Director: Ryan Spindell
Writer: Ryan Spindell
Stars: Tristan Byon, Eden Campbell, Hannah R. Loyd
Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes
Synopsis
We open on a little boy riding his bicycle in the small town of Raven’s End. He’s delivering newspapers with the headline “Boggy Bad Tooth Fairy Strikes Again.” He stops at a big old house with a pile of newspapers out front (with varying creepy headlines). An ancient old man comes to the door and scares him away, but the boy leaves his camera behind.
We shift scenes and see that the old man, Montgomery Dark, is the mortician. He gives a eulogy, and he gets a little carried away. He meets Sam after the funeral, and she is there to answer the “Help Wanted” sign. He has a huge library of books, all of which are about why and how people died. Sam wants to hear one of those stories…
1: A woman takes a break from a tedious party to hide out in the bathroom/ She’s stolen a bunch of wallets and sorts through them, keeping the money and tossing the rest. She cuts herself, and the monsters behind the mirror go berserk and eat her. Sams thinks the story was “fun,” and Dark tells her more.
2: In the second story, Jake, a young man passes out condoms to the sorority girls on campus before inviting them to his party. It’s a gimmick to find out which girls are easy. Sandra meets Jake. Later, at the party, Sandra arrives, and Jake is very interested in her. They joke about her being a serial killer, and then they get really serious and naked. She hands him a condom, and he very obviously removes it. They have sex all night, and in the morning, she’s gone, and he gets sick. He’s got a really severe rash “down there.”
He goes to the doctor, and it turns out he’s pregnant. He takes a “Plan C” pill, but he pukes it right back up. He’s noticeably showing the very next afternoon. He calls Sandra back, and he gets ready to go over to see her. Before he can leave, his fraternity brothers gang up on him to give him a pennant. As the gang hoist him above their heads, his water breaks all over them, which gets their attention. He goes into her house, and Sandra’s mother acts like “Oh, not another one.” He asks, “How’s it going to come out?” to which Sandra’s mother explains, “The same way it went in.” He then gives birth.
Back in the mortuary, Sam heads knocking coming from the dead little boy’s coffin. No, it’s just an elevator to the embalming room. They look at the body of a dead woman, and Dark starts another story.
3: Carol and Wendell are getting married. When it’s time to say his vows, Wendell wakes up– it’s a nightmare. Turns out he’s already married, and Carol is nearly comatose.
The old lady downstairs tells Wendell that they never did anything while her husband was alive, but now that he’s dead, she travels and take cruises. Wendell mentions that he’s afraid of elevators, and he lives on the twelfth floor. We then get a “feeding montage” for his unresponsive wife, and it’s clear that Wendell is not thrilled with how his life has turned out. The doctor says she might last another year or possibly more.
The doctor gives him some pain medication that is very strong; he explains that Wendell could use them to end his suffering. That very night, he gives her the pills. He changes his mind and gets her to puke it up, but there’s a hilarious accident and she dies anyway. The doctor tells Wendell to dump the body in the ocean and let the sharks eat her–Really? Really?
He packs her into a suitcase and heads into the elevator. The elevator goes down– until it gets stuck. Then things start going really badly for Wendell. He’s eventually committed to the local asylum.
Sam comments that all the stories so far have been predictable, which annoys Dark. Sam explains that the little boy, whose name was Logan, was killed, and it was all her fault; she lied about the job interview. She wants to tell Dark her story…
Sam and Logan are home alone, and a report comes on TV that says the local asylum had a power outage and some people may have escaped. Sam finds a strange man covered in blood in her living room. They have a gory battle. She eventually kills him, but it turns out that he may not have been the most dangerous one in the house…
Dark asks Sam “Why?” He has his collection, and she has hers. She has her secrets, and Mr. Dark his his. Once again, she may not be the most dangerous one in the room…
Commentary
Clancy Brown’s makeup is awesome here. He’s not as young as he used to be, but he looks really horrible here. The sets are cool, and everything has a sort of grungy-retro 50s or 60s look to it with old-time televisions and radios, although the stories seem to be taking place in the present. The special effects and creature work is really excellent.
The various stories range from good to excellent, and the wraparound story was one of the better anthology wrappers that I’ve seen. Overall, it’s definitely worth a watch.