(The above rating does not represent the review author's opinion below)
By CARLOS PRIMATI, film critic and curator of TRASH - International Fantastic Film Festival
The horror anthology "Stranger Tales" began as the second volume of the omnibus feature "13 Strange Stories" (2015), produced by Ricardo Ghiorzi, from Porto Alegre, bringing together the main horror directors in the southern region of Brazil. In its definitive version, Stranger Tales, with eight segments from four Brazilian states, makes its world premiere at TRASH, featuring the most promising directors - some of them already with some experience and well known in genre cinema - in the present scene of independent fantastic films. Produced by each individual director, with full artistic freedom, the film offers a broad and diversified view of the current Brazilian "strange" cinema, a perfect example of the paths that the fantastic genre is taking in the country.
Violence and blood are shown in all their glory in the short that opens the anthology: "No One", by Rodrigo Brandão, who is best known for his zombie feature "Era of the Dead" (2007). Kapel Furman's segment "The Hand" can be defined as a nightmare with Cronenbergian motifs, highlighting the excellent special effects - Kapel is one of the three FX experts in the Universal Channel reality series Cinelab. Humor, combined with feminist speech in a kind of bitter irony, is the mood of "Woman Ltd.", de Taísa Ennes, who recreates clichés of mad scientists who bring "stiffs" back to life - with a touch of "The Stepford Wives" (1975). Curitiba-born Paulo Biscaia Filho, from the stage and film company Vigor Mortis, sought inspiration from William Shakespeare's Macbeth for "In Thunder, Lightning, or Rain?" segment, filmed outdoors in a impressive long take.
The anthology continues with São Paulo-born Claudio Ellovitch, known for the award-winning short film "Pray" (2014), exploring the enigmatic universe of dreams and avatars in the episode "The Lovers", whose title refers to one of the major arcana of the tarot. "Invisible", by Filipe Ferreira, is a dramatic tale from an unusual character - the invisible man from the title - who leaves to his son a video recording of his story (in which he does not appears, of course, but tells about his life). "Seven Minutes to Midnight", by Ricardo Ghiorzi, the anthology producer, is in the subgenre of diabolical pacts and demonic pregnancy, in real time and in one set. The collection closes with the most ambitious segment of the film: "Apostles", a little masterpiece in the biblical terror strand, as seen by the eyes of a megalomaniacal serial killer in violent delirium. It was directed by Marcos DeBrito, horror books writer and codirector (with André de Campos Mello) of the hit "Massacre County" (2015), one of the best films of the recent Brazilian horror.
Stranger Tales is not only an excellent anthology of contemporary Brazilian production in the fantastic genre, but mainly a proof of originality and the endless possibilities offered by horror, science fiction and fantasy stories.
