As with the first movie, this is a wildly mixed bag. The good news is that there is less of a wild fluctuation. There were “stories” in the first movie that barely qualified as anything other than someone messing around with a camera. Here, the highs aren’t quite as high, but the floor has been raised enough that it’s hard to say that there are any segments that are completely wasted.
The Good
A is for Amateur
An assassin fantasizes about how his hit will be pulled off.
B is for Badger
A nature host finds that extinct badgers are still alive.
C is for Capital Punishment
A mob decides to execute a man.
E is for Equilibrium
Two guys are stranded on an island, and tension rise when a girl arrives.
F is for Falling
A soldier is caught by her parachute on a tree. An opposing soldier finds her.
G is for Grandad
A pest of a grandson is confronted by his bizarre grandfather.
I is for Invincible
A family attempts to kill their matriarch, who seems to be invincible.
J is for Jesus
An effort to torture homosexuality out of a person falls apart.
M is for Masticate
Fat guy goes nutso. (I'm aware that there is a movie with that title)
N is for Nexus
On Halloween, a series of people are brought together by an accident.
Q is for Questionnaire
An intelligence quest is juxtaposed with the results of that test.
S is for Split
Talking on the phone, a wife is attacked by a masked assailant.
U is for Utopia
A man that doesn’t measure up to societal expectations is removed from society.
V is for Vacation
A video-chat phone call witnesses violence and murder when a guy calls his girlfriend from vacation.
W is for Wish
Two boys with to participate in the fantasy world that their toys represent.
X is for Xylophone
A babysitter goes crazy from a kid playing a toy xylophone.
Y is for Youth
A girl fantasizes about suiting punishment for her parents.
Z is for Zygote
A pregnant lady delays giving birth for a very long time.
I can’t say that these are all universally good, but the stories are at least complete and understandable. Some of them are technically very well done or written, others are less so. I’m a little on the fence about Invincible, since that has a great premise, and it’s executed well, but it leaves with an ending that is mostly impossible to understand. Some of them push a few boundaries very well - in particular, Xylophone and Zygote. Split was very well directed, and the twist was not what I was expecting.
The Bad
K is for Knell
Some inky black orb floats over a building and makes people kill each other.
L is for Legacy
A tribe is attacked by a supernatural being, in retaliation for not honoring certain commands.
O is for Olocracy (Mob Rule)
A woman is put on trial by a court of zombies, for her actions killing zombies.
R is for Roulette
A game of Russian Roulette.
T is for Torture Porn
A girl is being pushed around in a test shoot for some porn, then weird stuff happens.
Knell was the one that I was really bothered by. It started well. The middle was good. Then at the end of it, I have no idea what was intended to be expressed. This changed my perception, and it’s hard for me to feel like it was acceptable. The same thing happened with Roulette. I liked everything up until the end, which was implying an interesting twist, and then ended before anything was explained.
The Ugly
D is for Deloused
H is for Head Games
P is for P-P-P-P-Scary
These are the ones that I didn’t feel like I could really evaluate. The first two are animated, and they were interesting, but they don’t really offer a story, just… weirdness. The last one is probably the strangest story in the movie, and it’s weird, but it didn’t feel like it had anything to offer.
Still, this is a big improvement over the first one. I don’t know if I can say that I would want to own these movies, but I think this is a great showcase format, and I hope they keep making these.
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