Another year, another horror anthology, and this time it's the turn of 5 SENSES OF FEAR which unsurprisingly contains five short tales each based around one of the human senses. Like SCARY OR DIE or the V/H/S/ movies, this is acceptable stuff for horror fans, although it lacks the quality of something like TRICK 'R TREAT.
The problem with 5 SENSES OF FEAR is not the production values, because they're actually decent for a change; although the stories were shot on the cheap and in a very short space of time, they look good and the calibre of both acting and direction is of an acceptable standard. There are no big names here, but then you don't go looking for them.
The problem is that all of the stories are focused on delivering gore rather than true scares so that the scope ends up being rather limited. The first one, SMELL, is about a guy who comes into possession of a new and experimental perfume; this has a classic outcome and was my favourite of the five stories. The second one, SEE, involves some predictably nasty eye violence and very little else. The third, TOUCH, is about a blind kid who has a car accident and is the most atmospheric of the quintet, although the story is very slight. TASTE is an all-out gore effort set in an office, while LISTEN goes down the found footage route and isn't too shabby. All of the stories are acceptable, but I found them lacking in delivering proper horror themes or scares; is gore all the genre has to offer these days, I wonder?
