The Movie: Scare Package
The Directors: Emily Hagins, Chris McInroy, Anthony Cousins, Hillary Andujar, Courtney Andujar, Aaron B. Koontz. Noah Segan, Baron Vaughn
The Cast: Jeremy King, Noah Segan, Toni Trucks, Zoe Graham, Chelsey Grant, Jocelyn DeBoer, Atsuko Okatsuka, Elizabeth Trieu, Lawrence Varnado
The Story: Chad, the owner of Rad Chad's Horror Emporium, recounts a series of bone-chilling, blood-splattered tales to illustrate the rules of the horror genre to his newest employee.
The Review:
In typical horror anthology fashion, the movie is broken up into segments with one overarching story tying everything together. Rad Chad's Horror Emporium, which is set in a video store of the same name, is a perfect way to bring all of these other stories together as a video store owner, a newly hired employee, and that one guy who is always in the store, discuss their favorite horror stories. The whole thing is really campy and fun and the three characters are exactly who you expecting them to be.
The movie actually opens with one of the stories, a short aptly titled Cold Open which features a young man who is tasked with menial duties in creating murderous scenarios although he has dreams of having a much bigger role in the stories he is only allowed to set up. Very meta and very funny to watch as he stumbles into becoming exactly what he didn't want to be.
Next up is One Time in the Woods, a super bloody, super gory, super over the top take on what might happen to a group of campers who run across a psycho killer and toxic goo. This short it very short but very effective and super funny. Everything happens so fast and it's over before you know it which is perfect because I'm not sure how long hilarity could be maintained at the pace its thrown out.
M.I.S.T.,E.R. is sort of a fight club for men who have been proverbially neutered and domesticated by society, at least until it turns into something completely different. I'll leave that twist for you to discover although I can safely say it will leave you howling.
Girls' Night Out Of Body is the least interesting of the shorts. Not much really happens other than a trio of young women accidentally drug themselves and things get creepy.
Things pick up again with The Night He Came Back Again! Part IV: The Final Kill, a story about a group of teenagers who set a trap for a killer who keeps coming back. The story plays with tons of horror tropes and clichés, the most obvious one being the villain who never dies because he has to come back in sequels. So many sequels.
So Much to Do takes a much darker and spookier turn as a woman fights to reclaim her body from being possessed by an unwitting ghost like person. None of it really makes sense and the story ends without really accomplishing anything.
Finally, we have Horror Hypothesis which wraps everything together with a self awareness and reverence for the genre that could only be topped by the appearance of a true genre legend. Classic movies are honored, tropes are recognized, and the creators throw just about everything they can think of into the story.
The Verdict:
Scare Package is a gift to horror fans created by horror fans and is one of the more entertaining genre anthologies you will find.
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