Scary or Die

The main story, Clown, I didn't think was ever so good.

With all the stories, you know what was going to happen, but they were entertaining nonetheless.

Harks back to the days of the Horror anthologies such as Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the dark side.

The stories twists are rather predictable, in keeping with the anthologies of old, pretty shallow, lacking in substance and explanation.

There are one or two moments that make you wince slightly, but that's it, without them this would be the stuff TV Horror is made of.

Initially I thought it was a collection of short films strung together, until the cast started crossing over from one story to the next.

Watchable, but not worth dedicating your movie night to.

To be fair, if you are looking for a scare, I'd look elsewhere.

I generally love horror anthologies but this one is rarely worth your time. Only one of the five segments deserves mention, the longest one, Clowned. The other four, while not really terrible given the films very low budget, doesn't really stand out and are almost never scary or original.

Usually, these types of films comes with a wrap-around sequence which makes the whole mess coherent, but this one opted not to give us that satisfaction.

I'll still watch any horror anthology I can get my hands on, because if one of the segments aren't satisfying, it's pretty fast on to the next one. Same goes here, where, besides aforementioned Clowned, no segment is longer than 15 minutes. And I'm glad they weren't.

Horror movie made in 2012, consisting of 5 short stories. The movies are zombie, vampire and clown themed.

In the first movie, a woman and two strange men are driving down the road in a pickup truck. These are American nationalists. I think this is the weakest part.

In the second movie, a man is looking for a love for himself. During this search, he sees a kidnapped woman. This episode isn't bad.

In the third story, a man carries a body in the trunk of his car. Another weak episode.

The fourth story is about the man who was attacked by a clown at his brother's birthday party. Not bad.

The fifth and final story is about a woman who loves to death. This isn't bad either.

I was very hopeless. I was going to close it in the first episode. But it wasn't bad.

There is no nudity in the movie, but there is sexuality in the first episode.

A website host examines a series of stories that take place among residents of Los Angeles.

The Good Stor(ies): The Crossing-A group of teens take a trip to the Mexican border for fun and games with captured illegal aliens, but things take a dark turn when their previous victims rise from the dead to take revenge. Actually fairly decent enough with a clever twist here in that it's not immediately about the torture of the victims before since this one manages to get through a little spiel before getting to it's main point, which is fun but those aren't that interesting. Thankfully, the zombie attacks are gruesome and gory enough that they're one of the saving graces here, and manage to make a clichéd segment into something fun.

Clowned-After getting bit by a strange clown for his brother's birthday party, a man finds transforming into a frightening clown and tries to stave off a series of murderous urges as he searches for the one responsible for his condition. Clearly the film's main selling point as there clearly was a lot put into this one with it's extended and obvious length advantage over the others, it's also quite a lot of fun as the change comes on quite slowly and makes for a pretty chilling transformation as all the parts start coming in slowly before the big reveal at his final form which is outrageously creepy and saves the whole film just by itself. While it doesn't get resolved and features a lame shock twist, this is still bloody enough and has a great air about it that it's easily the best thing about this entry.

The Bad Stor(ies): Tae-Jung's Lament-A lonely man attempts to rescue a woman from a strange thief, and upon doing so is granted an opportunity for thanks with her and her friends, unaware they're part of a vampiric cult being hunted down by a master tracker. Far too much melodrama than horror with his rituals about trying to honor his deceased wife and trying to live while doing that, but it doesn't really have a lot of scary moments. The final twist is quite nice as they don't have any association with normal vampiric activities or actions, which again makes this quite frustrating since it doesn't make them appear to be for any reason other than a shock twist at the end. The rescue attempts aren't that bad and actually have some good stuff to them as the segment doesn't tell us what's going on and are just throwing them into the scenario. Overall, this one just feels quite lacking.

Re-Membered-Having finished his assignment, a dirty cop returns to his patrol route in an attempt to get away with his deeds, only to be constantly under suspicion that the dismembered body in his trunk is still alive. A pretty disappointing effort that again runs on tons of clichés, as this one acts like the Poe story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' with a different organ chosen as the only difference here, but the constant thumping in the trunk of the car and his frantic worry about getting away with it are just right out of that story. It's brevity is another issue, as the barely fifteen-minute time doesn't allow for it to go anywhere but the story doesn't really give it the chance to. The appearance of the still-alive body at the end doesn't have any ring to it at all, and overall this one feels like filler.

Lover Come Back-After a spat with her lover causes her to die, she returns from the grave powered by a voodoo curse to seek revenge on her philandering spouse. This is overall the weakest at barely ten minutes in length and given a pointless, needless narration which brings out the entire backstory and what's going on on-screen while it's happening and robbing it of everything it could've had by choosing to do such a tactic. Again, the story plays out the way you expect it to without any real change simply because it don't offer any place to go but to dwell in the land of the familiar and because it focuses so long on the romance to start the relationship before dwelling on the supernatural return this doesn't get the chance to do anything of any importance before it goes for the familiar, and more than any of the segments this one's inclusion is pointless and unnecessary.

Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.