mainly for the final visual shot gag that the segment is building towards. It just needed more, as the idea is okay, but the lack of length is an issue.
Story 5-Struggling with his demons, a man decides to strike back at those around him with a bizarre series of exploding dolls left behind in the community, terrifying the residents. This brief segment has some fun going on, but it is just too short to mean much. The concept is okay and helps impart a few bits and pieces to show his deranged state, to leave such materials behind for the others in the neighborhood, but the sense of pacing here really makes for a lot of issues feels like it's underwhelming how little is explained. This really could've had more time to explore and expand on what's presented here.
Overview: **/5
An intriguing if somewhat flawed indie anthology, there’s enough going on here to be worthwhile enough, even though the problematic issues with this one do end up holding this back. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of this kind of indie genre effort or are curious about it, while most others out there should heed caution with this one.
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