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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated
1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going
to review every single movie I see. I’m
going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the
rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future). You can always ask me why I gave the ratings
for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses
under the ‘About Me’ section).
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Two Sentence Horror
Stories (Season 2) OK
I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again---I
love short stories, be it visual or literary, as long as they’re long enough to
be engaging, and I can never pass up an anthology show or movie.
So, here we are with season two of this
anthology show originally airing on The CW but also made available on Netflix
after ending on that channel (I say just watch it on Netflix to avoid
commercials).
You can read my review for
the first season here---
https://vampireclown82.blogspot.com/2019/10/anna-and-apocalypse.html---and
I’m going to do the same thing in this review wherein I describe each episode
in two sentences to be in rhythm with the show.
To reiterate, and for those unaware of this show, a sentence is
displayed on screen at the beginning of each segment and another sentence is
added at the very end to that first one, pretty much summarizing what you just
saw (hence the
two sentence in the
title).
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Bag Man
Teenagers in detention, although it’s not quite The Breakfast Club; those teenagers had
it easier. Should’ve been longer.
Elliot
Transgender male is provided with an instrument that makes
his tormentors suffer, but, like always, there’s a catch. Could be vicariously cathartic for some, but
it’s rather silly in execution.
Instinct
A female writer works another job to pay rent. Never know whether she’s imagining shit or
it’s actually happening, but I didn’t really care either way.
Imposter
Worker tries to impress his future in-laws at the job. I’m guessing the “doppelganger” he tries to
destroy is the stereotypical version of himself he doesn’t want to be known as?
Quota
Zombie-ish film set at a warehouse. Nothing special about it at all.
Fix
Brother and sister reunite at cabin. There’s a demonic possession of sorts, but The Evil Dead this is not, not by a long
shot.
Essence
Body horror at a salon.
Much-deserved comeuppance for the villain.
El Muerto
After The Sixth Sense,
the whole notion of “dead people not knowing they’re dead at first” hasn’t been
fresh. Especially if it’s predictable.
Ibeji
The title, I learned after researching, means twins in a
West African dialect, and this does involve twin sisters. It also involves a practical creature whose
design didn’t make me recall an entirely similar one.
Manifest Destiny
Production involving a re-enactment between Europeans and American
Indians that is, like many such tales, fabricated to a degree. Some end up possessed by the spirits of those
being portrayed and I think you can deduce that doesn’t mean anything good.
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Like the first season, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this
collection as a whole. There were
definitely more misses than hits; I do include segments that are just okay as
leaning more towards misses. I think I
liked “Bag Man,” “Ibeji,” and “Manifest Destiny” the best, but even they
weren’t extremely notable entries. For
those that don’t really care for anthology shows/movies, I wouldn’t tell you to
watch this, but for those that do (like yours truly), all I can say, if you
have absolutely nothing else to watch, is that they are all short (19 and 20
minutes each without commercials, so watch them on Netflix if you can) and the
season as a whole totals a little over 3 hours.
Even though I can’t say this is my favorite anthology show after just
two seasons, yes, I will watch a third season and so on, but I just hope they’ll
contain more hits than misses, thank you very much! 3/1/2021
Bonus reviews:
The House (A Hulu Halloween Anthology) OK/G
As the subtitle states, this was an anthology series
exclusive to Hulu released in 2017 around Halloween. There are 6 segments totaling roughly 32
minutes, the longest ones being 7 minutes (3 are that length), the shortest
being just 2 minutes. “The Projectionist”
involves a movie theater that does more than just show the same movie. “Unexplained Phenomena, Part 1” comes off as
a “true story” show providing us with an instance of a journalist in a haunted
house; you’ll recognize a face from the original Pet Sematary (“Unexplained Phenomena, Part 2” is in the
extras). “Let Us In” revolves around
home invaders getting more than they bargained for (hint---it’s not by the
hands of other people). “The Tree” is a
brief animated sequence that is darkly poetic, while “Origins” is even shorter,
depicting a photographic montage of what you’ve seen in the previous episodes
as well as some famous haunted houses in cinematic history. The episode in between those two, “Seven
Moons,” was a futuristic tale (set at the end of the 25th century)
featuring a creature which, when revealed at the end, ties in with the rest of
the series. All in all, wasn’t a bad
series for all the episodes being really short and you could do worse;
“Unexplained Phenomena, Part 1” and “Origins” were my least faves, although I
do recommend watching “Part 2” of the former in the extras to make the segment
feel more whole and a little less average on its own. 2/27/2021
Bite Size Halloween
I can never stress enough my love for anthology
films/shows. Ones featuring extremely
short segments, much like their flash fiction literary equivalent, i.e. The ABCs of Death, I was never as
fervent about. As I mentioned above in
the review for season two of Two Sentence
Horror Stories, I like my short stories (visual or literary) to be long
enough in order to be somewhat engaging.
Really short stories, or “bite size” as this anthology series available
on Hulu labels them, often don’t end up being engaging. I am always curious though to see what kind of
tales can be crammed into such short time periods, and I did know what I was
getting into before watching. There are
28 episodes here and my loser ass added them all up to be a total of roughly 95
minutes; 17 of them are 3 minutes, 5 are 4 minutes, 3 are 2 minutes, and there
are individual 5-minute, 6-minute, and 7-minute segments (boy, I really do
have no life, do I?). So, you can either binge the entire series in
one sitting since it’ll be the length of an average movie anyway, or you can
watch them in segments if you don’t have that much time, or you’re looking to
kill time. Since there are 28 episodes
and I’m not the biggest fan of really short anthology shows to begin with, you
can bet there are plenty of misses, or ones that are simply okay; some silly
entries included “Mondays,” “Landline,” “Summoned,” and “Baby.” Some of my favorites ones included “Visible,”
“Devil Vac,” “The Mime,” “Thirst (which was a unique undead tale),” “Costume
Change,” and “Missing,” the latter two containing endings I didn’t expect. So, if you like your anthology show stories
really short, there’s bound to be some episodes to your liking here. If you like them a bit longer (like yours
truly), well, like I said, you know what you’re getting into if you decide to
take a peek…3/2/2021
Other
movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):
Archenemy >>>OK
Home with a View of
the Monster >>>EH
Hosts >>>EH
Into the Dark: The Current Occupant >>>EH
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: Delivered
>>>EH
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: Good Boy
>>>EH
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: Pooka Lives! >>>OK/G
(Hulu)
---Sean O.
3/3/2021
