Review by Andy Comer
Directed by: Sharif Salama
Starring: Bo Keister, Scott Geiter, Rachel Faulkner
Having not seen any of the previous instalments of this show, I had no idea what I was in for. I assumed since it had made its way to a fourth installment that it had some sort of redeemable concept to warrant the production of multiple outings, be it hilarious hillbillies chewing tobacco, beer, and racing. Or perhaps there are genuinely enjoyable horror stories being told. Sadly, neither of these things are happening here.
The show is set up kind of like those old programs where hosts would tell anecdotes to each other while getting ready to put on a film. Then, as breaks in the film take place, we would catch up with the hosts, who would discuss what has been happening either in the film being presented or with shenanigans on the set. Here, it is a bit of both, and instead of relying on being funny or entertaining, the hosts spend their screen time making jokes that fall flat, but I doubt that they care because they have an extremely attractive young lady moving around the screen in different outfits, only stopping in the perfect positions for the camera to capture her, uh-hum curves. She is one of the few redeemers here because it is abundantly clear what she is there for and she does it exceptionally well.
When it comes to the actual shorts the hosts are presenting, I am reminded of the segmented horror features that have become popular the past few years; most notably The ABCs of Death series and the VHS series. The first of the shorts is called Strange Thing, in which a couple discovers a door in their home, and once they go inside they discover some “Thing” that ends up attacking them. This one was decent, though I would have liked them to do more with the creature. The short ends up being too shallow to be memorable. The second, and best, of the shorts is a horror comedy called ’Til Death where four friends off each other’s significant others with very odd results. For what it was it is definitely unique and I could see something like it working at feature length.
From there it just goes downhill. In the next short, Foodie, an annoying restaurant owner goes to a dinner with a shocking menu, but the story and interactions between characters is extremely dull. The last of the traditional shorts is The Hourglass Figure. I have no clue why they added “figure” to the title, because it sounds clunky, but clunky is normal for these guys because the story was a pretty uneven one about a mother who uses a magical hourglass to find more time in her busy schedule. I mentioned traditional before that last one because there is a "short" short called Collision Course and while it was shorter than the others it was pretty effective with its limited time, showing what the last seven days on earth would be like before it collided with Jupiter.
Ultimately, with its hour and a half run time I would say that there is about 20 minutes of quality in total. Basically, with the lows of the show dipping far lower in comparison than the heights of the good aspects of the runtime I cannot recommend this one. If this show does continue I hope they can at the very least put more creativity into their shorts to help cover up the pathetic hillbilly banter between the hosts.
