Midnight Peepshow

I really enjoyed this movie, each chapter full of twists and turns as it brings you face to face with a horror of the dark web and video on demand extremes. Each story is cleverly executed, captivating, and sends a real chill down your spine as the gritty and sinister plots unravel, with a great twisted overlaying story tying them all together in a brutally scary and dark package. This film is a definite ten, it binds together feels from Hostel and Saw, as well as bringing a fresh edge that really.puts it in a class of its own. Midnight Peepshow feels premium production quality at all times and introduces us to some incredible stars of the future within the cast as well as the production and writers team. I hope to see a lot more from them.

Looking for a date on Valentine's Day, a man encounters a series of shady individuals in a suburb of London leading him to a mysterious adults-only show that features the performers telling him their life stories.

The Good Stor(ies): Personal Space-Stuck together in a cramped apartment, an arguing couple finds themselves forced to bend to the whims of a mysterious intruder who begins taunting them to play out a dark fantasy of hers only for a series of reveals to interrupt their plans. This was a solid enough starting point even though it does have some issues. The main selling point here is the intriguing starting point that brings about a chilling series of events in the first half as we don't know what's going on beyond the intruder coming into the situation where they're slightly at odds with each other the reveals that come about here aren't bad and do turn out to be far more shocking than expected, but it highlights the series of unrealistic situations that occur with how we're supposed to treat the reveals that take place. On top of that, for a film about the depths of sexual deviance and tortures taking place this one is immensely cloying about the potential sleaze here with the majority of this one featuring clothed sexual encounters or shying away from the scene for no reason why hold this up somewhat.

Midnight Peepshow-Looking for a date on Valentine's Day, a man encounters a series of shady individuals in a suburb of London leading him to a mysterious adults-only show that features the performers telling him their life stories. This was a solid enough wrap-around if just a bit underwhelming as a story on its own. With the man going around and finding out about the club which leads him into the booths of the performers where they tell their stories, the means of introducing the various clips on display is a workable enough idea as there's an idea at play here with the performers going through their stories so that works decently enough. The whole purpose of this being a means of tying in the thematic ideas and concepts from the other stories is a bit underwhelming as there's more at stake in the other segments to tie them together so it makes no sense why they needed to do so again in the finale here which is a wholly disappointing one to try to end this one. Still, its intermediate trips through the darkened club to get to the next booth offer up some intriguing aspects to like overall here.

The Bad Stor(ies): F***, Marry, Kill-Waking up chained together inside a strange dungeon, a woman and three men from her past are forced to play a dangerous game of MFK with each other to get out of their predicament. This was a massively disappointing and barely worthwhile segment without much going for it. The general setup makes no sense as for how they all got together in the situation as none of this is explained at all so why anyone goes through with it or even cares is an entirely moot point. Even moreso is the fact that there's very little interesting about anyone here that makes playing the game feel like something worth fighting for as its devolution into Torture-Porn-style aesthetics manages to completely drain any interest from the setup just as much as the highly underwhelming and unlikable the guys are. There's hardly anything about any of the men she's forced to spend the trip with that makes it seem they're supposed to be prizes or any kind of believable outcome, leaving this one to only work with the dingy atmosphere and gore to work nicely with.

The Black Rabbit-Trying to spice up your love life, a housewife starts to undertake challenges from a website designed to make her live out sexual fantasies, but when she grows addicted to the dangers the site provides, forcing him to try to rescue her. This was a disappointing and barely worthwhile sexual thriller to end things on. The general idea here is about the only thing that works, with the idea of the site drawing her deeper into a more perverted underworld than she initially expected before getting in so deep as to be in over her head on what she wants out of the experience. That's believable and comes off incredibly well but none of it is threatening or scary with very little of any interest happening or a motivation as to why he wants her to come back after going through what he does here so its motivations are sorely lacking overall. As well, the old-age problem of the storylines here involving tons of egregious sexual content and concepts but done in a coy manner with clothed sex scenes despite the depravity on offer makes it disjointed and out-of-touch the concept is.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Full Nudity, sex scenes, and mild drug use.

I am not the audience for this kind of film, I like horror not torture. Having said that, I can really appreciate what this film does and how well it does it. This is, at minimum, at least as depraved as you'd expect, possibly more depraved. It's an interesting concept and the characters are engaging enough, although I got a bit confused between all the brunette women as they look so similar. The acting is good and so is the cinematography, one of the better made indie horror films. So it is well made but it is flawed and for me the biggest flaw was the writing. The pacing is a little slow, you get it well before the film gets there. I just also think it misses its audience and that the audience for this kind of film isn't there anymore. I could be wrong about that though. My favourite sections of the linked-anthology were the wraparound and the final story although I wasn't a fan of the ending. If you like Hostel (2005) and Saw (2004) kind of horror films then you'll really like this film whereas it's a bit too nasty for me to enjoy.

A clever plot, dark story with a few twists and very atmospheric. I like the shots around the Soho backstreets and homage to the old peepshows. Four very talented directors giving something for everyone and a nice touch with the legend Zach Galligan being involved. There was also great humour at times giving a nice balance. I enjoyed the acting, especially from the lead role and her journey through the film. It's a good length packing a lot in, in a short time keeping everything moving at a fast pace. Finally the cinematography was excellent really driving the look and feel of the film. I'm looking forward to seeing more work from these directors in the future and really enjoyed it!

A cool custom Valentine's anthology for seekers of a little exploitation on the sadistic side. Wasn't sure what this was going to be when I fired it up, but the interesting artwork cover, synopsis, and name meant I was sure to check it out. As expected, it is a little on the cheap side for production technicals, but not at all bad. For example, the audio was kind of unclear or muffly for the voice in several parts, so I found myself having to skip back a few times to figure out what was said. More importantly, I cared what was being said enough to skip it back and pick it up. The acting, costuming, and visuals are all highly passable, if not great in some sequences for this type and budget of film, with a small number of cheap props that stood out a bit. I found it quite entertaining on the whole, along with its darker Alice in Wonderland artistical bits to tell its story arc. This is probably not going to be a first pick for mainstreamers, but certainly something I will watch again with my niche-horror seeking friends. IMO, a good Valentine's day-themed sadistic offering to check out if your taste includes the likes of American Mary (2012), May (2002) and Excision (2012).