By Geno McGahee
I love anthologies. The mixed bag usually presents something for everyone. In HORROR ANTHOLOGY MOVIE: VOLUME 1, we have a collection of shorts put together. There is no wraparound tale, unfortunately. So, this is more of just a collection of shorts rather than the traditional anthology, but a collection of horror shorts can still be a treat.
We begin with THE CORDYCEPS PRINCIPLE by Mike T. Lyddon. A man in a miserable relationship wants out. On a trip to the jungle, he comes across the “zombie ant” fungus that has somehow spread to a mammal. He sees it as a way to get to his mean girlfriend and slips her some zombie fungus. There are no good guys in this tale and it’s difficult to support either main character, but the story is unique enough that it is very interesting. I liked the fact that Lyddon used the zombie ants phenomena was very cool. This tale wasn’t great, but the unique storyline kept me hooked. Rating: 6/10
FIVE MILES STRAIGHT AHEAD is a short film about black soldiers in World War II. Written and Directed by King Jeff, we have a very interesting story about government experimentation. One of the soldiers begins scratching and coughing and it keeps getting worse. Suddenly, he spontaneously combusts. The other three soldiers bury him, but then it spreads to the other soldiers. The ending of this tale is really neat and it’s a good tale overall. I enjoyed the historical reflection and government conspiracy angle. Rating: 7/10
THING IN THE SHED is written by Mike T. Lyddon is the best of this lot of shorts. A late night visit from a friend brings an alien presence to a home. A black box infects a family, turning them into pitch black monsters. This tale is creepy and the monsters look really cool. Lyddon, once again, takes a unique approach to horror and the viewer benefit from it. I really liked this tale. It was very compelling. Rating: 8/10
SECTION 49, written and directed by Karl DeMolay and Michael Gosack. Oh dear, we were doing so well with this film and then I came across this short film. Any time you see a black and white film in this day and age, you are seeing the filmmaker (usually a film student straight out of school) trying to convince the audience that they are making something intelligent. This tale is a mess and maybe I just don’t get it. I’m not a fan of ERASERHEAD and people seem to like that and that is what this seems to be based on. Just throw strange visuals at the audience, put it in black and white, and hope for the best. This was just terrible. Rating: 1/10
BLOOD OF A SAINT, written by Will Frank. Puppets and a penis replacement. That’s the story and if you like puppets and you like penis replacements, then you may enjoy this. We come from THING IN THE SHED and now I’m looking at puppets having sex. How did I get here? How strange. This tale may impress thirteen year old boys, but I just thought it was stupid. Rating: 2/10
FOOTAGE FOUND, ARABI by Mike T. Lyddon and Michael Gosack is a found footage tale. A man inherits a box that his father leaves him and it contains some footage from 1932. The footage leads to some very neat visuals, including some monster scenes that were really neat. This is a pretty straight forward horror story and I really enjoyed it. There were no puppets and the black and white shots were appropriate here. I don’t know if liked this one more because the two that came before it were so bad, but whatever the case, it was a pretty fun tale. Rating: 7/10
HORROR ANTHOLOGY MOVIE: VOLUME ONE is a mixed bag. We have a collection of shorts crammed together into a 116 minute film. I would have loved to see Mike T. Lyddon remove the two lesser tales, throw in a wraparound and make this more of a traditional horror anthology, but I’ll take this for what it is. It’s a good collection of horror shorts with a couple of questionable entries.
Let’s do the math: 6+7+8+1+2+7 = A rating of 5/10.
