MY CALL: This was pretty fun. There’s no clever writing or inspired ideas to be found here. The stories are pretty basic. Just plain old-fashioned, simple murderous fun in the form of some silly horror shorts. This would be great for introducing a young person (like an early teen with a dark sense of humor) to the genre.
MORE HORROR ANTHOLOGIES: Dead of Night (1945), Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Screams of a Winter Night (1979), Creepshow (1982), Screamtime (1983), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Deadtime Stories (1986), Creepshow 2 (1987), From a Whisper to a Scream (1987; aka The Offspring), After Midnight (1989), Tales from the Crypt Season 1 (1989), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), Grimm Prairie Tales (1990), The Willies (1990), Two Evil Eyes (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Campfire Tales (1997), Dark Tales of Japan (2004), 3 Extremes (2004), Creepshow 3 (2006), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), All Hallows’ Eve (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013), The ABCs of Death 2 (2014), V/H/S Viral (2014), Southbound (2015), Tales of Halloween (2015), A Christmas Horror Story (2015), The ABCs of Death 2.5 (2016), Holidays (2016), Terrified (2017; aka Aterrados, a pseudo-anthology), Oats Studios, Vol. 1 (2017), Ghost Stories (2017), XX (2017), All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), The Field Guide to Evil (2018), Nightmare Cinema (2018), Blood Clots (2018), Shudder’s series Creepshow (2019-2021), Scare Package (2019), The Mortuary Collection (2019), Xenophobia (2019), V/H/S/94 (2021), Netflix’s series Cabinet of Curiosities (2022), V/H/S/99 (2022), V/H/S/85 (2023) and V/H/S/Beyond (2024).
This anthology essentially feels like three Tales from the Crypt episodes were strung together into a movie. And like the Tales from the Crypt series, this is a who’s who of major cameos both in terms of actors and major horror filmmakers. The stories may be a bit gory at times. But the tone is rather light and playful. This is clearly meant more to amuse, and not to scare.
Hosted by a kooky coroner (John Carpenter) who cuts his steak with a bonesaw and sips formaldehyde martinis, we are introduced to each anthology segment with Crypt Keeper-esque style. Between anthology segments, we enjoy some dark humor and corpse shenanigans. Tom Arnold (Freddy’s Dead) and Tobe Hooper have cameos as coroners in this wraparound segment called The Morgue.
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Gas Station
The story of a new employee, an unlucky homeless guy, her employer, her employer’s murderer, and a hero who forgot his credit card. Anne (Alex Datcher; Netherworld) starts her first graveyard shift at a gas station the night a murder takes place in Haddonfield. She encounters a ragged creepy customer (Wes Craven; Wes Craven’s New Nightmare), gets locked out of the attendant’s box trying to help a customer (David Naughton; Amityville: A New Generation, An American Werewolf in London), a creepy homeless man turns up dead in the garage… and so does her co-worker (Sam Raimi; Intruder). The highlight is when a guy is crushed under the car lift and spews out gouts of blood.
Hair
Despite every bit of support and assurance his girlfriend Megan (Sheena Easton) can muster, Richard (Stacy Keach; Children of the Corn 666, Class of 1999) is incredibly insecure about losing his hair. His fear of balding is driving Megan mad, and away from him.
Richard contacts a hair-rejuvenation doctor (David Warner; Waxwork, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead, The Company of Wolves, The Unnamable II, Ice Cream Man) from a TV ad, and after his treatment he instantly has a ridiculous head of long, rock star locks. Unfortunately, he keeps growing hair—it continues to grow rapidly and from places it shouldn’t… including his face. It turns out there’s more to this hair treatment than he thought.
Eye
A baseball (Mark Hamill; The Guyver, Child’s Play) player suffers a gory, career-ending eye injury in a car accident. After undergoing an experimental eye transplant, he begins to see things that slowly drive him mad. With the eye of a murderer in his head, he begins to see past victims and behave like a complete psychopath. It gets a bit stressful (from a domestic violence perspective) and culminates in him stabbing out his new eye to free himself of his madness.
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Directors John Carpenter (Gas Station, Hair) and Tobe Hooper (Eye) deliver three light horror segments in the vein of Tales from the Crypt. The audience is graced with some great chonky wound, latex and blood work, as well as numerous cameos including Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead), Debbie Harry (aka, Blondie; Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie, Videodrome), ex-model Twiggy, and producer Roger Corman.
There’s nothing special to be found here. It’s just something nice to watch with a lot of familiar faces for films fans of the era.