So many tales in this trio of flicks, so little variety.
TRIAPHILIA (2021)
This is just a cheap trio of shorts with a curio shop as the wraparound. It’s only 69 minutes long, but it looks and feels low budget, and the stories aren’t all that exciting. On the upside, each one offers something a little different, which I can’t say for the other two films I watched for this post.
1st story – a straight couple buys a mirror from the store before the female takes her boyfriend to meet her parents, including her douche bag dad (racist, gun lover—you know the type).
Eventually the mirror unleashes a demon, and although it doesn’t get a lot of screen time, it’s fun and it kills a hot pizza delivery guy.
2nd story – a group of girls buys an urn that has the ashes of a serial killer in it…and then his psycho wife comes looking for it.
3rd story – two girls come in to buy a trunk and give it to a woman who lost her son. Soon a killer doll from inside the trunk is after them.
THE RED NIGHTMARE (2021)
I actually thought this anthology was just a collection of shorts from all different filmmakers, which would explain why virtually every single one of the 13 tales is a near cookie cutter copy of the others. However, once the credits began to role, I discovered all stories come from the same director.
While a few of the clips might at first seem effective and to the point with suspense and jump scares, before long you feel like you’re watching the same exact clip over and over just with different actors.
Essentially this is a series of shorts that get all their inspiration from The Grudge, The Ring, and Lights Out. In each case, someone is home alone and keeps seeing flashes of an entity (usually a ghost girl), but in the blink of an eye the entity is gone.
There’s not much more I can say about this, because it really is just a repetitive series of clips, although most of the entities are creepy. The standout for me was one that takes place on Christmas, because it has a child being terrorized by a scary Santa. I never get tired of children being terrorized by Santa.
THE HEIRESS (2023)
After a quick, satisfying opener about a dude who brings home a babe to bang only to find out she’s a demon, this anthology of four longer tales suffers from the same problem as The Red Nightmare—each tale is essentially the same concept and same style done over and over, just with different entities.
In the wraparound, an “heiress” (played by a man) is keeping evil entities locked up in different chambers in her house. And she begins to tell her little henchman about each one…
1st story – a guy trapped in his car during a snowstorm is visited by a ghost girl. He follows her out into the snow and eventually comes face to face with her. The end.
2nd story – a young woman moves into a new apartment and says Bloody Mary in the mirror three times. The entity then continuously pops up behind her as she roams around the apartment, until eventually she comes face to face with it. The end.
3rd story – a young woman is haunted in her home by a veiled woman who eventually crawls out of the tub like Samara from the well.
4th story – a girl trying to cope with nightmares about the death of her baby sister is terrorized in her home by the tooth fairy and is then confronted by her. This final segment has the best, creepiest evil entity of all of them.
