I’m a fan of horror movies, but this really pushes my appreciation to its limits. First strike: The box cover looks like it’s for an amateur porn movie (it’s a picture of a naked lady sitting in front of a computer). Then there are the vignettes. They aren’t scary, but they are clichéd and predictable, and they tend to be fairly pointless. The basic premise of a burglar (Joel D. Wynkoop), who, like Wolverine, is the “best” at what he does, breaking into a home of a horror writer and reading his stories is played out. You see the end coming the second the burglar sits down at the computer monitor.
Throughout this “horror” anthology I kept thinking that this was actually meant to be viewed while masturbating. I don’t know why, but the violence against the women in the pieces had an almost low-grade, porno-like feel. Sometimes the story felt like an afterthought to get some woman naked and slit her throat while the camera lingered on her (almost) motionless body.
Despite the complaints, of which there are many more than I’ve even begun to list, the movie did feel creepy at times. It wasn’t the stories that did it, though. It was the tone and cinematography that gave the entire production a 42nd Street pseudo-snuff film vibe. Would I recommend it to horror fans? No way. It’s too juvenile — even for fans of Freddy and Jason. Wanna-be serial killers with an interest in revenge may get a kick out of it, though.
