In case some of you were getting your hopes up, no this has nothing to do with the new Penny Dreadful TV show. This is, instead, a horror anthology film from 2013 that I only found through my new (and weird) obsession with Re-Animator actor Jeffrey Combs. Yeah, he's in this. So is Sid Haig, who I'm told is another horror legend. If you're a fan of either, this film is not worth the cameo like appearances they make. I've not watched many anthology films, but out of the few that I have seen this is by far the worst. So, let's find out why.
There are three horror segments surrounded by a connecting story involving living doll Penny Dreadful (Eliza Swenson), who lives in an abandoned movie house with her friends Ned (Collin Galyean) and Wolfboy (Dillon Geyselaers), as she tries to find true love through a series of internet dates. The first film involves a couple and a creepy Jack-in-the-Box, and is appropriately titled 'Slash-in-the-Box'. The second film, 'The Morning After', is about lesbian vampires in the 1950s. And the third film is a parody/homage to films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where a bunch of hippies come across a creepy family in the backwoods, and is called 'The Slaughter House'. I'll go into more detail of the segments, and hopefully explain why this film fails.
So, let's begin with the connecting storyline. This is the one that makes the least amount of sense. And also makes it clear that this is another brain child of Eliza Swenson, who I would have more respect for if any of the films she made were any good. I previously encountered her in the rather boring Witches of Oz, but I admire her for making films and for being involved with every aspect of the film-making process. If only her films were good! But anyway, back to Penny Dreadful.
Basically, the problem with the connecting segments is that we're thrust into this interesting world with these intriguing characters, but we're given next to no back-story for each of them. Why do they live in a disused cinema? If Penny is a doll, who created her? Why is she so obsessed with finding true love? Where do they get the films from? All these questions sort of culminate with the biggest one of all, what the fuck is actually going on? In all honesty, it feels more like an overly long pilot for a TV show that will never be made. Maybe it is, I have no idea.
These characters could be interesting enough in a film by themselves, but because they're basically acting like the Rod Sterling of the film we aren't given enough time with them to get more than vague impressions of them. And a lot of those impression feel really rushed, like the shorts were just hanging around and someone thought "Hey, why not make an anthology film?" and then wrote a really quick idea to connect them all together. It's not a bad idea, to have these three horrific misfits live together in an old movie theatre, but they way it's put together with the segments makes it feel really unfinished, rushed, and lacking. But let's move onto the segments themselves.
I'd say the segments were hit and miss, but all of them pretty much miss whatever target they were going for. The first one, 'Slash-in-the-Box', is potentially the best since it has the added benefit of being the shortest. However, the length is also the biggest complaint against the film, considering it's only about 3 minutes long. Blink, and you will miss this one. It's about a man who brings home a creepy old Jack-in-the-Box, and bad stuff happens. That's about it.
As a short, it does everything right. It has the right amount of character introductions and development, it has a sort of beginning, middle and end, and it follows the basic horror conventions for this type of horror story. But it's not very scarey. And just when you start to get into it, it stops. If this was taken out of the film, you wouldn't lose anything. That's not good when you're making any film, let alone an anthology film. It's so short, that I can't think of anything else to say about it, which should let you know how insignificant this segment is.
The second segment is probably the one that I would consider to be the best. For a lesbian vampire film set in the 50s, it delivers on all aspects. There are vampires, they are lesbians, and it's set in the 50s, what more could you want? The basic story revolves around Alice (Samantha Soule), who wakes up with a major hangover and an unclear memory of the night before. As we learn more about what happened to her, and what is currently happening to her body, we come to understand that she made a deal with shady lady Jez (Ramona Mallory) as a means to escape her otherwise dull life and even duller fiance.
The reason I would consider this one the best out of the three is that it is the most interesting in terms of story. Being a short, it can't go into too much detail about the characters back-stories, but we get enough to know why Alice would make the choice she makes. The acting is also the best, it's more naturalistic than other parts of the film. And the setting is very realistic as well. It's not perfect, some characters are flat (especially the fiance), and there are some unbelievable moments towards the end. But all in all, I didn't mind this one. It would make a very interesting longer feature I reckon.
And now we come to the one I was looking the most forward to, 'The Slaughter House'. A group of hippies/college students/friends are forced to find shelter with a creepy family after their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. After arriving at the family home, the evening goes from creepy to disturbing as a series of morbid games are played between the friends and the family. I'm trying not to give away the twist here, so I'm sorry if I'm being vague about details and stuff. I also can't remember any of the characters names, which is another reason for the vagueness.
So, I'm going say it first. Jeffrey Combs is the best thing about this segment, but Sid Haig is the only one who leaves with any shred of dignity. I'm conflicted by this one. On the one hand, it's an interesting take on typical slasher films like Texas Chainsaw and derivatives. But I already have Tucker and Dale vs. Evil for a film that subverts the backwoods crazy family sub-genre. The biggest beef I have with this segment is that it feels unnecessarily mean spirited at time. And they also try to make torture funny... without being goofy.... it doesn't work. Most of the characters come across as incredibly unlikeable, so you don't really care what happens to them, and you almost want some of them to die. That's not good when they're your main characters.
In the end, this segment conflicts me. On the one hand, it is an interesting take on the backwoods, inbred crazy family. On the other hand, the mean spirited nature of some of it makes it hard to watch at times, and really get into it. And Jeffrey Combs is really wasted here, despite being hilarious!
And now we come to the question of whether this is mediocre or not? Well, it's not so much mediocre as a hot confusing mess of half-baked ideas that don't fully come together clearly. The nicest thing I can say about it is that the attention to detail in the sets and costumes are really good, but I would not recommend this for everyone. If you like horror anthologies, maybe you'll like this. If you're a Jeffrey Combs fan, it's cool to see him a role that I don't think he's done before. But again, it's not really worth watching the whole film for what basically amounts to an large-ish cameo.
I don't really know if I'd recommend it to anyone actually. If you're interested, you won't lose anything from watching it (except maybe 2 hours of your life), but generally I would not rate this one very high. It won't please more hard-core horror fans, and if you're a more casual watcher to the genre, then this might be too dark, though most of the gore does happen off-screen (or is so stupidly fake it doesn't shock). But yeah, this mediocre. I hope the next project that Eliza Swenson is working on is better than her previous endeavours.
This will probably be the last post I make before MIFF. This year, I am incredibly lucky to be going to see ten films from the program! I'm very excited, there are some really interesting films this year. Hopefully (not promising anything), I will do blogs on each of the films I see. I guess we'll find out when I get to them. Until next time, readers.
