O Mal Está ao Seu Lado

I'm down with a collection of horror stories - but this one is a wee bit boring. The mini tales were predictable for the most part, as was the ending of the short stories.

I thought the film was very weak. The plot is unconvincing. Those stories they tell just aren't scary. By the third story about the child who can't leave home, I was already disappointed. The following story of the woman in an oxygen mask is just boring. And the ending is so abrupt that I literally gasped - not from horror but from exasperation.

Sitting in a circle surrounded by candles, a group of friends is forced to tell scary stories in front of a mirror in order to escape a witch's curse.

On the whole, this is a serviceable if unremarkable anthology. The initial setup here, involving the friends sitting in the darkened room surrounded by the candles and forced to tell scary stories is highly enjoyable and serves this well as an excuse to launch into this type of film. The atmosphere is effective and there's some tension with the involvement of the mirror calling the rules of the game into play, making for an overall workable format to get going. When it comes to the stories, it's hit-or-miss but generally above average. The first one involving the girl in the woods is pretty solid and has a fun final twist to capitalize on, while the second story has some atmospheric images and ideas undone by the lack of action or context about the setup involving the two living together or weird twist ending which leaves the segment fun but wholly mismatched and out-of-place in this type of film. The middle parts of the film, namely the segments involving the mischievous children tormenting the woman in her house or the mother confronting the demonic entity threatening her children, are where this one shines. Bringing forth some fun, fast-paced efforts with plenty of atmosphere and graphic kills mixed alongside the chilling action, while the period pieces involve a rather enjoyable condensed take on the demonically-possessed to be a great segment. This does have its fair share of misses as well. The buried alive segment is an unoriginal tale with a lame finale undermined by tons of stupidity packed into a brief running time, the lone woman in the apartment has some creepy imagery and it's hard to tell what's going on or why we should care because of that, and the wraparound in the room feels repetitive with the same type of scares we're constantly told mean nothing anyway, making for some pointless segments here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

I don't mind the odd horror anthology, it's a bit of a lucky dip, but for the most part this one is okay. Some of the acting is questionable, particularly the 4 main characters, but sometimes it's hard to tell if it is the actor or the script. The sub stories are done fairly well, with pretty good acting throughout, and interesting storylines. There is no back story as to where they were, and why they were doing it, and the characters are fairly bland. But for some reason I can't put my finger on, the whole thing just seems a little soulless. Whether it is the lack of empathy with the main characters, or the, at times, clumsy story telling I don't know. Worth a watch if your not expecting too much.

That's what this is. What dissapoints me, is that one of the stories, 'The Visitant (2014)', was also a short movie among others in 'Patient Seven (2016)'. If you make a movie like this, at least put original, newly made, shorts in your movie. Don't use existing ones. That's so cheap. Watch this for the shorts. The rest is just luggage.