CERT: TBC / FORMAT: DVD, VOD / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 1ST (US), TBC (UK)
The world needs more anthology horror movies. Scary stories tend to suit a shorter narrative and it’s a great opportunity for script-writers and film makers to show what can be done with very little. A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio is essentially a showcase of some of the more interesting horror talent out there, held together by a very thin framing device.
The premise is that late-night DJ Rod Wilson is a talk-show radio host who tells creepy stories well into the night. People call Rod with their own stories and then Rod out shines them with some of his own. These are the shorts. We get an interesting mix of stories. Post Mortem Mary is a creepy Wild West tale of death and photography. The Disappearance of Willie Bingham is a slow-burn tale of crime, punishment and horrific torture. We get a few variants on urban myths, including ‘the call from inside the house’ and the more than a few remixes on the near-invisible lurking monsters.
The problem is that this is, in part, a true anthology. They’ve gathered together short-films from scene and put them into one package. This means that there’s no real theme across the stories; a clever take on the ‘hunter in the woods’ is followed by another ‘monster in the closet’ story and the framing device struggles to keep the stories connected in any way.
If you’re the sort of person who likes their scary stories short but doesn’t spend their time at movie festivals or scouring YouTube, then this is what you want. We hope to see more stuff like this in future.
