Chop Shop

Turned this off an hour in. Terrible acting. I think I get what they were trying to do, but this was just god-awful. Rob Zombie, this is NOT!!!

This movie is one colossal mess. There are simply too many things going on at once. Not completely without its merits, though.

What I did like about this anthology film were its two (yes, TWO) wraparound stories. First, a little girl, Jamie (Alaina Karner), is watched by her babysitter (Elizabeth Stenholt). Jamie is obsessed with a local horror show, hosted by The Widow (Ellie Church) and her dead husband Charlie (Adam Michaels). I liked the dynamic between the babysitter (she IS my gf, picking apart all the crap I watch) and Jamie. The show they watch throughout this film, also called Skeletons in the Closet (not to be confused with Chop Shop, the VHS video they watch on Skeletons... also the former name of this movie...), shows abysmal short films. But the host segments are awesome. The couple (modeled after Elvira and The Cryptkeeper) bickers over their murderous relationship, and questions each other regarding the movies they're showing. Fun fact: Watch the Q&A, hidden under Interviews, and you'll learn a writer, outside the penning of the rest of the movie, wrote all the cracking dialogue between the two hosts.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I haven't decided yet, in the bulk of Ellie Church's movies I've seen, SHE is the highlight. Yes, it happened again here. I love the fact that she has her special place in low budget genre cinema, and seems to relish the role, but frankly, she has proven to me repeatedly that she can do better (not to say she's in exclusively bad movies, there are good ones here and there). Just the notion that she steals the show more often than not, perplexes me as to why she's not more in-demand.

That leaves us with the anthology films, and... Ouch! Anthology films as a genre, more-or-less without exception, contain at least a clunker or two. Skeletons in the Closet is all-out disastrous. First of all, the suspension of disbelief you need to believe Jamie is not only paying attention to the movies, but is eating them up, is simply too much to ask of me. She implies she likes to be scared, but you'll find exactly ZERO scares. And, the way these are cut and edited, there's also zero tension. Just the fact that she sticks with these and doesn't get bored, is too tall an order. The incessant reliance on rapid-fire music video-esque editing and serial flashbacks is enough for you to want to jam knitting needles into your eyes. If there's a nugget of intrigue, or a morsel of an interesting story, all that got botched. I thought the acting overall in this movie was good to fair, but sure as hell not enough to salvage any of the stories - outside the two embedded framework segments.

I am a huge horror anthology fan and was excited to find this. It was a fantastic homage to the ole school 80's horror style. Babysitter comes over to watch the kid, who is watching horror movies hosted by a wife who killed her dead husband and they together are watching horror movies. Lotta watching goin on here and it works beautifully. The effects are very well done, soundtrack perfect and general production value exceptionally high. The acting is quite good, the sets are excellent. I'd have to put this anthology high on my favorites list now!

Was this created as an example of how not to make an anthology film? Cause you nailed it. Absolutely one of the worst anthology films ever. A movie about watching a kid who's watching an Elvira ripoff who in turn is watching an anthology of BS. You'll be fast forwarding before the characters start to, but you're better off not watching at all.

Well, "Chop Shop" (aka "Skeletons in the Closet") wasn't exactly a horror anthology that got me all worked up. Actually, far from it. But then again, it is rare that a horror anthology comes along that truly is outstanding.

Of the tales told in this 2018 anthology, only the first story was the most entertaining and interesting, although it was in itself not particularly impressive in comparison to stories found in other horror anthologies.

"Skeletons in the Closet" was lacking proper horror elements, and it wasn't particularly scary or disturbing. Especially not to a seasoned horror veteran such as myself. But I can't really imagine that this 2018 anthology would be particularly scary even to a younger audience. It just had an almost family-friendly feel to it.

Would "Skeletons in the Closet" work as a TV series instead? No, hardly so. Not if it was done at the same level of storytelling and production as they did with this 2018 movie. Then it just wouldn't become a very memorable horror anthology series.

It should be said that some of the special effects throughout the anthology were actually quite good. Not impressive, but working well enough to serve their given purpose. So there was a little bit of gore and mayhem in these stories.

The acting in the stories were actually fair, just a shame that the actors and actresses had very little to work with in terms of storyline, script, plot and characters.

I can't claim to have been overly entertained by what I saw in "Skeletons in the Closet", and it is most definitely not a movie that will find its way back to my screen again.