I love a good horror movie anthology. Although that is a clunky, clunky name for them. They’re pretty much the movie equivalent of a short story collection. Great for when you want just a short movie but also a long one. They can range from ‘creepy as all hell’ to ‘cheesy goodness’. So enjoy the list and maybe find a new, spooky favorite. They seem to have fallen out of favor a bit lately as feature films but I’m counting on the indie film industry to fill the gap.
Movie posters are linked to IMDB and all synopses come from there as well.
Black Sabbath
A trio of atmospheric horror tales about: A woman terrorized in her apartment by phone calls from an escaped prisoner from her past; a Russian count in the early 1800’s who stumbles upon a family in the countryside trying to destroy a particularly vicious line of vampires; and a 1900-era nurse who makes a fateful decision while preparing the corpse of one of her patients – an elderly medium who died during a seance.
Favorite Segment: The Telephone
Creepshow
An anthology which tells five terrifying tales based on the E.C. horror comic books of the 1950s. Segments are titled: Father’s Day, The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verril, Something to Tide You Over, The Crate and They’re Creeping Up On You
Favorite Segment: Father’s Day because…this
Twilight Zone: The Movie
Four horror/sci-fi segments directed by four famous directors, each of them being a new version of a classic story from Rod Serling’s landmark television series The Twilight Zone.
Favorite Segment: The re-imagining of the Twilight Zone’s classic “It’s a Good Life”
A bit of trivia. I do like this compilation but I have a hard time watching it knowing what happened with the segment about the bigot who gets a lesson in humility. It’s a good segment, well-written and, though it may be devoid of any Twilight Zone twists, it does touch upon one of Rod Serling’s favored topics. Prejudice. However, a tragic accident that happened on set makes it hard to watch.
In case you’re new to the site, every Tuesday at 6:30 PM EST, I put up a new recap and review of a Twilight Zone episode.
Nightmares
Anthology of four horror tales with a supernatural twist based on urban legends. The four ‘Chapters’ are: Topanga, Bishop of Battle, The Benediction, and Night of the Rat
Favorite Segment: The Benediction
Majorly cheesy as the rest of it is, The Benediction is a great segment.
From a Whisper to a Scream
The uncle of an executed murderess relates four stories of his hometown, Oldfield, to a reporter: an elderly man pursues a romance with a younger woman, even to the grave and beyond…a wounded man on the run from creditors is rescued by a backwoods hermit with the secret to eternal life…a glass-eating carny pays the ultimate price for looking for love on the outside…and Civil War soldiers are held captive by a household of orphans with strange intentions for them.
Favorite Segment: A toss up between the glass eating carny and those creepy as all get out Civil War kids. And, of course, I love the wrap-around with Vincent Price. He was way too hard on this movie.
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
A young boy tells three stories of horror to distract a witch who plans to eat him. The three segments include Lot 249, Cat from Hell, and Lover’s Vow
Favorite Segment: Definitely “Lover’s Vow”. Such a good one!
Tales from the Hood
Four short, moralistic horror vignettes (a la EC Comics) that deal with mostly black characters. The framing story introduces three youths out to pick up a drug shipment at a funeral parlor from the strange director, Mr. Simms. As the three punks wind their way through the parlor, Mr. Simms tells them the last stories of some of his more interesting clients.
Favorite Segment: I really like the wrap-around story and the segment just before the final reveal. The first segment with the little boy also has a great ending.
Three…Extremes
An Asian cross-cultural trilogy of horror films from accomplished indie directors. The three segments included are Dumplings, Cut and Box
Favorite Segment: Um, Dumplings? Yeeaahh….
Trick ‘r’ Treat
Five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband; and a mean old man meets his match with a demonic, supernatural trick-or-treater.
Favorite Segment: Hmm, so many good ones to choose from. If I have to select one it would probably be the woman who hates Halloween and has a run-in with ‘Sam’. I mean, really, who can hate Halloween!?
Tales from the Dead
Tales from The Dead is a Japanese-language anthology feature film of four ghost stories, each one with a unique personality…each frightening in a different way. Some stories involve revenge while others are warnings about appreciating the value of life. Tales From The Dead is four terrifying, original ghost stories in one.
I caught this on Netflix one evening and I am so happy to have found it again.
Favorite Segment: Really, on this one, the wrap-around story is the real star which is rarely the case. But the medium telling the stories is such a charismatic young lady that I always looked forward to seeing her again.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the list and will check some out that you may not have heard of before. I know there are quite a few good ones that I have left out. If I left out a favorite of yours or you want to know more about any of them, please, let us know in the comments.
I’ve seen all of these! Some real classics here too. Looks like I need to dog out some DVDs and revisit the horror. I eat this stuff up. LOL
Me too, lol. I love this type of movie. And horror seems to be one of the few genres where it fits the best.
I found Trick or Treat to be fairly entertaining. Tales From the Hood wasn’t a bad watch either – not earthshaking but not horrible. Then again, we’ll watch almost anything horror whether good or bad.
It was a bit of a toss-up between Tales from the Hood and Snoop’s Hood of Horror. I went with Tales from the Hood because the stories were a tad subtler. The Hood of Horror has a more ‘Tales from the Crypt’ vibe to it. It goes more for the gross-out. It still has some great stories and acting in it though.
Twilight Zone is one of my all-time favorites!
I think they did a very good jonb translating the television show to the big screen. You can tell they put quite a lot of thought into it and didn’t half-heartedly do the stories.