Director: Andrés Borghi, David Ferino, Carlos Goitia, Ryan Graff, Guillermo Lockhart, Maximilian Niemann, Jerónimo Rocha, Arie Socorro
Year: 2025
Country: New Zealand/Argentina
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Arriving at a remote mansion, a group of amateur internet vloggers decide to test out a viral video craze by telling scary stories inside the house while surrounded by lit candles and blowing one out when they finish telling a scary story, hoping to summon a demon inside the house.
Review:
Overall, this was a wholly disappointing and barely worthwhile anthology effort. The few positive points here stem from the concept of so many of the stories told here, as, in principle, there are some good ideas. The opening tale of a babysitter meeting a demonic spirit after accidentally triggering it while performing origami with her charge, a later tale of a father keeping his daughter alive in a zombie apocalypse as he succumbs to its effects, and the daughter raising her father from the dead for a conversation constitute some genuinely thrilling ideas that potentially could’ve been far better. That these are the most traditional setups and explore the themes of shadowy figures lurking in the darkness, ready for something to happen or feature some great effects work, makes them easy standouts.
That said, the rest of the anthology suffers from the incessantly irritating problem of not having a coherent throughline for anything to happen. The varying length of the shorts, going from barely five minutes to nearly twenty for the longest one, makes for a wide-ranging series of random sequences within here that finish before anything impactful actually happens. So many of the stories here tend to be a joke resolution that happens before any time is built up for it to mean something. Most of the time, we don’t really know anything about the segment’s characters, and it’s genuinely over to the next one as the irritating influencers in the wraparound are back to work through the next one. The game itself has potential, but it’s barely utilized and feels like a cliche how it’s all handled with the interstitial moments, making for a lot that holds this one down.
Overview: */5
A wholly bland and unremarkable anthology follow-up, there’s not much to this one that keeps itself worthwhile, as the majority of the flaws here hold this one down against only a few worthwhile segments. Viewers who are hardcore anthology fans or who are fans of the original will want to give this a shot, while most others out there should heed extreme caution with this one.
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