Tom Holland's Twisted Tales

I recently watched the horror anthology Tom Holland's Twisted Tales (2014) on Tubi. This 2-hour and 24-minute collection of short stories dives into cults, bombings, werewolves, hauntings, slashers, and everything in between.

Written and directed entirely by Tom Holland (Child's Play), the film features a surprising cast, including William Forsythe (Raising Arizona), Danielle Harris (Halloween 4), Noah Hathaway (Atreyu from The NeverEnding Story), Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), and Bonnie Piesse (Star Wars: Attack of the Clones & Revenge of the Sith).

Like most anthologies, the stories are hit or miss, but it's impressive that Holland tackled every segment himself. There are some fun cameos and unexpected casting choices that keep things interesting. The horror elements are inconsistent-though I did enjoy a solid werewolf transformation. Unfortunately, the CGI blood and gore were weak and often pulled me out of the moment, while some practical stab sequences worked much better. The bomb storyline was entertaining, but the pentagram segment had me cringing for the wrong reasons.

In conclusion, Tom Holland's Twisted Tales is a below-average anthology that only warrants a watch if you're out of better options. I'd give it a 4/10.

You'll recognise some of these Twisted Tales from other Anthology series. I won't say which ones, but what I like about Tom Holland's Twisted Tales, is the modern 'spin' it puts across - like instead of walking in the shoes of the dead you now 'live' in the 'Tablet' of the dead.

The prop in the opening of boom shows that serious effort was made. Management and focus on the overall compilation seems to be less than deserved. I admit i wasn't compelled to give the shorts equal attention.

"Bite" was my main interest. The acting particularly in this piece was very poor, but don't think the actors deserve the blame; or necessarily the director. Instead, probably some better storyboarding of the news sequences would have made the difference, so that the lead's lines were even executable. Having live actors interact with prerecorded bits is doable if the flow makes some sense, but I have a feeling there was last minute introduction of lines. The two elements, reporters and and leads, as written, looks down right impossible; if it was re-cut, or written this way, nothing an actor could do could fix it. A rough idea, complex like this, needs refinement, or else asking an an actor to attempt to interpret it is torturous; there's the real element of dread in "Bite". Its in the actors faces; in shock at being expected to carry the weak writing.

I enjoyed the creativity in the rest of this assortment. I knew not to expect an expensive producyion. I like B moviesif the concepts are original & worthwhile. Some of this has that, but not most.

Bottom line for me is that too much of the artistic execution is lacking and a producer who is tasked to ensure a basic finished product must know that elements of this work are in rough draft stage, not final writing, acting, or special fx takes. Apparently though these shorts were pulled together but were meant to stand on their own. But as a DVD it feels like something sewn together out of discarded items in the Munster family's Halloween closet, more oddity than integrated costume.

Don't get it twisted (excuse the pun), but this is nowhere near the best anthologies that are out there. But if you watch this as a series of shorts that probably were made for TV (didn't check, how and why Tom Holland produced these), you might actually be able to enjoy them. There is a plethora of great actors in this (just read the cast list and you'll be surprised), especially from the Horror genre.

Some segments seem more than cheaply made and the acting might not be what you'd expect from some. Even the twists are sometimes very foreseeable. I've been accused before of being too kind and always trying to see positive aspects in movies. So through all the downfalls (some of which I've touched upon), I still think this can be fun - if you let it

Some solid stories and some none solid ones but this still worth the watch if you like short stories like Creepshow.