Not all anthology movies are created equal, and many have a reputation for having questionable quality throughout. Often anthologies will only have one or two segments that are worth watching with the others being filler. Anthologies almost always feature a wraparound, a way to link the stories within together and provide a reason for them being told. More often than not those wraparounds are nonsensical, boring, or forced.
Despite all that, there are some horror anthologies that stand out, where every segment is as good as the others and the wraparound is just as enjoyable. Movies that feature succinct, terrifying, and gruesome storytelling with creepy narrators that get viewers invested in the stories they are telling.
What Happens Next Will Scare You
Created by the team that brought the horror community the cult film WNUF Halloween Special, What Happens Next Will Scare You is an indie horror treasure. The premise is simple: the head writers for a clickbait website are gathered after hours to watch the most terrifying viral videos on the web in a bid to create some quick Halloween content. All Hell breaks loose when one of the writers brings a cursed audio recording to the table which brings all the creeps and monsters from the evening's viewing to life in their office.
As the wraparound story unfolds audiences are treated to stories about an honestly terrifying clown trying to create a dating video, a not-so-quiet night at a mortuary, and an evil-possessed teddy bear called scraps. Mixing styles and narratives with ease, What Happens Next Will Scare You is a fresh take on a tired genre and is having lots of fun at the same time. The special effects are also absolutely fantastic for such a low-budget offering.
Tales From The Darkside: The Movie
Originally a television anthology series, Takes From The Darkside: The Movie stars Debbie Harry as a Hansel and Gretel Style witch who is getting ready to eat a young Matthew Lawrence (Timmy) she has captive in her home. To distract her, Timmy tells her three tales of terror as he plans his escape. He weaves tales about an Ancient Egyptian mummy coming to life to terrorize Christian Slater and Steve Buscemi, a cat that won't die and is leaving a bloody trail in its wake, and a witness to a murder who breaks his promise to never tell what he saw.
Debbie Harry is having a lot of fun as Betty the witch in the wraparound while each of the three stories included has great casting and unique storytelling, especially for a film from 1990. Like Tales From The Crypt, each story is a morality tale with the consequences of the character's actions playing out on screen to great effect.
Nightmare Cinema
In Nightmare Cinema, Mickey Rourke stars as The Projectionist, a mysterious man showing five people summoned to the cinema to watch short movies featuring themselves. The five different segments range from the genre mashup "The Thing In The Woods" which features everything from aliens to slashers to the surreal black and white "This Way to Egress," where a woman edges slowly towards madness, unsure if she is even in the same reality she woke up in.
Although the tone of each piece varies wildly, they each work well and there is something for any horror fan here. Real-life murders meet the spirit world, cosmetic surgery goes too far, and the stereotypical boarding school populated with nuns and priests premise is given a makeover too. The only letdown for Nightmare Cinema is the ambiguous nature of the wraparound story and what it is trying to say.
The Mortuary Collection
Starring genre favorite Clancy Brown as mortician Montgomery Dark, The Mortuary Collection frames its stories with the premise that Charlotte has responded to a help wanted sign at the mortuary and is being reluctantly interviewed by Montgomery. As he takes her around the mortuary, he tells her tales of those that have died in the town. Spoiler, they have all died in weird and horrible ways. A frat boy in the 60s sleeps around and is given his comeuppance, a man tires of caring for his catatonic wife but she isn't done living yet and the babysitter is in peril from an escaped maniac trope gets an interesting twist.
As well as learning how strange this town really is, the mystery of Montgomery Dark is also slowly uncovered as the movie goes on. As his story is unraveled, Charlotte's true nature also comes into question in this well-rounded, darkly comic collection of tales from 2018.
V/H/S/94
The latest entry in the V/H/S movie franchise is easily the best. Where previous films have been patchy in segment quality, there is no filler in V/H/S/94. The wraparound sees cassette tapes being found by a SWAT team clearing a building that appears to have been the site of cult activities. With stories involving an ancient sewer-dwelling God of sorts called Raatma, a funeral with no guests and an unquiet casket, a mad scientist creating cyborgs from abducted people, and a right-wing extremist group trying to take back America in an unconventional way, V/H/S/94 is lean, disquieting and gruesome in equal measure.
With expertly done visual effects, excellent acting, and fresh narratives, V/H/S/94 sets the bar high for further entries in the V/H/S series as well as all other horror anthologies and is sure to leave you chanting Hail Raatma.