Director: (Ernest Dickerson, Flying Lotus, Tobias Forge, David Moreau, RZA, Renee Zhan)
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Hosted by the popular metal band, a group of found-footage shorts and music videos centered around the use of sound and auditory disruption are presented.
Review:
Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance-Meeting up at his workshop, the promotional team behind the revival of a special defunct children’s puppet show looks at the storage facility where they’re being filmed by the eccentric owner, forcing them to realize the dark truth about the puppets. Overall, this was a really solid and enjoyable segment. The background about the show and what happened with the original show gives this a nice eerie touch, which is played off incredibly well once the team arrives to document the restoration process for its revival, including the typical mocking and disrespect of the dolls. The forced recreation of the hit song and subsequent revenge might be completely expected, but it’s not less cheesy fun, including the series of dismemberments, meltdowns, and genuinely gruesome outcomes present here. Again, it’s all very familiar, but it’s not enough to hold this down.
Another Cabin-Living alone with his grandmother, a young boy tries to keep her safe from the malevolent entity pursuing her, only for her true desires to make everything more complicated than it should. This was decent enough for what it is, but it’s let down by several big factors. The concept of what’s happening, the visuals it creates, and the impressive nature of the stop-motion work used to accomplish that are fantastic, bringing this along incredibly well with some genuinely chilling features. However, the concept here doesn’t seem to fit in with the tone and spirit of the others, as it has little connection to anything else here, the brevity stands out incredibly well, and the lack of narration or context might make this a bit of a struggle to get into, holding it back overall.
Heartbeat-Exploring a remote site in the woods, a group of urban explorers comes face to face with something strange inside the facility that makes them pawns in a mad scientist’s deadly experiments. This was decent enough for what it ended up being, but it was still a disappointing time overall. The main setup here is intriguing but manages to fall into a trap where it never has the kind of time necessary to develop what’s going on as the idea at play involving the scientist using dead bodies and deformed remains from the experiment left behind never really has time to develop before it starts in on the experimentations. Those are graphic and gruesome enough, making for a weak story here, filled with some generally fun action as we witness their unraveling psychosis. In this case, that does mean there's a lot of cliched moments that take place here, trying to make this make sense with such a confusing setup.
The Music of Mr. Sze-Looking into his apartment complex neighbors, a man tries to make sure they’re not being too offputting with his constant quests for information about one of the tenants. This wasn’t that bad of a segment, but it does have some slight issues. The unsettling nature of everything around him, with the unnatural behavior that they exhibit while talking to him or the constant quips about him that manage to pique his interest in his neighbor even further than normal. That leads into the immeasurably effective and chilling Lovecraftian final half, showing off a dementedly over-the-top variation of that type of genre fare with otherworldly creatures, generally grotesque gore, and a great finale as well. This one is filmed with stuff that shouldn’t be done because of how it comes together, but it’s not too detrimental.
Death Tone-Desperate to advance her career, an aspiring producer tries to document her attempts at recreating one of her father’s famous production tracks, eventually bringing her to realize the dark lengths he went to. This was an incredibly strong and effective entry that manages to get a lot of likable factors. The whole point of being able to go out and pick up random people as a means of recording their death screams or other auditory sounds during the process, under the direction of the disembodied voice of her father, looking to guide her through everything. This is all graphic and fun enough to make for a fun time, even though the surrounding police investigation makes for a disruption of the events more than anything, and far too much of this is done outside of the found-footage format, which stands out just slightly here.
Overview: ****/5
A likable enough if somewhat flawed entry in the series, there’s more than enough good segments, despite nothing overtly standing out as the best entries have, which leaves this enjoyable if not as immaculate as the top-tier entries in the series. Those with an appreciation for this kind of approach, who are hardcore fans of either found-footage or anthology efforts, or who are fans of the franchise, will have the most to like here, while most others should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment