Horrortales.666 Part 3

Still stuck inside the house, the burglar is forced to read more stories to allow him to escape.

The Good Stor(ies): He Who Laughs Last-Trying to inherit his wife's money, a man tries to scare his agoraphobic wife to death to grab her money. This was pretty predictable and doesn't really go anywhere new, especially with a twist that renders a lot of this somewhat moot, but it's still fun to get there. The indie thrills are cheesy and charming enough with a few decent ideas that could've been worth more had it gone on for more than the under-ten-minute running time it has, but it's still a solid enough intro to everything.

Death is the Only Option-After supposedly pulling off a hit, several gangsters are dismayed when he reappears with no ill effects of the situation. This was a pretty solid effort with a lot to like. The setup is intriguing enough with the reappearance after the supposed hit, the unknown ability to understand what's going on and the race to save his friends and family from the misconstrued wrath of his employer all come off well enough to overlook the overt lack of genre thrills until the twist ending.

Devious Strategems-Trying to be together, a couple having an affair try to get rid of their spouses to accomplish their goal. Overall, this was a solid if slightly flawed segment. This has a lot to like with the work of their respective relationships, focusing on him not enjoying time with his wife and her being stuck with an abusive husband who sexually exploits her, the means through which they set about rectifying everything, and the sleazy atmosphere present here, but it's all too long and tries to throw some twists in here that don't need to be there.

The Vessel-Bringing home a new antique vase, a woman is convinced that she's brought something malevolent into her home. This was an intriguing enough idea that manages to score a lot of creative points with how the film works in the concept of her being deaf ad using sign language throughout here to translate the tale of the mysterious entity haunting the home. That's all enhanced by a lot of effective work here with the shadow-play and eerie incidents happening around her, and while that could get tiresome for some those who can go along with it will be quite well rewarded.

The Bad Stor(ies): Victoria-Attempting to escape from Europe, a female vampire lands in Uruguay by accident and must adjust to a new threat there. This had the potential for a good time but just ends up missing out due to a rather undeserved convention to make everything as if it were a silent film complete with title card narration and transitions. The brief length and skipping over tons of intriguing ideas don't help matters and had this been done in a traditional feature-length format it can be a lot of cheesy fun.

Wrap-Around-Still stuck inside the house, the burglar is forced to read more stories to allow him to escape. As a setup to what's going on and a means to introduce the next tale, this is quite fun and manages to be enjoyable enough with their interactions together. However, much like the last one the constant whining and complaining do get annoying after a while and easily drag this down. Viewer tolerance for the twist ending here can go either way so it can be taken as a positive or negative as well.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, and Rape.

Phil Herman's HorrorTales 666. Part 3 deliver the goods with a recipe of great storytelling, blood, nudity, strong score, excellent camerawork and solid acting. Phil Herman and Joel Wynkoop are a force to be reckoned with as they deliver great, fun, and entertaining content quickly. What is great about this anthology is that each story is so different from each other and the variety adds to the fun experience. HorrorTales brings back Joel Wynkoop and his wife Cathy Wynkoop. They have great chemistry as we see his character take a downward spiral into madness. Also, I love Phil Herman's psychotic performance and delivers. If you enjoy this please check out HorrorTales 666. Part 2.

The filmmakers are a compact group of skilled storytellers.

Each of them brings us a totally original and creative adventure where we come face to face with our fears.

Some take the form of monstrous beings and others are as human as we are.

But all of them, without exception, put before us our most basic behaviors.

Lust, betrayal, gluttony, selfishness, crime, all together in separate stories.

And special mention for the talent of the promoter of this series of Horrortales.666, Phil Herman, whose vision, tenacity and ability to combine different generations of filmmakers in a project has achieved a compact, seamless and fully enjoyable product.

Highly recommended movie for Halloween and the rest of the year.

If you like good story telling, horror, suspense, these little films are perfect especially for the Halloween season! I can these films being cult classics ! Great team of actors, director, producers everyone is a great team all working together to get these projects out. The fans will love it. If you like this one check out the others part 1 and part 2. The horror fans will become wanting more after watching these films. Short films with an amazing story, the way the story is told is like sitting by a campfire with someone telling you a scary story like when you were a kid. Suspense and scary feel . Perfect for Halloween !

This is a movie that I got the chance to check out when one of the co-writers/co-directors of Phil Herman reached out to see if I would review this anthology. Since I enjoy seeing and helping to get the word out on independent works when I can, I agreed. I'll be honest, outside of that bit of information, I came into this one blind.

Synopsis: guess who is back? The Burglar (Joel D. Wynkoop) is once again back for more stories. All new ones that promise more mayhem, gore and Horrortales.

Now I'm going to be honest here, I haven't seen the previous two in this series. This kicks off where the last one left off from what I gather. If The Burglar reads the last story, a ghost tells him he can leave. This story is called He Who Laughs Last. Wynkoop takes on the character of the husband in this one. M. Catherine Wynkoop is his wife. She is agoraphobic and doesn't want him to leave. He must though since they're running low on money and food. There might be people messing with her and not just her fears.

The Burglar wants what was promised after completing. This will be the wraparound as well. He can't leave though. A witch, played by M. Wynkoop, tells him to continue reading. This next story is Death is the Only Option. This one tells the tale of Jimmy (Justin Bower) who is a criminal. He is quite ruthless and wants to cut out another guy, Cortez (Mike Rutlin), from a deal. The job is more dangerous than he imagined though.

Our next story deals with Tom (Phil Herman) who wants to leave his wife for Judy (Debbie D). She is also married to an abusive husband. Things might be as they seem though as Judy comes up with a plot to get away. Tom has one of his own. Both prove to be quite deadly.

The one that follows is The Vessel. This is an interesting one that we have two women who live together. One of them is deaf and her best friend since grade school knows sign language to communicate with her. They buy a vase that might have a supernatural entity in it. Ellen (Windy Hamilton) is called in to help, but this might be more dangerous than she expects.

Our last story is a modern take on a silent film about a vampire that moves to a new area and is struggling with the need to feed.

That should be enough to recap the stories that we are getting here. I'll be honest, I went a bit light here with this as I waned in interest. I'm not going to destroy this movie because I'll give credit to everyone involved for getting up and making this while I sit at home watching movies.

With that out of the way, this isn't necessarily for me. I like low-budget movies to an extent. From the looks though, this is micro-budget. If you are into works like this, I would recommend it. What I'm gathering is that these are shorts that were made independently and compiled together. Each has a different tone and feel. I would say that for the most part, they fit together well. I noticed it when some seemed to have titles in the beginning where others I didn't know what it was until the credits. I do think that the wraparound works well to flow them together. My problem there was that it was too repetitive.

To delve a bit more into the shorts themselves, they seem to be going for that EC comics vibe. The only issue there is that they are lacking that punch at the end that made those great. The reveal of the stories were expected so it makes them all a bit flat. I think they could work, there just needs to be a bit for them. Again, I will give credit for making them though. I'd even say that for what they're working with, they are made well enough.

Since we are working with a large cast of characters here, I will say that the acting is fine. No one necessarily stands out, but I'm not going to pick them apart either. They are most likely people that have other jobs that they do and this is something they did for fun. It worked in general and they brought their characters to life. I did want to comment though on M. Catherine Wynkoop. Her screaming that she does in this made me laugh. It wasn't during the opening short, but more of when she was the witch and it is used to get The Burglar back to watching. I wanted to give her credit there.

There's not much that I need to say here. In conclusion, this is a micro-budget anthology. This is set up with stories and a wraparound. I would say that for the budgets they are working with, the filmmaking is fine. The performances fit and I don't have much negative to say there. My only issue is that they're going for EC comic style stories, but they're lacking the punch that you need to make them effective. If you are into movies like this, I'd say to give this a watch. If not, temper your expectations and I'd say for most people, avoid this. It takes the right kind of fans for sure.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 10.