Jim Haggerty has come up with a winner for this, his third film. A homage to low budget horror anthologies, the film contains three vignettes and a wrap-around story to tie the whole thing together. We begin the film by meeting Becky, who receives a phone call from an anonymous threatening stranger. He demands that she listen to a story, then tell him one, then listen to a third. In our first story, we meet Victor, a man who thinks he is being followed by a man in a tuxedo that only he can see. There is a lot of ambiguity in this story- is the man real, or only in Victor's imagination? The acting in this story was good, with Jae Mosc really shining in the lead role. The other actors were not quite up to par with his performance, but overall, everyone did well, and Haggerty really conveys a sense of confusion, suspense, and dread with this tale. There were a few issues with the lighting in some scenes, but for a movie of this budget, it is to be expected. The second tale is the story of housewife Carol, and her overbearing and abrasive husband Jeff. Vic Martino does such a great job as the Jeff, he practically steals the whole show- he is spot on and most of his raving is hilarious. Haggerty doesn't allow this to veer into cartoonish behavior altogether however, as he makes sure to include the meanness aspect of such behavior. Very smart move on his part. Back to the story, Carol finds a tribal statue in a store, and brings it home, which causes a 180 degree turnaround in her behavior, and leads us to the shocking conclusion to this tale. The segment seemed like it dragged a bit, but not enough that i would say it detracted form the film for me. Haggerty saved the best segment for last, and that is the tale of retired ventriloquist Abe, and his sick wife Isabelle. Bud Stafford and Kaye Bramblett give the best performances in the film as Abe and Isabelle, and i almost thought they were real-life husband and wife. Cathy St George also does a great job as the therapist. Haggerty adds a very human side to this story, and by not being afraid to bring up some topics of real life concern and emotional weight, he lifts this story up far past the level where it could have stayed. As for the story itself, Abe comes out of retirement to help pay for Isabelle's medication, gets hired to perform at a party for some (mostly) obnoxious youths, and we learn why Isabelle had reservations about Abe working with his dummy Phineas again. Haggerty also makes a statement with the behavior of Jenny (the nice girl, whose birthday party Abe is hired to perform at) and her boyfriend, and "friends", a group that make pond scum seem like convent dwellers. Bud and Kaye excluded, some of the acting in this segment was a bit hit or miss, and again there were a few issues with lighting. Also, the voice of Phineas is such that it is sometimes difficult to understand what he is saying. None of this stops this from being the best segment in the film however. We end by returning to the wrap around segment, where Becky learns with surprise who her phone tormentor is, and then Haggerty throws in one last twist to end the film. One thing not mentioned so far is that there is quite a bit of humor in the movie, and Haggerty knows how to make it work in the context of this genre, which is a skill he develops further with each film he releases. There is also quite a bit of nudity and a fair amount of gore and violence, but Haggerty is smart enough not to overdo it with any of these aspects, and keeps the film pretty well-balanced throughout. Overall, this is fun movie, you can tell that a lot of hard work and enthusiasm went into making it, and it makes you look forward to see what Haggerty has in store for us with future releases. One also can't help but wonder what kind of film he could make if he was given a bigger budget to work with. We can only hope that at some point that opportunity will present itself.
