Release Date - 2019
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Monsters are not always in your head"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)
Rating (out of 5):
Horror anthologies were such a huge part of my childhood. During the beginning of my horror addiction I found myself obsessed with George A. Romero so Creepshow and Creepshow 2 was the foundation of my anthology love. Soon I was diving into Twilight Zone: The Movie, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, From a Whisper to a Scream, and Tales from the Hood just to name a few. What makes a great anthology, at least to me, is the wrap around segment. If that doesn't do a good job holding the other tales together then I struggle to enjoy myself. A few weeks ago Shout Studios announced the DVD release of the 2019 anthology film Dark Stories. As I said, I'm a sucker for a good horror anthologies so I reached out to them for a review copy which they were kind enough to send over. Thank you guys.
The film follows a single mother and her son who receive a strange gift. It's a life sized wooden man. After putting him together she soon realizes that the wooden man is alive and intent on killing her. She soon finds herself bound to a chair while he approaches with a knife. In a last ditch effort to save her life she offers to tell her captor a series of horror tales throughout the night until dawn where something worse than any story she told is waiting for it's breakfast.
Prior to writing this review I did a quick Google search and discovered that Dark Stories was originally intended to be an anthology series rather than a film. I don't know the reasoning behind abandoning this for the film but it worked for the most part. The acting in this one is very well done. A lot of the segments consist of dual languages that switch back and forth forcing the viewer to be on their toes. I wasn't really a fan of this but it is very impressive how the cast could effortless jump between languages like that. Also, the cast does a phenomenal job at getting into character. They are truly dedicated to their roles and it shows. The stories for this is very inconsistent but they do get better and the film progresses. By the half way point in the film I was ready to give this one a negative review but soon after this the segments picked up and really delivered. The ones that really stood out to me was the segment following the murdered man seeking revenge and the story of the jogger who finds herself in the park while ghosts haunt her. The highlight of the film was the wrap around segments that did a fantastic job bookending the entire film. It does borrow from the premise of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie where both follows someone about to die as they buy their time by telling stories. It works and the twist was one I didn't expect. Finally, the film has some fun effects and gags. We get some great practical effects and some questionable visual effects. The practical is great and adds a lot to the film while the visual effects were hit and miss. They all stood out but some were not as bad as others. Overall, Dark Stories is an uneven horror anthology that has some fun segments and not so fun segments. However, the good outweigh the bad. I recommend checking it out especially if you are looking for some late night scares.
No comments:
Post a Comment