Horror stories – review

Director: Lukas DiSparrow

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

This is a portmanteau film where it seems like the segments were made for the feature where the surround is a group going to the Host (Lukas DiSparrow) who has a book that, when they touch it, they enter the story. The actual stories themselves are of varying quality but, overall, the film is certainly watchable.

The vampire segment is called Dracula but, to be fair, it is not one of the stronger segments though the black and white London-scape looks rather nice.

prostitute

It starts with the “reader” (Andrea Kularatne) in the city and narrating. She is looking for a hunter that she will hunt. She meets a man on the street, offers him a ‘good time’ and goes down an alley with him where sex is had but when she asks for money he walks away – though not before ramming her hard into a wall and knocking her out. Honestly, the prostitute element made little sense.

rising

We see a hand emerge from a coffin and Dracula (Mario Bob) rises. I liked the decayed, monstrous make-up. The reader comes round and walks the streets. She is watched by the vampire, his shadow follows her and her narration suggests she knows. He appears near her and speaks to her – she does not react to his look. She stakes him, that’s it… To be fair this was one story where the character the reader takes is successful and survives – she is rather elated when out of the story.

Mario Bob as Dracula

However, the segment does very little. It is style over substance. As I mentioned at the head, the anthology, as a whole, was worth a watch but this segment did so very little that only its stylistic elements (rather well done for a low budget) drag it up to 3.5 out of 10 and as regular readers will know, with anthology/portmanteau films I only score the vampire segment.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK