TOM HOLLAND'S TWISTED TALES (2013)

Studio:       Image Entertainment
Director:    Tom Holland
Writer:       Tom Holland
Producer:  Peter Pietrangeli, Robert Galluzzo, Dennis Defrehn
Stars:     Angela Bettis, Ray Wise, William Forsythe, Danielle Harris, Noah Hathaway, Amber Benson, James Duval, Marc Senter, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sarah Butler, A.J. Bowen

Review Score:

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Summary:

Horror filmmaker Tom Holland presents nine short stories of revenge, death, vampires, werewolves, and deals with the Devil.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Fred and His GPS – (7 minutes) – After killing his wife Samantha because he suspected she was cheating on him, Fred communicates with his GPS like it is a therapist while fleeing the scene. As Fred continues to see his wife appearing and speaking to him, he is led to step out of his car and is killed by a passing vehicle.

To Hell with You – (10 minutes) – After her boyfriend Carlos breaks up with her, a man named Mr. Smith appears to Susan and offers to kill Carlos. Thinking the offer is not real, Susan sells her soul in exchange for Carlos’ death only to discover that Mr. Smith was serious. Susan bargains with Mr. Smith to grant her another wish. She asks to meet the Devil, but Smith is afraid to confront his boss, Satan. Instead, Smith agrees to resurrect Carlos so that she can be the one who breaks up with him. After Carlos is left in the lurch, Mr. Smith appears and asks if Carlos would like revenge on Susan.

Boom – (18 minutes) – Suspecting that his ex-Army friend Buddy is sleeping with his wife Jolene, Dave tricks Buddy into triggering a dead man’s switch on a homemade bomb while he questions Buddy and Jolene for the truth. Buddy and Jolene convince Dave that secret texts between them were part of a plan to set up Dave’s surprise birthday party. After Dave swaps places with Buddy and thinking that Dave is now tied to the bomb, Buddy and Jolene reveal that they really were having an affair. Dave allows the couple to leave and later calls them to reveal that his bomb was a fake, but he rigged Buddy’s car to explode with Buddy and Jolene inside.

Mongo’s Magick Mirror – (12 minutes) – Dunstin Dynamite takes his girlfriend Mary Contrary to see the magician Mongo the Magnificent, who performs in an alleyway. Mongo shows them his magic mirror that can transport people who pass through it into other worlds. Dunstin tries trapping Mongo and Mary inside the mirror so that he can steal it and become a world famous illusionist. However, Mongo turns the tables and traps Dunstin inside while Mary joins Mongo as his assistant.

Bite – (12 minutes) – Five friends try smoking a new strain of weed with the street name “Bite,” which is rumored to give its users visions of the future. The news reports that the designer drug actually turns people into werewolves and Susan watches as her friends transform and kill each other. Susan snaps back to reality and sees that all of her friends are still alive and normal. She then realizes that Bite actually does the show the future as she relives the transformations and werewolf attacks.

Shockwave – (20 minutes) – With their housekeeper Maria, Jesse and Lida host friends Toughey and Dhianna for an evening at their Hollywood Hills home. When reports of an impending EMP shockwave headed for Los Angeles hit the news, Jesse reveals that his house is equipped with a Faraday cage, but it only holds two people. As panic sets in, Toughey ends up killing Jesse for a place in the room. In the commotion, the room is partially destroyed so that only one person can fit inside. Lida convinces Dhianna that Maria should go into the room since the housekeeper is pregnant. Dhianna tries to kill Lida, but Maria kills Dhianna instead. Maria goes into the Faraday cage while Lida waits for the shockwave to kill her. In the morning, the news reports that the experts were wrong about the shockwave being fatal. Lida and Maria are grateful to still be alive, although there are now three dead bodies inside the home.

Cached – (14 minutes) – Hoodlum Barney steals the tablet of a man he just watched commit suicide. Barney discovers that the iPad is haunted by a computer programmer named Danny Doyle who hunts down and kills anyone who takes ownership of the tablet. Danny’s invisible ghost eventually kills Barney after driving him mad, and threatens to pursue Barney’s friend Ricardo next.

The Pizza Guy – (33 minutes) – Chapter One: The Dead Sister –Emily uses a grimoire purchased at a garage sale to summon the Devil so that he will grant her wish to talk to her dead sister Debbie. Em then tells her friends to get inside the pentagram drawn on the carpet to protect themselves from Satan’s arrival.

Chapter Two: What’s the Name – The pizza guy arrives and Em assumes he is Satan. Her friends think Em is losing her mind. Rickie decides to leave despite Em’s warning about stepping from the pentagram and the group hears a car accident outside.

Chapter Three: Outside the Pentagram – Tish leaves the pentagram to check on Rickie and she apparently dies after falling outside. The pizza guy plays along with Em’s scenario and tells her that she can speak with her dead sister.

Chapter Four: Answering the Call – The phone rings. Em answers it and makes amends with Debbie beyond the grave. Consulting the grimoire, Em discovers that to dismiss the Devil and to bring back her friends, she must give Satan a piece of herself for every life he has taken.

Chapter Five: The Ultimate Sacrifice – Em cuts off her pinky finger. Sean rushes to stop Em from cutting off another piece of herself. He steps outside the pentagram and cracks his head on the countertop. Em cuts off two more fingers. The phone rings again. It turns out to be Tish.

Chapter Six: Back from the Dead – Tish and Rickie return and Sean recovers. The pizza guy tries to buy the grimoire from Em, but she refuses, thinking he wants it to destroy the world. The phone rings again. Debbie tells Em that she is being tortured in Hell. Em agrees to give the grimoire to the pizza guy in return for Debbie’s release. Em hands over the book before realizing that the Devil lied about freeing Debbie. The pizza guy then threatens to destroy the world.

Chapter Seven: The Deamon Always Lies – Em enacts a failsafe spell that dispatches the Devil. Her friends rush to take Em to the hospital and she pretends as if the pizza guy really was just an innocent playing along with her delusion.

Vampire Dance – (7 minutes) – While looking for her missing roommate Karen, Lisa uncovers a cabal of vampires who hide themselves inside a Hollywood nightclub.

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Review:

In his introduction to “Bite,” one of the nine short horror tales in the anthology collection “Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales,” writer/director/cryptkeeper Tom Holland concludes with the odd sentiment, “I hope you enjoy it… but not too much.”  I’m not sure why anyone would intentionally want an audience to only somewhat enjoy his/her movie, but it is a notion befitting a collection of scary stories with a sadly marginal overall entertainment value.

“Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales” was originally presented as a series of webisodes on FEARnet, which is an essential piece of information in understanding why the project has a low-rent look and visual effects that barely pass on a tablet screen, much less a hi-definition TV.  While that initially intended format at least explains the rush job production quality, it doesn’t lend the presentation any favors with its repurposing for a feature-length home video.

With a pedigree that includes the original “Fright Night,” “Child’s Play,” and “Psycho II,” horror talent does not come much more noteworthy than Tom Holland.  Joining him in his project of “Twisted Tales” are several recognizable genre actors including A.J. Bowen, Danielle Harris, William Forsythe, Ray Wise, and Angela Bettis.  Unfortunately, having all of these names on the roster only sets the expectation bar higher than “Twisted Tales” is able to achieve.

“Twisted Tales” puts forth the perception that Holland perhaps felt a quick and dirty webseries produced on the cheap did not require an A game, as everyone involved has turned in stronger work.  As long as no one tripped or flubbed a line, it seems as though any take at all was deemed acceptable for the final cut, which only heightens the movie’s underwhelming atmosphere and cut-rate design.

Things kick off with “Fred and His GPS,” featuring a smirk-worthy performance from A.J. Bowen playing the type of nervous Everyman he embodies so well.  It is a decent enough start to the film, though it is ultimately little more than a setup for a “pfft!” ending punchline as its climax.

“To Hell with You” is a variation of the old “sell your soul to the devil” chestnut, a premise which appears once more later in the film.  This is also the first segment to provide a full spoonful of the effects quality, or lack thereof, with animated flames even less convincing than those seen in a yuletide fireplace DVD.

“Boom” delivers a worthwhile story.  Noah Hathaway starts out leaning into overacting territory, but it works in his favor since his character is a delusional loon.  “Boom” takes on the classic love triangle confrontation that EC Comics was fond of in the 1950’s.  It makes for an ending that is obvious from the get-go, but the fun comes from the mystery of how the story plans on arriving at that revelation.

“Mongo’s Magick Mirror” stars Joel Ward, a Neil Patrick Harris lookalike if ever there was one.  It would be easy to raise an eyebrow over the questionable nature of Ward’s acting if the usually reliable Ray Wise were not performing in a similarly stale fashion.  When actors appear to be on different pages regarding a story’s tone, the fault has to lie with the director for not clearly delineating a unified vision for their roles.

But “Bite” takes the prize for cringe-worthy amateur acting.  The only element more distracting than the stiff dialogue delivery is the bizarre digital animation.  The visual effects call undue attention to themselves by freeze framing the action and then having blood spray out of a point on the screen.  Think of it like drawing a picture of a werewolf attack, ripping the paper where the throat is bitten, and then pouring cranberry juice through that hole.  It is an incredibly poor choice for depicting the horror and it takes the audience immediately out of the setting.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, three of the four segments I enjoyed most were also the three longest stories, suggesting that Holland’s best material may not be well suited for a time constrained format.  Although “Shockwave” falls into that group, it is a clear case where the segment would have worked better with even more time to develop.  The short runtime is evident when a quartet of wine-sipping L.A. socialites go from a calm discussion of local traffic congestion to doomsday-driven panic in literally two minutes when Armageddon is on the horizon.

Strangely, “Shockwave” may also be the only piece that contains fluff in its short length, as the backend denouement is heavy on shots of Angela Bettis pouring a drink and smoking a cigarette while waiting for a mushroom cloud.  Still, this is at the top of the list as one of the stronger “Twisted Tales” thanks to a quality cast depicting a more serious tone than some of the other segments, even if the ending is missing the punch it should have for a classic fatal misunderstanding scenario.

“Cached” is too straightforward of a story to be anything more than just okay.  A key character in the story is weirdly portrayed with some sort of Beetlejuice impression, except without the makeup or striped suit, which makes for an unnecessary disruption.  “Cached” also highlights some of the shoddy staging that mars the technical end of “Twisted Tales” when two of the actors are called upon to pantomime a thoroughly unconvincing fight with an invisible man.

“The Pizza Guy” is a clever idea about a girl who tries summoning the Devil just before the pizza guy appears, and then wonders if the two are one and the same.  The problem is that Marc Senter, who was very good in “Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever” (review here), gives the pizza guy his comedic presence by using an annoyingly distracting surfer accent.  It sounds like Dana Carvey doing a Luke Wilson impersonation and it spoils an otherwise well-done story.

Instead of ending on the best short, “Twisted Tales” closes with its worst.  “Vampire Dance” is not even a real story, but an art piece featuring vampires writhing in a Hollywood nightclub.  If there was a plot in there somewhere, it went over my head.

Anthologies are usually mixed bags, and “Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales” certainly fits that description.  The package includes nine stories totaling two and a half hours plus a lot of top talent in its credits.  But that makes it kind of like being served a generous portion of a mediocre meal.  With so many lackluster entries, undercooked acting, and a basement level budget tying the whole thing together, you have to wonder what the value even is to having Holland and the rest attached, if they are only going to produce something of moderate creative quality.

Review Score:  50

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