Phobias

This dumpster fire of a film is currently on. I love my children, but I believe they picked this movie out as a first step towards cashing in my life insurance policy.

I learned some new phobias today.

An anthology movie on Hulu. Five patients who suffered from different phobias were put into the test from a crazed doctor.

So that's the given synopsis of the movie. That's basically a spoiler of the overall arc of movie. What the heck?

Apparently the synopsis said these people suffered from phobias. Um not all of them did. Each time the patients were tested, we were taken back to their past. The first three were pretty mediocre, and the first one had a fire effect that was so horrible and fake. The last two was more sinister and interesting, especially the last one.

The movie maintained suspense mostly by having nonstop and a variety of background suspenseful sounds. Even though they often worked, sometimes they felt excessive and overused.

The overarching story was pretty laughable. It was stupid because it could have ended much earlier. There should be more effort into making the main story more competent.

Overall, not the best or the worst anthology, but it was pretty decent and entertaining. 6/10.

I had no idea this was an anthology and was disappointed when I found out. The reason for that is that the opening Asian-American storyline is pretty decent, but then it suddenly finishes unfinished and we move onto increasingly less elaborate and engaging tales. Most dwell on predictable violence and shock scares, and the wraparound story goes nowhere either.

I don't know who this film might appeal to.

It's shares DNA with Creepshow and shows no real improvement on that film, despite decades separating them. Some of the cinematography is ok (particularly in the first section) but that is no reason to watch it,

Acting is poor to bad, script is generally poor, stories are poorly developed and don't connect. There is no phobia in any of the stories (in case that's what you wanted). It's rare for me to have nothing good to say about a film.

I write this review for those who, like me, are struggling to find something to watch in 2021 and feel this might be worth a try. It's not. Best avoided.

Split into five sections, with a central narrative tying them together, this film feels a tad disjointed. Each section has a separate director... and each is named after a specific phobia. "Robophobia" & "Hoplophobia" are the two best sections. The others leave room for improvement. Camilla Belle, makes her directorial debut with the latter of those two... and she shows assured cinematic control and storytelling. Other than that, this is really worth skipping.