Return to the Theatre of Terror

I love scary movies! I love anthologies! I love the indomitable spirit of Independent film and filmmakers! The team at Theatre of Terror have expertly crafted a feature that displays the tremendous talents of the New Jersey horror film community and wonderfully talented actors of the unique New York/New Jersey film scene! Return to Theatre looks great, sounds great and feels great! Like watching your favorite horror television classics like Twilight Zone, Tales From The Darkside or Outer Limits. Director Thomas Ryan and his team hit a fun and scary home run! A MUST-SEE for lovers of classic horror cinema blended perfectly with late night Sci-Fi television fun!

The segments go on FOR EV ER. FOR. EV. ER. Especially the second one. Plots are very basic and predictable, nothing new here to write home about (not going to "spoil" them for you).

Acting is bad. Editing is bad (why the hell is this 2.5 hours ?!?!?!?). There is a litterslly 10 minutes of a guy yelling. Ten solid minutes of a dude yelling.

It's very restrained. Movie is not rated, but it probably could get a PG status. I don't remember any nudity or swearing. No graphic violence (although I guess the little bit of violence and 'adult situations' might get it a pg13).

It gets 3 stars because it doesn't look or sound awful (for thr most part). At least they didn't shoot it on an iPhone.

Always on the lookout for a decent horror anthology that I haven't seen, I ran across this title somewhere and decided to give it 10 minutes to win me over. After 10 minutes, it was obvious that, unlike so many excretable horror anthologies out there, that this was a professional and talented production, so I kept watching.

First things first. The good: as I noted, this was pretty well-made. I don't know what the budget was (though the alphabetical list of thanks to people who helped at the end of the movie suggests it was basically a crowdfunded indie project), but whatever it was, the people behind the movie made good use of it. It wasn't perfect but clearly a cut above the average amateur affair. Also good: the writing was...pretty decent. Some of the dialogue was a bit clunky, but nothing distractingly so. The framing segments were okay, if a bit too hammy on occasion. One of the segments stood out from the rest, "Splinter," and I do appreciate the attempts to get in actual horror without going for upbeat endings in the other segments.

Inevitably, some shorts in horror anthologies will better than others. This is not to say any of them were *bad*, as such. They all had decent elements of horror, but only one of them, "Splinter." seem to really embrace true horror throughout. The others relied on bringing the horror in or near the very end, which presented a problem due to my main complaint here...the extent of unnecessary filler. The run-time of almost 2.5 hours elides into this criticism. The shorts involved, while clearly done with an eye toward good cinema, were stretched out far too long. The stories and their resolutions didn't rate so much filler, especially given how simple and straightforward they were and how little horror they actually had for most of their narratives.

Being well-made, and being that, even with my above criticism of the segments, it rates a solid 7 for me. Good enough that I've put the original movie (the one being returned to in the title here) in my queue to watch sometime soon.

Tom Ryan did it again with Return To The Theatre of Terror. In his second collection of short stories, we are taken on another trip with the consequences of time travel in the Sothsayer to an infection that goes out of controlled in Splinter with paranormal investigations with acts of self righteousness in Haunted to a boy finding a new toy that fell from the skies in Robot.

Tom Ryan ups the special effects adding to the stories told in each one. The editing and camera shots are nicely done as each story progresses.

Tom Ryan and Todd Staruch did good with the stories.

If your a fan of Creepshow and The Twilight Zone then this will be up your ally as both are influence in this collection.

For a B-movie, the production values were pretty good, as was the acting and music. The stories, however, were mostly too long and drawn out, with the exception of the first and last one, which was my favorite. I fast-forwarded through some of them. In my opinion, most of them are more like dramas than horror, with the exception of the longest one. I guessed what was going to happen in that one, though, so the ending didn't shock me. I would say these are more comparable to an Alfred Hitchcock Presents type of storyline. I did like the story ideas; they just weren't actually very scary.

It's okay for a watch if you're looking for something lighter and don't mind B-movies. If you're looking to be scared, or want Hollywood production values, look elsewhere.