Tales of the Supernatural
A writer comes to a church looking for… Stories of the underworld… Perhaps… Tales of the Supernatural?
Sometimes titles The Soul Catcher, this film is gonna be an anthology, but it might not be all that bad, interestingly enough, Smith doesn’t direct everything here. This time he’s working this film with a partner, Daniel Johnson, a veteran of short films who contributes two stories to this collection – Bryan’s Daughter and Paralysis.
We’ve got a good framing device… Not only do we have the writer in the church looking for stories, the devil himself is arrived. There’s some pretty serviceable special effects in the section as well. Good composites, and some smart practical moves as a devil chases a young man out of the church and through the streets of town. It’s no use though, and he finds himself in an empty basement, tied to chair. The Devil double checks his watch as he taunts the young man. And now, it’s time for the Devil’s stories.
The Book.
A writer with a deadline, and an unfortunate case of writers block. But the publisher has just the cure for that… Suddenly shes waking up from a nightmare about a car crash only to discover a different life that she doesn’t recognize. It all has a very Twilight Zone field to it. At least, until the zombie shows up. Then it’s just confusing.
Back in the basement, the devil kind of tries to explain the plot, but only makes things more confusing. The young man tied up needs to feel the pain of each of these souls… Each of their stories.The next story is Bryan‘s daughter.
Bryan, is of course, dead. But his daughter already knows before her mother tells her. And now she’s acting strange. It’s a quickie creepy kid haunting. A nice short feature, if a bit sloppily shot. You can tell this is one of Johnson’s bits.
The Hike… Which is exactly what it seems like. A fellow with a map in the wilderness but we get strange POV shots… He’s being followed.
Something with a light foot and a height voice flits about in the woods, unseen.
he comes across a small village with a singularly unwelcoming group of pillagers. He can’t leave, this is where he belongs… And indeed… he can’t seem to escape these people. Ayoung girl advises him, “keep going! Stay on the path and don’t look back”. He flees. Suddenly, he’s surrounded by the wicked looking villagers. A blade comes out. So does a confession.
Then we go to Paralysis. A story about sleep paralysis specifically., But her doctor really can’t help her… She has nothing useful to tell her. It’s merely unnerving until she finds herself paralyzed and an unsweet hand reaches towards her, falling down the bedsheets at 4am. The next day, she’s wakes up with a gash torn across her chest. This one falls a little bit flat. The make it feel tense and freaky, but it’s really just a voice over over an occasional double exposure. Johnson’s segments tend to feel lo-fi, like they’re shot on cheaper cameras with few post production resources. This one is more of a dud, and that’s a shame because it’s got potential.
The next story is called Naked. It starts off with blood in a bath. Stark black-and-white with a dire girl in the corner as a doctor scrubs up. She tells the doctor about a recurring dream she’s having, in the office, looks down and she’s naked. She goes home and decides loud music is the answer to her trouble. Her husband‘s not too happy though when he comes home to it. It’s been a bad day.
The doctor decides on hypnotherapy.., which is how we discovered she committed suicide? I think? Maybe the doctor is a ghost too?
Diary of a Disturbance is our next bit. Farm in trouble and evil spirits… Definitely not a good mixture. We have weird Halloween masks and a big cleaver. What kind of farm is this anyhow? Graveyard farm It looks like…
Extra grain on the film to make it look old Timey. 24 hours ago, the farmers daughter was playing in the barn with ghosts while he and a technician get the milking machines working on the cows. The little kid ghosts are actually quite creepy, with nicely composite eyes. There’s a couple demonic things around here with those eyes as well. The farmer is drinking, and the bank wants to foreclose on the farm. Why would anyone want a haunted farm? Seriously. This entire short is really just a bunch of jumbled images, it’s a mood piece rather than a actual narrative I bought a bother resurrecting his daughter through diabolical means. What are the nice bits here though is the Devil and zombie girl from the first short all shop in this store as well, adding connection and continuity, just in time for us to get to the end of the wraparound story.
I can’t say this is a high recommend. I like it as part of this director retrospective, but ultimately, it really falls short for me. It feels like the perfect sort of movie to put on in the background of a Halloween party or to run on the screens at a Gothic nightclub. The movie promises that “the demon will return”, but I’d really just as well if he didn’t.
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