The Devil's Tail

Ugh, this 2021 horror anthology "The Devil's Tail" was brutal. And not in a good way brutal. Nay, this movie was just a swing and a miss from writers Mauro Croche and Taz Pereyra.

First of all, I didn't know that it was an anthology when I sat down to watch "The Devil's Tail", so the storyline made zero sense as things seemed very random and just change from one scenery and story to another in the blink of an eye. Normally, I am not overly keen on horror anthologies as they tend to be dubious at best.

But I continued on watching "The Devil's Tail", even after figuring out that it was indeed an anthology. But the stories just didn't have all that much appeal or punch, so it was a very bland and prolonged experience to sit through this movie from directors Nicole Goode, Carlota Pereda and Taz Pereyra.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble that participated in the making of "The Devil's Tail". But since they virtually had nothing solid or interesting to work with from the script and storyline, then the performances just never found a footing, and it was a drag to sit through.

For a horror anthology then "The Devil's Tail" was bad, not just dubious, but downright bad. And this is not an anthology I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. The best part about "The Devil's Tail" was actually the movie's cover.

My rating of "The Devil's Tail" lands on a two out of ten stars.

This movie not only fails to tell you it's gonna be an anthology in the description but the overarching frame story of the hospital isn't good and bares next to no actual connection to the other included stories. I think maybe the people in the stories might be patients of the hospital but I'm not even sure. In any event the stories suck, have a hint of a feminist undertone and a major dollop of "people are cruel", and the only vaguely scary bit is the burned ghost guy on the poster who is only in the movie for maybe 5 minutes. It also has an ending that I think is supposed to be a twist but just comes off as confusing and bland. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!

This is an anthology, and while it seems to try and have a wrap-around story, that wrap around in no way ties them together and is in itself just another short film in the anthology. The most unfortunate part is that the wrapper story is the only one worth watching, and it's split up by several much worse stories. Actually, the stories may not be all that bad, but they make very little sense - it's like they chopped off the last 5 minutes of each one. I suppose the one with the metal girls actually does have an ending, but that's the only one. Honestly, if you're reading this review to decide whether or not to watch the movie, then I recommend you find another one to watch.

There's nothing as disconcerting as going on IMDB for a little illumination on what you just watched to find "I only watched for six minutes. Don't waste your time," or "It only played to the end cause I was reading." In other words, you felt compelled to review a film you haven't seen. Some people must really like to see their names in print. That said, it took me a bit to realize that this was an anthology. I think that was because they aren't so much complete stories as they are vignettes. The closest to a complete tale is the one about the metal-head chicks attending a rock festival and staying in a rental house. And maybe the one about the girl getting her first period. Anyway, the stories piqued my interest at some points, lost my attention at others, but overall provided me with some unsettling moments and some gruesome imagery, which is all I require for a direct-to-video horror flick. I look forward to these filmmakers' future works, hopefully staying within the horror genre, as it's fertile ground for innovation. Some of these vignettes could be exapanded into full-length features, such as the one about the old man collapsing at the train station.

If I had known this would have been an "anthology," I definitely would have skipped. The only decent stories make up so little of the run time, most of them have no point. They don't really delve into what's happening or give any reason as to why. The stories have no correlation and majority of the characters are uninteresting or just plain unlikeable. There were SO MANY painfully long unnecessary shots of characters just breathing or walking it was infuriating. For every sentence spoken they had to flip the camera and show every single character reacting. This should not have made it to the public, it should have stayed as a film student's series of shorts. It's so ironic that the filmmakers and editors sat through the hitchhiker telling the taxidermist how ridiculous it was to wait on a broken traffic light when they chose to put together this disjointed bloated rotting corpse of a movie.