Morbid Stories – 2019

Morbid Stories is an anthology; it’s not really clear, at least not to begin with, what the actual point is. The first few scenes are about this woman frying eggs and bacon for her dogs. Very odd choice of dogfood don’t you think? But this gets me interested. What can a film starting with something that strange have in store for me? I didn’t get any immediate answers, though. The story is starting to get told, but soon we’re experiencing a prior event, I think it’s like 14 hours earlier.

I’m thinking, ah! Morbid Stories is that kinda of movie, you’ll be getting more and more of the puzzle in the present by experiencing the past. If I understand it correctly, each segment has a new director. This is not uncommon, of course, it’s kinda one of the points with making anthologies, I guess, less job for a single individual. But there is also a problem in making each part stylistically coherent. I’m not sure if I think it really becomes one unit out of all of it in the end.

Some segments in Morbid Stories are very well acted, while others contribute more to the main storyline. Some are very suspenseful, and parts are quite dull as well. If I could have gotten it my way, I would have liked the story as a whole be a little more connected. I feel like there are stories being told, but as far as THE story comes, it’s a bit too fragmented for me. To be frank, I don’t get it. I don’t really understand how it’s connected to the main story. Maybe that’s the point, that the connection is so vague as to give the impression that what happens happens everywhere without exception. It’s just different visualizations. 

It soon becomes obvious that Morbid Stories all center around vampireism, though, or at least there are some things that are supposed to be dead coming back to life. At one point, I was thinking zombies, you know, the dead rise, there’s no more room in hell, that kind of stuff. At some point, I was thinking more along the lines of ghosts. But I think the portrayal of the creatures is pretty good, whatever they may be (well, they do have fangs…). There’s nothing over-the-top in any of the parts, and it almost never gets cliché. That’s hard to accomplish with such a theme. There are so many things that “must” be included in a vampire movie. And I’m not talking about Dracula turning into a bat or stuff like that. You know the drill, right? You know the usual stuff.

The stories are very different, though. There’s a tale about an author seeking refuge in an old house to get away from the world, and there’s this girl who seems to be using drugs. Needles and stuff, but it is later shown to be something otherworldly. You know, something bloodsucking. 

To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed to begin with, apart from the dogfood, but it only gets better from the first few minutes. I still wish there was a little more unity when it comes to style and all that, but you can’t have it all. As a whole, I think it was worth the time. Is it a movie that really stands out and will go down in history as a cinematic masterpiece? No, it isn’t. Is it a flick that shows off the passion among friends for the art of movie-making? It sure is!