Scary Tales: Dead Zone

This movie was undoubtedly one of the biggest wastes of time I have ever seen. And the worst part is, it doesn't even reach ninety minutes but by god, does it feel like forever. From terrible acting, dumb stories, and laughably bad effects and props, this movie would be a really fun watch for those who want to watch a Neil Breen movie with absolutely none of the charm. My friends and I found this movie on Tubi and were expecting to find a "so bad it's funny" modern horror movie, I mean just look at the poster, but instead what we got was a Chat GPT generated script and terrible camera and lighting work. Fun drinking game, take a shot every time one of the characters is just blue because of the lighting or you hear an echo, or you see a character's harsh shadow because they messed up the lighting. To the people who made this movie, I was genuinely surprised that this cost 20 thousand dollars because as far as I can tell, that money went nowhere. If you had asked me what I thought they had spent on this movie, I would probably say around 3 thousand dollars, and that's pushing it. Just because you have the financial ability to make a movie, doesn't mean you should. Write a book instead.

Finding a helpful stranger, a couple staying with their host while they wait for car repairs to arrive decides to pass the time by telling stories about odd or unnatural incidents in their life.

The Good Stor(ies): Story 1-After a devastating incident, a police officer kicked off a case involving a child killer decides to look into who's responsible and finds the killer's inhuman nature pulling him into a deadly situation. This was a rather fun and somewhat likable entry to start things off. The setup of the serial killer targeting children in the area and forcing this detective to go out on a rogue spree trying to bring him to justice is genuinely solid as a police procedural in trying to find this strange killer inhabiting the city. The low-budget origins don't allow it to play with the supernatural connotations it hints at with those scenes coming up short, but it's still solid enough.

Story 3-At a crossroads in her career, a journalist unearths a potential topic involving a figure continually spotted at tragedies and sets out to find the truth which brings her into a deadly figure's influence. This was a fairly solid effort with a lot to like about it. The central idea of the stranger being spotted in the background of photos of various tragic events that no one can figure out who he is or what his purpose is brings everything together quite nicely. The final resolution of everything is another generally enjoyable facet of the story here that adds a creepy undertone, but it's also the one where the low-budget feel manages to undercut it the most as not only do we not get the photos of the being in the situation but the action to help enhance that is missing which does lower it only slightly.

The Bad Stor(ies): Story 2-Trying to break a big secret, a man recounts to his therapist the tales of his experiences with a species of human/alien hybrid that are attempting to infiltrate humanity. This was a decidedly dull and uneventful effort without much going for it. The fact that this one decides to spend the near entirety of its running time on conversations with each other trying to explain his point which would've been great to see play out rather than just discuss it back and forth with each other. This wears out quickly and drains the interest in the story almost immediately, and the story that was being told was quite good which is a bit disappointing. The final reveal is quite fun and fits nicely in this type of story, but there are still some problems to be had here.

Wrap-Around-Finding a helpful stranger, a couple staying with their host while they wait for car repairs to arrive decides to pass the time by telling stories about odd or unnatural incidents in their life. This isn't that bad of a wrap-around but does have some issues about it. The initial starting point of the couple going out for a trip while in the throes of their marital issues which strands them with the storyteller that starts the main stories here is a decent enough focal point to introduce everything. The atmosphere here with the never-ending forest is a solid idea to enhance everything, but the means through which it tries to incorporate the stories is immensely sloppy which leaves a lot to be desired, and with the pace stuttering during some of the interactions this part does have some issues alongside it's budgetary limitations.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

Plot

A couple on a drive end up in lost deep in the woods. When their car runs out of gas, they walk and discover a house in the middle of nowhere. Inside, a strange man with an interesting past has some tales to tell but the creatures in the stories won't stay on the paper. From the Muffin Man to aliens, a world of horror comes to life and there is no way out of the dead zone

Cast

I knew nobody and this is my first film from the studio.

Verdict

A poorly constructed horror anthology with consistently bad stories and a poor wrap-around Scary Tales is a truly appalling effort.

The sad thing is I love horror anthology's but their flaw is they can only be as good as the weakest story. Here they're all weak, what chance did it stand?

Cheap but not cheerful, this is one to remove from your watchlist.

Rants

The mask on the cover villain is seemingly identical to the one ITN used for a couple of their Tooth Fairy movies! I couldn't take it seriously, it's basically the same character but with a hat on, and to be clear this is a static cheap plastic mask so not only does it not move at all but from certain angles you can see that it's a mask and just makes the whole thing even more cringe inducing.

Breakdown

Cheap and nasty Stories are terrible Some of the cast should quit acting.

Suffice to say that I had never heard about this 2023 horror movie titled "Scary Tales: Dead Zone", prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and watch it, given my love of the horror genre.

But truth be told, given the movie's cover and it relatively low rating here on IMDb, then I wasn't really harboring much of any grand expectations or hopes from writer and director Geno McGahee. But still, I opted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Scary Tales: Dead Zone" is a horror anthology, but not a good one. But hey, I opted to sit down with an open mind and give the movie a fair chance. Just turns out that this horror anthology was somewhat amateurish and rubbish.

I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. And I will say that it was definitely a mixed bag of acting skills here. Because some of the actors and actresses put on very wooden and rigid performances, whereas others put on adequate and okay performances. There wasn't anything extraordinary to be witnessed among the acting performances, though.

The character gallery and dialogue throughout the 83 minutes that the anthology ran for left much to be desired. It wasn't a particularly interesting character gallery in general, and the dialogue was pretty cringeworthy at times, as if it was written by a pre-teen horror aficionado. A lot of the delivery of the dialogue felt very forced and scripted.

The audio in the movie was a bit all over the place, in some scenes it sounded like it was recorded with a home video camera from the 1990s, whereas in other scenes it was adequate. And the gunshots in the various scenes sounded fairly bad in general, as well.

The effects in "Scary Tales: Dead Zone" are generally cringeworthy, especially the creature on the cover. When that creature shows up in the movie, it is so blatantly obvious that it is just a rubber mask someone is wearing, and it looks pretty bad.

My rating of the 2023 horror anthology "Scary Tales: Dead Zone" from writer and director Geno McGahee lands on a generous three out of ten stars.