Dark Whispers: Volume 1

It's better than Danzig's horror anthology, that's for sure. Would recommend if you're into this sort of thing as about half are good. One was particularly clever.

Like most anthology movies, it's a bunch of God awful shorts rammed together in hopes someone will watch this rubbish.

The stories are as entertaining as they are scary. Most of them don't even have a finish. It's mostly all artsy fartsy indie crap too.

Whoever was in charge of the sound on this film should never work again. Way too much bass in the voices and music and it makes the horrid experience of wasting your time watching this trash even more unbearable.

There's nothing artistic here, there's nothing scary, nothing entertaining, nothing memorable. Don't bother with it.

Is it just me or are these anthology films getting worse?

I've always been a fan of the formula, Creepshow 1 and 2, Tales from the darkside the movie and the VHS franchise, I love how if there's one story that's not very good, there's always another chance for the film to redeem itself with another. But this last few years nearly every anthology movie I have watched has been awful. This one, like another dire anthology film I watched last year called XX, has the twist that all the segments are directed by women.

This should be a positive thing to give a platform for female directors to show that they can go shoulder to shoulder with the men when it comes to making horror films. But instead, all they've showcased in XX and this monstrosity, is that women shouldn't be allowed near a camera when it comes to making horror. In both of these films all of the stories revolve around relationships, break ups or kids and none of them are scary in the slightest.

XX was absolutely awful in every way possible and this film somehow manages to be even worse.

There's 10 stories in this one, all of them are, judging by the accents, Australian. There's no scares, no special effects to speak of, unless you class sharp teeth and green make up in one of the segments as effects. Most of them have absolutely zero point to them, the first story is just a woman with obvious mental issues getting into a lift and her dead/imaginary daughter gets in with her and asks her a bunch of questions about her past birthdays, That's it. terrifying eh? It's about 5 minutes long, it so boring and pointless and just sets the tone of what to expect from the rest of the film.

1 of the segments is subtitled and another one is stop motion animation (and trust me, it's weird as hell and ugly as sin to look at)

There were 1 or 2 of the 10 tales that had a glimmer of potential but then they just stop and that's it. The one with the Native Australians and the witch in the mangroves could have been really good but just as it gets interesting, it stops. The acting ranges from just about passable to absolutely Godawful, the camera work and lighting are so poor that the whole film looks like some kind of collage project. The music, OMG the music, it really has to be heard to be believed, it's probably the worst movie score I have ever heard in my life. The music plays over everything, like a backing track and is so out of place that it kills any chance there is of building tension or dread. Usually, in an anthology film, there's at least one redeeming story to watch, but here there is absolutely nothing worth watching. It's so bland, boring and just downright stupid.

Not THE worst anthology film I've watched in recent times but it's definitely up there with the worst of them.

Do not waste your time.

This is a low budget independent film, with its obvious constraints that come from that, which should be taken into consideration before watching it. However, if you pass that, you will find that its heart is in the right place. I really enjoyed it, because it presented something novel, different visions of the many fears and troubles that women face daily. There were tragic and funny stories, and all the spectrum in between, different ways to narrate the varied experiences of women told through women's perspective. There are subtleties and sensitivities that might appear "boring" to some (I suspect men), but if you enjoy these type of style, you will love it.

*My favourite was the last one and the one that involved plants.

I hope there will be a volume 2, so we can see more of the work of female directors.

There are some great chapters in this dark, occasionally funny horror anthology including one with Anthony LaPaglia and Ed Speleers, a stop-motion animation and one about a man who has caught a mermaid (maybe...). Lovely to see so many short genre tales from talented female creatives.