Down a seedy city street in her neighborhood, young Enola Penny is obsessed with what appears to be a long abandoned theatre. One night, she sees that the front door is slightly ajar and impulsively decides to sneak inside. But there in the dark, decrepit auditorium, a show unlike any other unfolds before her eyes. Its host is an eerie human puppet named Peg Poett who will introduce Penny to six tales of the bizarre: A couple traveling in a remote part of the French Pyrenees cross paths with a lustful witch; A paranoid lover faces the wrath of a partner who has been pushed to her limit; The Freudian dreams of an unfaithful husband blur the lines between fantasy and reality; The horrors of the real world are interpreted through the mind of a child; A woman addicted to other people's memories gets her fix through the vitreous fluid of her victims' eyeballs; And a perverse obsession with sweets turns sour for a couple in too deep.
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What an apt title for this rather interesting (not always for the right reasons) anthology horror movie. There are no spoilers in this review, just short sentences on what I think of each short.The Theatre Bizarre begins with a woman who takes a peek into a theatre she stumbles upon. Inside she is greeted by a man who introduces her to a show of short movies: "Wet Dreams", was pretty good. One of my favourite's of the movie. And who doesn't like wet dreams? "I love you" was a bloody addition with a decent plot twist. "The Mother of Toads", was my least favourite. I mean toads? Frog off! "The Accident" was effective in what it was trying to say, but I got bored of watching it's short screen time. "Vision Stains" was the most original of the series and another worth watching. And lastly "Sweets" is as about as bizarre as things could get. There's a lot of awful, awful acting, but some of the stories are decent and worth giving a go. The Theatre Bizarre is a random and gory anthology which will please a few. I'd say check it out because it is SO bizarre.
I had never heard of the film and it doesn't appear to be very well distributed and received. Now and then i stumble upon a movie gem that's really been hidden from me. I could honestly say that i didn't expect too much from it and I had prejudices as today's horror films have really hit the rock bottom. Now this film gives some hope that we'll see better films in the future.Most of the stories revolve around sexuality, adultery, divorce and death. Now that might upset a few people and most certainly it's not made for children. I can see references to Fulci style of horror and cinematography, also the last segment resembles some Italian art film of Fellini and more contemporary Sorrentino but with gore included.The acting varies from bad to mediocre to acceptable. I found many scenes to be really laughable but at least i had great time watching it. There's always some hidden humour in there. The last segment should have used a fat suit, but that cost a lot. Or they could have hired a fat actor instead. I loved to the symbolism of waking up in the same bed with a toad. That's really a perfect idea and found myself laughing at it.Even though it has its moments, many people won't be pleased with this film. It's just a shame that it doesn't have a wider distribution.
Let me make clear that I'm not giving my review of the whole movie, my review is strictly for the segment: The accident,which caught my eye when I saw it, the segment is very different from the others in perspective it does not fit into the hole movie which focuses on horror and gore.What separates it from the other shorts is its gentle nature in the narrative of properly speaking of what is death,how a child has her first experience with death,to be more precise how a mother explains to her what is death,this narrative jumps from the day of the accident to a conversation from mother to daughter that same night,we see images of motorcycle accident which are witness by both and we cut to a warm moment between mother and daughter, daughter in her bed and her mother beside her explaining the meaning of life and death for the first time to her child,the girl asking her questions about why people die and how the mother dose not have the answer to it and trying to convince her that death is not always a bad thing.The accident is incredible mixture of storytelling and music, the song is a combination of orchestra with electronic sounds with vocal samples, giving us a calm vibe and a little disturbing at the same time fitting perfectly with the story.It's not morbid to talk about death. Most people don't worry about death, they worry about a bad death-Terry Pratchett
the first two min stories within the movie are kind of boring since you don't get to watch it enough to feel for the characters ( i love you) was pretty sexual though. the next few stories are great starting with wet dreams which was directed by Tom savini special effects legend haha the accident and vision stains are the best in my opinion though. And to tie them all together they used creepy marionettes as openers, udo kier the puppet master is fantastic all in all a great movie for the anthology subgenre since they tend to blow, I think it's because they didn't have a trashy main story line to try to tie them together they chose to have different actors and directors for each sub story making everything flow better so all in all a 8/10
