By Geno McGahee
I really like Joe Estevez as an actor. He may be the most talented Estevez of all time, and he does one hell of a job as “Fortunato” in the Garrett Clancy film “KILLER STORY,” a horror anthology, featuring tales based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe. Typically, I’m not a fan of Poe related horror…so it took me quite a while to watch this film, which I found in a Pendulum Pictures 50 pack, but I’m glad I finally got around to it.
Monty (William Smith) and Fortunato arrive at a bar and they take a seat on the stools. A woman (Susan Featherly) approaches and starts flirting. Both men are world famous writers and the woman is quite impressed with their celebrity status…so much so, that she has offered herself to the person that tells the most impressive story. Right then, I thought: “She’s going to bang Estevez.”
Fortunato tells the first story by the name of “Bernie,” a take on the main character of the same name played by Janet Tracy Keijser. She is an incredible bitch to her husband, Mitch (Ronald Drewes), a struggling writer that has failed in the business. Bernie gave up her dreams to be an actress to support his writing and outside of an episode of COP ROCK, he hasn’t accomplished a thing.
Very bitter, Bernie takes out her anger on Mitch. At one point, two teenage girls show up, raising money. Mitch donates to the fundraiser and tells them how pretty they are. Bernie shows up and screams: “Amber alert! Amber alert” and calls her own hubby a “Pedi (pedophile).” At one point, Mitch considered his wife his “muse” but the mistreatment and infidelity has ruined him. He is caught sleeping among all of the modeling pictures of his wife. She walks in with her lover and yells at him, screaming: “what, did you jerk off on these pictures!” She then proceeds to step on his balls with her heels as punishment. This guy needs to file for divorce.
In the end, Mitch has enough and puts an end to his problem. It was a pretty good tale, but it was straight forward. The shocks were minimal and there were no surprises. What it lacked in surprise and shock, it made up for in over the top insults and profanity from Bernie. I was very amused by this tale and if it’s entertaining, it’s good. It’s god damn good!
Next up was “The Tell Tale Lips,” Monty’s tale. It concerns poor Martha (Emmy Smith), doomed to take care of her brain-damaged husband, George. George (Patrick Thomas) was once a teacher, but now he is a vegetable and is annoying the hell out of her. She has a lot more patience than I do. She puts up with his disgusting eating habits, constantly cleaning up his mess, and eventually, she has enough.
She takes him into the woods and is going to kill him, but she has a change of heart. She has another change of heart when she gets vomited on by the slob. She chops him up into tiny pieces, but the past comes back to haunt her.
Overall, this tale was watchable, but if the girl is going to give herself to one of the writers on the basis of the story alone, Estevez wins. There is, of course, a twist ending that was relatively decent that left Estevez screaming “no” three times, each time louder and more desperate than the next. That alone is worth the price of rental, which in my case was ….hmmm, let’s see. I bought the 50 pack for 15 dollars. So I paid 30 cents for it. It is worth a lot more than 30 cents. I recommend this. I was very entertained.
Scared Stiff Rating: 7/10.
