Scare Us (2021) – review

Director: Ryan Henry Johnston (segment)

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

This is a portmanteau film where the wraparound is in a town where a serial killer is at large but, despite the curfew in place, a group gather to their creative writing circle to trade scary stories and you can bet that the serial killer will make an appearance.

However, before they do we get four segments and the first of these is entitled Night Haul – a story told by Naomi (Michelle Palermo) – who becomes the primary character in the story. This does not explicitly state it is a vampire segment but the creature, as we will see, is built around genre tropes and there is (the credits are for the film generally but there is a character listed called the Count, played by Richard Lippert, who also plays a priest in this segment, so I think it is safe to assume this is the name of the creature).

in the lift

A woman arrives at a storage unit and we hear a phone argument, clearly with her husband who sounds abusive. She throws the phone, breaking it. She gets in the lift to the floor with her storage but the doors are stopped and a priest enters pushing a trolley with what looks like a crate on it. She is getting out of the lift when the security guard (Eric Hula) appears and warns that the place closes in ten minutes. She pushes her way past and goes to her storage.

dying

She is looking to leave when she hears something strange, looking round the corner she sees the priest on his knees and then he coughs up blood. She goes to help him but he warns her off and stumbles along the corridor until he collapses in the lift door, apparently dead but with a look of someone who died a very bad death. She hears a voice and it sounds like a little girl asking for help. She goes to the priest’s storage locker and finds that the crate is chained (and has a silver cross and chain atop the lid).

the crate

She attempts to open it and half succeeds. She tries to find something in her locker to help open it but the lights go out at the same time as a crashing noise. The night lights cut in but when she gets back to the other locker the crate is smashed and soil is everywhere. Then she realises something is after her, something with talon like claws and a bat like head (or so it seems in the one, very dark look we get of the Count’s head.

the count

So, a crate with soil – bound by chains but also a cross, containing a creature that can sound like someone else and seems to be batlike. A creature apparently called the Count. It all points towards the filmmakers definitely making this a vampire story and it is fairly by the numbers with not a lot of inventiveness – especially compared to the other three segments that are all rather stranger and much more inventive. Nevertheless, it is a nice little hors d'oeuvre for what is to come and doesn’t outstay its welcome. 5.5 out of 10 for the vampire segment but it is the weakest of the four.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK