Director: Robert Livings, Randy Nundlall Jr.
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Following their friends’ death, several women decide to look through her old VHS tapes, which show a variety of scenes they don’t remember participating in.
Review:
Ouija-Meeting up at a friend’s house, a group of friends absentmindedly play with a Ouija board and summon a dark spirit after them. This was an impressive enough starting point for the film. The setup to everything is incredibly formulaic and manages to be quite difficult to care about the group who are willingly going through the motions of using an Ouija board once it’s been pointed out how uncomfortable it makes everyone, but once it moves beyond that into the horror, it has quite a lot to like. The hauntings and general unease that take place once they start to realize that something isn’t right and that they’ve unleashed something otherworldly, leading to some chilling moments of the possessed individuals appearing out of nowhere to chase and stalk the cameraman. This makes for a really strong starting point to get this rolling.
Possession-Brought to a remote building, a pair of ghost hunters find themselves tasked with something far beyond their experience. This was a fairly solid and likable enough story. The majority of the effectiveness of this one will depend on the level of enjoyment that the scatological humor has on people, as the idea of the one guy overwhelmed by the last meal he ate and interrupting the investigation to deal with the situation or the type of reaction to the supposed possessed person they’re there to help is entirely dependent on whether you find that material funny. The interactions with the possessed figure wandering around the darkened building’s hallways and corridors are creepy enough in concept that it’s immensely creepy in some regards, but the tone is the biggest issue here.
Grief-Talking with a patient, a woman gradually comes to learn that he might have some knowledge about what happened to her dead son. This was a bit of a weaker segment that doesn’t have as much going for it as it thinks. The idea behind this one about her counseling sessions is a mix between a psychological unraveling as he tries to tempt her with the demonic voice of her son or the various discussions involving the strange figure that’s said to be at the center of the situation. That’s pretty much all that goes on here, where the whole thing takes place over several sessions, and where nothing else happens makes it a bit of a slog to get through with the repetitive nature of everything that makes this stand out.
SRO-Getting worried about her brother, a woman asks to join a film crew investigating a mysterious cult said to be performing illicit actions. This was a likable way to finalize everything, even though it suffers from some believability problems. The main setup investigating this strange cult and the lengths they’ve gone to protect their secrecy offer up the kind of intriguing starting point that this kind of cult thrives on to be immensely chilling and creepy. The type of interactions they have at the compound is quite enjoyable, and there’s some fun to be had with the final encounter featured here, all helping this to overcome the fact that it’s immensely hard to believe the whole thing was recorded on VHS, which holds this back.
Overview: ***.5/5
An effective if mildly flawed anthology effort, this one manages to get some likable factors together and only a few minor drawbacks, as the majority of the segments are likable enough to be worthwhile. Those with an appreciation for this approach who are hardcore fans of either anthologies or found-footage films will have a lot to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
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