This is a great shot at anthology horror.
Akin to the Twilight Zone or something like that, the wraparound story involves a man who reads several stories from a mysterious and rare book. At the bottom of this review are brief Plot Summaries you can look at if you want to. Otherwise, here's my take:
The directing isn't terrible for a B-Movie anthology. You can tell that these vignettes at least consider a direction to be headed in, but where some of them fall flat - and some fall flat more than others - is their execution of ideas. Some of them have a lot of interesting ideas that play out too asynchronously. This causes them to suffer from poor pacing, or an overall lack of depth to the stories and characters themselves. All of these things can break the immersion and weaken the punchline. That said, the ones that do well simply do it well.
I'll admit that the acting can come off as a bit stilted at times - that is to say the it lacks a certain fluidity - but it is by no means terrible, and could possibly even be considered good on many occasions. It rests somewhere between B_Movie horror and A-Movie horror.
The lighting and cinematography can seem amateurish from time to time, but both are many steps above some of the least impressive B-Movies I've seen. It has surprisingly good special effects though! Some shorts feature better effects than others, but for a low budget I was pleasantly surprised.
The sound design is either mediocre or ingeniously subtle - there is practically no soundtrack, and sound effects are used for dramatic flare more than anything - while the mixing is done really well. There are no competing sounds, and no crunchy, loud, or piercing vocalizations. So, the sound quality is higher than most B-Movies. I appreciate that all the sounds are fitting, helping to build atmosphere rather than just randomly placed to create cheap jump scares.
* Plot Summaries (Scores based on cohesion and production value more than anything):
The first story, while short, centers on a young couple that have driven up to an isolated make out point. *Short and Sweet* 6/10
In the second story, three young girls stumble upon the horrific scene of a man being mercilessly beaten and interrogated by a group of no-good-doers. 5/10
A third tale involves a couple who wake up to discover that their daughter has gone missing from her bed. In her place was left a small stone. 3/10
We have a fourth vignette, a story of a man who stumbles upon an unsettling video feed while browsing the internet. 8/10
Next in line, our fifth story is an eerie tale about a girl who wakes up in her car amidst an airborne viral outbreak of some kind. 7/10.
Finally, the wraparound reaches its conclusion. The Black Book holder is actually a college professor. At the end of his lesson, he warns his students against speaking a particular phrase into their mirrors. As expected, someone does it anyway. 6/10
Dude! That the credits theme is sick AF!
