Chilling Visions returns with 5 STATES of fear

A while back I blogged about the horror anthology film Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear when I was covering the films of director Eric England, which you can read here. It looks like it’s becoming a franchise, because it’s back with Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear.

EGO DEATH – This story has a pretty good concept but it’s actually way too short. A scummy guy takes his mistress out to the desert to bury her alive because he doesn’t want her to ruin his perfect life with his job and family. She starts to laugh as he’s burying her, which is kind of creepy.

Even creepier is the fact that he hears her laugh when he gets home and starts to see her silhouette around the house. Instead of playing up this spooky part of the story, the plot takes him right back to the grave to see if she’s still there. What he finds makes for pretty good payback, but it just comes way too soon!

SEPARATION – This one definitely captures the darkly humorous spirit of Creepshow. There’s even a father’s birthday and a cake reference! The father is old and senile and the kids tell him they want to put him in a home. But daddy and the kids each have very different plans than it seems, and nothing goes the way any of them hoped!

MUTILATION – This one is basically body horror, and the title works because it’s all about self-mutilation. A couple goes to camp in a location in the woods where, according to the intro text, Nazis experimented with bugs and Lyme disease began or some shit like that. There’s a man in black who appears mysteriously in the background, the couple gets  diseased, and then they start gouging themselves with a knife to “get it out” of them….

EXTINCTION – This is an interesting twist on the vengeful ghost theme. The spirit of a woman’s daughter comes to her and says she can only cross over if her mother takes care of the man who killed her. But her mother wants more time with her, so she doesn’t kill the dude right away. Good concept that could have milked the rotting more, if you ask me….

LOSS OF AUTONOMY – Eh. This is War of the Roses. A woman knows her husband is cheating on her, so she gets her revenge, hoping he’ll agree to her terms about the state of their marriage. But no one has any redeeming qualities and they all get theirs in the end.

Unlike 5 Senses of Fear, the stories in Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear don’t  crossover, which was something that made the first film unique. There’s also no wraparound story, but there is a short car scene at the beginning of the movie that I think is supposed to contain hints about each of the stories to come. The stories here all have different tones and themes, so there’s probably something to satisfy everyone, but in the end, it doesn’t pack much of a punch and has nothing holding it together. The film doesn’t even go back and conclude a random scene at the beginning, which seems to be a weak thread about driving from one “state” to another.