There hasn’t been a decent anthology film in a long time,
and horror lends itself to the concept better than most genres. I’m no big fan of the “found footage”
sub-genre, but it’s fine when it’s done right, as it is frequently in this
film. The biggest flaw is the shear
implausibility of characters continuing to keep those camcorders and
camera-phones going even as they’re freaking out and running for their lives. The framing situation in this film is that some
guys are sent to steal a video tape from an old man’s house, and when they get
there, they find him dead surrounded by a bank of TVs flickering static. There are tons of tapes lying around and the
thieves take turns popping in random videos to see what’s on them; hence the
five spooky tales we are treated to. All
anthology films have an inherent problem; while trying to enjoy them you’re
constantly evaluating how each segment measures up against the others; you
always need to decide which is the worst and which is the best. So here I go.
My favorite was Ti West’s segment; not extremely original, but nice and
brief and pretty scary, even though it has a dopey twist ending. Also I liked it best because it’s the only
one that isn’t supernatural. There’s
also a good one about an unstable girl video-chatting with her boyfriend from
her apparently haunted apartment. All in
all, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you like “found footage” and horror
movies, but mostly the stories tend to hinge on their gimmicks and therefore
don’t encourage being taken very seriously.
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