It's a scientifically proven fact that every self-respecting horror fan worships anthology movies! And there are numerous ones out there, trust me, varying from world famous to incredibly obscure, and from brilliant to deeply disappointing. "Three Dangerous Ladies" belongs in the bottom-left corner of the matrix, unfortunately, namely: incredibly obscure and deeply disappointing.
The film is a collage of three unrelated and British-made short tales that have one thing in common. The pivot character in each story is a mysterious woman that either causes mayhem or is the victim of mayhem. Well, actually, the three stories have more in common: they are all three boring, uninteresting, slow-paced, and overlong even though they're only 25 minutes each.
The opener, "Mrs. Amworth", was beyond dull, but seen in retrospect it was the best of the three. The titular character is a jolly elderly woman who moves to a quiet little countryside community and promptly makes herself popular by throwing garden parties for everyone. Strangely enough, her arrival also coincides with an anemia epidemic that costs many lives. Might there be a connection? In "Mannikin", a successful female singer slowly transforms into a hideous demon due to a family curse. Or it might just be happening in her head. There was so much potential in this tale originally written by Robert Bloch, but director Don Thompson wastes the whole thing. You can see Keir Dullea asking himself where his career went wrong after starring in "2001: A Space Odyssey". Speaking of major stars soiling up their resumes, "The Island" stars the talented John Hurt and Charles Grey, but it honestly must be the dullest thing I ever struggled myself through. Hurt sounds drunk when he talks (I wouldn't blame him if he was) and I've never been so happy to see a dead body at the end (because it meant the end of the film)
