I would guess this could have been the inspiration for Garth's Marenghi's Darkplace, except the latter was made 14 years prior to this.
Psychomanteum isn't in that kind of league, however. One of the first problems I had to deal with was the sound. The audio quality on all components is so poor that I found it unwatchable without closed-caption subtitles. Then the between-story narration is a disaster: I suspect the narrator didn't bother to do read-through before being recorded. And for most of the pieces within, the scripts, acting, and visuals are all so appalling that one assumes they were made by students. But not film students, however. I'm guessing they were made by high schoolers or adult education students that were given some camera equipment for a few weeks. The most successful thing about them is that they were handed in completed.
I have to admit, however, that there are a few exceptions: The Language of Birds was highly stylized and strange, but actually good.
I also enjoyed the sex-change story, although I don't think it was made all that well. And, the priest-in-the-water story was a clever idea, if not marvelously executed. If I hadn't dozed off part way through it I might have enjoyed this one more.
Overall, bad, but not quite the deliberate or good kind of bad. Do check out Garth Marenghi, though: That's the way it should be done.
