Southbound

I read too many glowing reviews, which increased my disappointment I feel.

The good: the concept of the 5 loosely related, lurid stories is clever, as is them taking place all in the same desolate area. If you like creepy, graphic horror, that's also present. Also, very imaginative monsters in some of the stories.

The bad: It's not fleshed out enough. I don't need exposition, but these stories are so unexplained it's almost like they ran out of money when filming the picture. And it's so low-budget that it was hard for me to get invested in the characters. The entire concept of what this town might intrigued me, but nothing is explained and I came away wanting more.

Great concept, but lackluster execution.

Southbound does three things well.

First, it has some genuinely new stories to tell. That's not typical for horror, where the same few stories are iterated upon repeatedly.

Second, it has fascinating characters that are brought to vivid life, with remarkably few brush strokes, but without ever resorting to stereotype. The quality of the writing, direction, and acting shine.

Finally, each of Southbound's authors know to leave enough unsaid. Each chapter suggests a world of back story, but there's no spoon anywhere in sight. Which is particularly important for horror, where what is made explicit can never approach the creepiness that is only imaginable.

What does it do wrong? Well, the effects can be shoddy, and there are a few scenes designed around an effect, rather than the effect crafted to the vision, leaving those scenes wooden. But that's all, and for each awkward bit of gore, there are two or three masterfully directed scenes to compensate.

Southbound is a seriously enjoyable horror flick. See it when you can.

This was one of the most surprising finds in recent years. It absolutely has no right, whatsoever, to be as entertaining as it is. If you are a horror fan you are in for a treat as it solidly checks off every box one can imagine. Its varied yet interlocking tales serve up something for almost every taste. From ghost story to evil old god worship to body horror to home invasion thriller it merrily jumps about in a way that could have proved confusing and offsetting but, instead, seems to act more as a museum tour on all the things that make us check the locks and fear the shadows.

While there will, no doubt, be some debate as to what the pocket universe we are presented with represents, there is no doubt, in my mind, that it represents a person or persons who made a movie from an old school heart with a modern day sensibility. As stated in the summary it very much reminds me of the best of the classic horror comics such as the EC Comics titles which began their lives in the very early 1950's.

That being said do not mistake this for an old fashioned movie. It is very much genre savvy for today's eyes, ears and mind. In almost total, it is well acted, directed, written, scored and there is a fair share of completely creepy cinematography. It will leave one with both haunting imagery as well as interesting trains of thought to follow, if you dare.

Huge hats off to those who gifted us with this. This is how good horror can be and I truly hope it finds its way to a far higher place in this world than the vast majority of horror that tends to cross my eyes these days.

As with any anthology movie, the good thing about them is if you find one of the stories unfulfilling, you only have to put up with it for no more than 20 minutes or so before moving onto the next one. That's not to say there were terrible segments here, but some were clearly better than others. Not only were most of the segments nice on their own, but there was an over-arcing storyline tying them all together in an intricate way. This really amped up the overall creepiness of being trapped in the middle of nowhere where 'evil' reigns supreme.

Of the five, "Jailbreak" seemed to be the weak link as a whole and felt anticlimactic. The story wasn't the best, but the real head-scratcher was the way it ended. It was kind of odd, definitely corny, and didn't really seem to tie into the overall story much. I won't spoil anything but I imagine most people will feel the same way.

"The Accident" and "The Way In" are without question the best segments. They were tense, graphic in a good way, and the most entertaining. The Accident was the best because it seemed to be the most plausible (even if it did stretch that notion towards the end). The idea of hitting someone with your car late and night and no one being there to help seems all to real. Amp that up with some grisly imagery & the obscure and you get something pretty wild and entertaining. Following these two are "The Way Out" and "Siren" (if you were a fan of this segment, I suggest checking out the foreign film, "Borgman").

"Southbound" might not reach the heights of legendary anthology movie, "Trick r Treat". Or have a truly memorable segment like "Safe Haven" (VHS 2). But it is an enjoyable 90-minute anthology film that comes together quite nicely when all is said and done.

Im a sucker for short horror stories and southbound has 5 of them. Long story short, the stories dont make sense and have little to no connection. There is no context, what you see is what you get. I thought the second story with the driver was really really good and i would love to see a full movie of this, the other stories were meh to ok at best. Without the second story i would have rated this 4 stars.