As a vicious infection that makes people rabid (think 28 Days Later) spreads worldwide Manel waits at home to see what happens until it is too late and just misses the last flights off the mainland to Gran Canaria, which remains safe.
Not trusting the quarantine camps, on the advice of his sister whose husband is at the military base on Gran Canaria, he defies the evacuation order and stays home.
No good will come of this
CW: usual bloody zombie stuff
When Sophie plans a girls' trip away for Tess' birthday Alice decides to pretend it's a work trip to avoid conflict.
CW: abusive relationship, implied rape
The pair may be about to divorce and Prisca has had a health scare, things are uncertain and they want the kids to "make some memories".
Once they are settled in, the hotel manager offers them a trip to a private beach.
No good will come of this.
CW: body horror
A young woman (Samara Weaving) and her lover (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) attempt to flee the community.
No good will come of this.
CW: bloody violence, bloody weird
Every year is "The Culling" where enemies of the Van Der Koy family are rounded up and killed. It was this that left Boy an orphan. He has vivid memories of his sister Mina (Quinn Copeland) who he interacts with like an "invisible friend".
Boy is deaf-mute and we hear his inner monologue and conversation with Mina in the 'awesome' voice (H. Jon Benjamin) he remembers from the video game "Super Dragon Punch Force 3".
One day while selling their produce in the city he witnesses the beginning of another culling cycle.
No good will come of this.
CW: ultraviolence, body parts everwhere and all the big swears
Eventually finding herself sat opposite Juan "Manitas" Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón) the kingpin of a drug cartel, the "bastard above all bastards" he offers her a job. Manitas wishes to disappear and be completely reinvented. It's left unsaid what will happen if she says no. On the bright side the work will make her very rich.
Rita works diligently at this and is rewarded handsomely for it, but then years later the pair cross paths again.
No good will come of this.
Out of the night comes F.W. Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle), a Scottish immigrant with a dread tale of cannibalism amongst travellers lost in the mountains not that far away.
The Fort's First Nation scout warns of The Wendigo: what a man who has eaten human flesh becomes but nonetheless an expedition to the caves is organised.
No good will come of this.
CW: cannibalism
Noticing absurd levels of security, he gets chatting to one of the merch vendors who confides in him that the FBI have somehow deduced that the bloody serial killer "The Butcher" will be at the concert. The FBI will be questioning every male who matches the description as they leave. Not as ridiculous a task as it sounds when almost the entire audience is teenage girls.
No good will come of this: Cooper is "The Butcher"
No good will come of this.
CW: Objectification of women
No good will come of this.
Unexpectedly she comes out of it completely physically unscathed but after she breaks down on the examination table one of the doctors secretly slips her promotional material for The Substance which promises to make a better, younger, version of yourself.
In a tailspin, Elisabeth succumbs to temptation, orders and administers The Substance and gives rise, messily on the bathroom floor, to Sue (Margaret Qualley). The Substance did not overpromise and underdeliver: Sue is perfect. Now the two must 'timeshare' life seven days as one, seven days as the other. There are strict procedures to follow.
No good will come of this.
CW: full frontal nudity, body horror ago-go-go, mutation, objectification of women (but subverting that's the whole point)
While Paul learns to become a Fedaykin fighter and woos Chani (Zendaya), Lady Jessica uses all her skills as a Bene Gesserit to ensure the prophecy comes to pass.
No good will come of this.
That night is an event for Slater King (Channing Tatum), billionaire CEO recently returned after a leave of absence for therapy after scandalous behaviour.
The pair gatecrash the after-party and Rita catches Slater's eye. He invites them both to join his friends on his private island.
No good will come of this.
CW: rape, misogyny, bloody violent mayhem
The crew are a superstitious lot and when they spot she's a redhead almost turn back and put her ashore.
Some time into the outward leg they strike something large which they get entangled with and as Siobhán has said she wishes to do a dive they send her down to see what it is.
No good will come of this.
CW: injury detail, body horror, suicide
The following day at lunch with his dissolute and mildly estranged brother Conrad (Sean Penn) the younger man offers him a 'voucher' for an experience with Consumer Recreation Services that promises to "give him what he lacks".
Feeling unusually curious Nicky visits CRS and grudgingly takes the battery of psychological tests they use to tailor the experience.
No good will come of this.
CW: suicide
Secretly Harry intends to propose at a beautiful overlook.
No good will come of this.
CW: some gore
Initially she struggles with the language barrier, hard work and tutelage under strict English Sister Isabella (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi) but eventually makes a friend in Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) and finds her place.
Then suddenly and impossibly Sister Cecilia falls pregnant.
No good will come of this.
CW: jump scares, body horror, birth, violence, creepy Catholicism
Into town breezes Jackie (Katy O'Brian), skint and hitchhiking her way to Las Vegas for a bodybuilding competition. They immediately spark. By way of flirting Lou offers Jackie steroids from the gym stash.
No good will come of this.
CW: violence, injury detail and lots of sweaty flesh
Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) is drafted in for her survival experience on the continent as Mr Weyland himself (Lance Henriksen) plans to go along.
No good will come of this.
Lt. Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) finds himself being squeezed out of the process by DEA agent Keyes (Gary Busey) but with some of the strange goings on where heavily armed gangs are being wiped out by an unseen faction suspects Keyes isn't really DEA and investigates unofficially.
No good will come of this.
CW: some 80s language, stereotypes, attitudes and scenes you wouldn't do now but it doesn't centre on
Her supervisor Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) assigns Lee a case which has slightly uncanny elements. There are a series of murder/suicides where they think the perpetrators were persuaded to commit the acts by an unknown person. Who then somehow left cryptic notes at the scene signed "Longlegs" with no other evidence of being involved or present at all.
No good will come of this.
CW: bloody violence, injury detail
Sergeant Jack R. Ramsay (Tom Selleck) and his new partner Officer Karen Thompson (Cynthia Rhodes) work the Runaway squad, seen as a pretty oddball dept. perhaps akin to animal control.
Then one day a standard housemaid unit goes berserk, killing two and putting a child at risk. Ramsay deals with it but uncovers a conspiracy to turn harmless robots into killers.
CW: 80s cop movie bullshit like making Kirstie Allie strip off in a scanner because she's got tracking bugs planted on her, lots of 'woman in peril' shots
When they track down the hostages the men realise Dillon hasn't been entirely honest and they're not the first unit sent in. The real trouble comes when they go to leave they encounter something entirely unexpected and it starts hunting them.
CW: off colour jokes and language you wouldn't do now but aren't mean-spirited
She has left her own son Lamine (Jahleel Kamara) back in Senegal with an aunt.
Aisha bonds well with Rose and things go well but Amy has a high stress job and leans on her increasingly to run the house and often neglecting to pay her for the extra time she puts in.
With the time zone difference and long hours she finds it increasingly hard to keep in touch with Lamine.
No good will come of this.
In investigating the circumstances they butt heads with the Base Commander, Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson).
No good will come of this.
Christening it "Sting" she keeps it in a large jar and feeds it various bugs and is excited to see it growing quickly.
No good will come of this.
CW: not one for arachnophobes, some gooey violence and body horror
Unexpectedly his two friends Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimtri (Guillaume Bouchède) arrive early for a hunting trip and that night they all get drunk and party by the pool.
The following morning Jen wakes to find Richard has gone off on an errand somewhere leaving her alone with the pair.
No good will come of this.
CW: rape, bloody violence and injury detail
Unexpectedly there's a knock at the door and a young woman asks "Is Tamara home?". Slightly nonplussed by this James sends her away then drives off to fetch some cigarettes for Kristen.
No good will come of this.
CW: violence and jump scares
The programme is very much a military one and the military test pilot F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell) is somebody Murphy served with in Vietnam and has an intense dislike of.
Getting caught up in the tech they've been handed to evaluate Murphy and Lymangood decide to "poke around" and use it to surveil Cochrane.
No good will come of this.
CW: 80s copaganda, objectification of women and a bit of racist stereotyping/language
In the basement her stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) finds an old Teddy Bear and christens it Chauncey.
No good will come of this.
In his last few minutes Reese mocks those around him and launches into a rendition of "Time is on my side" before expiring.
Soon afterwards people start dying in ways uncannily similar to Reese's victims so Hobbes starts digging into the footage from the documentary in case something from that might reveal clues to who his accomplice/copycat is.
No good will come of this.
Again this one's a mixed bag of shakycam dross only really livened up by Timo Tjahjanto's "Safe Haven" where a group of journalists go to the compound run by a cult intending to confront them but end up experiencing the great day the cult have been waiting for.
Even this segment massively outstays its welcome when general creepiness gives way to absolute mayhem that as much it's bloodily inventive just goes on too long.
Loud, irritating trash 4/10.
CW: jump scares, suicide
Meanwhile Eloise's daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), an FBI agent, begins looking into things too and realises the person responsible for the carnage is most likely her mother's tenant.
No good will come of this
CW: brutal violence, injury detail, suicide, all the big swears
However the linking stuff is a kind of nonsensical Police chase with an ice cream truck that also causes "viral violence" or something harking back to the cursed footage ideas we've had before but it's just laboured beyond belief.
Then there's the SK8R Boys one which is just trash, where did this idea even come from it's like it was created because the director knew people who could skateboard.
Not great 5/10.
Best of the bunch: "Ozzy's Dungeon" about a kids' TV show, one of those ones involving "gunge", which almost nobody ever wins so they can avoid giving away the prize.
Overall a solid 6/10 but you'd need to be in the mood for silliness as it's perhaps a bit more humorous than the other instalments, especially the final section: " To Hell and back again".
There's only one noticeably weak section: "God of Death" and the links actually work. These are done like a TV documentary that tells of a doomed experiment with a timescale in the weeks/months where sometimes they've simply chopped up a something that could have been one of the main sections.
It's all still quite schlocky horror but the final section "Dreamkill" could almost be an 80s movie in its own right, 8/10 recommended for horror fans.
Still saddled with the inherent problems of anthologies at least this time we get four quite distinct sections each that work in their own right and the best of them is Timo Tjahjanto's "The Subject" which is a really filthy evil scientist story.
Again the linking items are weak, unable to sustain much of a story and I'd really prefer it to just present the main sections without this but hey that's an anthology thing and they're going with it. Still only really 6/10 though but at least this isn't all letchy like the first.
I can see what they were trying for but most of the sections were just awful: loud broskis hooting and hollering and letching at women until some slasher movie type violence happens.
Notable for its weirdness is "The sick thing that happened to Emily when she was younger" which I needed to read the synopsis for to actually follow but is again a bit letchy and misogynistic. Least unpleasant is "10/31/99" where a bunch of loud guys (of course) are looking for a Halloween party but end up at something else entirely. The entry from Ti West, "Second Honeymoon", is interesting but far far too long to get to where its going and again very "women are evil".
Don't bother 4/10. Do I bother with any of the others? The shakycam alone is a massive turnoff and I'm usually quite tolerant of it but the whole tone of this was cynically misogynistic.
Their weekend is disrupted by a crowd of rough teenagers playing loud music and being generally antisocial. Steve decides to confront them about their behaviour.
No good will come of this.
CW: injury detail, torture
Living in a run down apartment where he cares for his ailing mother one of the bright spots is watching Murray Franklin's (Robert DeNiro) TV talk show with her. Arthur idolises Franklin and dreams of one day making an appearance on it.
No good will come of this.
No good will come of this.
CW: infamously grim and bloody with buckets of gore
It's a mixed bag. One of the stories is chopped up and used as linking items but when it gets to the end doesn't really go anywhere. The standouts are "Stowaway" where a lone UFO hunting podcaster tracks down and boards an alien ship and "Dream Girl" where Indian paparazzi try to get candid shots of a starlet.
I've not watched one of these before as I'd expected quite low rent straight to streaming horror and that was pretty much what I got. It's hard to rate anthologies fairly but I think overall this comes in at about 5/10. It suffered from some segments having a weak premise but good execution, vice-versa or just not enough time/money spent on it to fully develop.
Still interesting though despite my low overall rating and I might give other instalments a look.
Completely unprepared for the cliquey teen environment she struggles to make friends and initially befriends the outcasts Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese).
Unexpectedly she is 'noticed' by the school's 'Queen Bee', Regina George (Rachel McAdams) who starts to cultivate her friendship. Janis and Damian warn Cady about how toxic Regina is and the trio decide to use this as an opportunity to take her and the other 'Plastics' down. However to take down a Mean Girl, Cady will have to become one.
No good will come of this.
Initially they use it to make themselves comfortable through that time traveller's faithful friend: the bookmaker, then begin to explore the art, culture and science yet to come.
Keeping Lola a secret they are unable to actually change anything much beyond their own knowledge, tastes and fortunes. When World War II begins the pair turn to saving lives anonymously, broadcasting as "The Angel of Portobello": warning people of air raids and other calamities in an absolutely prescient manner.
When a young Intelligence officer tracks them down they are persuaded to turn Lola to the war effort.
No good will come of this.
In a moment of sudden inspiration he hits on the idea to use US involvement in the Vietnam war to forge a direct route into the country for heroin. At enormous personal risk he travels there and deals directly with a producer.
This pays off.
Meanwhile, Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is put in charge of a task force to tackle the scourge of drugs on the streets.
CW: graphic images of drug abuse
No good will come of this.
The grab goes well and they hole up at a big old house in a remote area while Lambert goes off to secure the cash.
While waiting, petty rivalries form and silly mistakes are made. Unexpectedly the victim, the titular Abigail (Alisha Weir), sees one of the kidnappers' faces and they consider offing her and doing a bunk.
It's at this point she lets slip her father is Kristof Lazar, a Keyser Soze-esque boogeyman in underworld circles, somebody you absolutely positively do not fuck with.
No good will come of this.
CW: mountains of gore