Forgotten Tales

Lordy, my Granddaughter Briley could do better!! And she's 8 !

It won't be long after watching Forgotten Tales before you'll struggle to remember anything about it (other than how bad it was). It really is that forgettable. About the only thing I can vividly recall is its lame attempt at emulating Creepshow's comic-book approach, the stories introduced using illustrations, and closing with a badly rendered comic style freeze-frame.

After checking my notes to remind myself of what happened, I can tell you that the three stories are as follows: Ghost Story, in which a woman moves into a haunted house and falls prey to her serial killer landlord; The Babysitter, in which a babysitter is stalked by a maniac (how original); and Audition, in which an aspiring actress is pestered by an obsessive director.

Amateurish on almost every level (direction, sound, acting, writing), the film's one saving grace is that it is mercifully short, clocking in at just over an hour (despite what IMDb states), meaning that it won't be all that long before you can get on with watching something much better instead.

The cinematography and production are on the high end of amateur, with decent lighting, sound, acting, pacing, and scripting, etc. Yet, without tying it all together into a pretty package, it renders itself ineffective in its ultimate goal: fear. Still, it does a decent job overall in its renditions of classic stories and tropes - all seemingly centered around one theme: slashers - and it's still mildly entertaining.

I personally enjoyed the call-back to Creepshow with the still-frame comic-style shots at the end of each short. I also really enjoyed the subtle ways that they tied the three shorts together, especially considering that there's no wraparound story.

But still, by the end, it's mostly forgettable. Needed a bit more oomph.

1. In our first story, "Ghost Story," a newly divorced woman must contend with a few spirits for the rights to her new home, or is something more sinister going on here?

2. Next up is "The Babysitter," wherein a woman beginning her new career as a babysitter experiences unease when news of an up and coming serial killer targeting young women crops up.

3. The final story, "Audition,"is about a young female actress looking for work signs up for an audition, but gets more than she bargained for.