Director: Roxanne Benjamin, Karyn Kusama, St. Vincent, Jovanka Vuckovic
Writer: Roxanne Benjamin, Karyn Kusama, St. Vincent, Jovanka Vuckovic
(Screenplay)
Starring: Natalie Brown, Jonathan Watton, Melanie Lynskey, Casey Adams, Breeda Wool, Angela Trimbur, Christina Kirk
Plot: Four short horror films that are directed and written by women.
Tagline – Four deadly tales by four killer women
Runtime: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Horrors Fans Will Enjoy
Story: XX has four stories, which start with;
The Box starts when a family is traveling home from a Christmas shopping trip to the big city when Danny (DaCunha) talks to a stranger with a box on the train ride home, once home he doesn’t want to eat as he doesn’t feel hungry, the days pass by as his parents Susan (Brown) and Robert (Watton) get increasingly worried about him. As the problem starts to spread within the family it tears them apart until we get to see just what the cause is.
The Birthday Party starts when Mary (Lynskey) wakes on the day of her daughter birthday, with the first guests starting to arrive, only for her to discover her husband has died, wanting to hide the body, she must avoid her daughter and the guests a hide the body for the party get fully underway.
Don’t Fall starts with four friends Paul (Adams) Gretchen (Wool) Jess (Trimbur) and Jay (Krantz) are on a hiking trip, when they discover some native American paintings. That night they come under attack from something they should never have seen.
Her Only Living Son starts when Cora (Kirk) is seeing her son Andy (Allen) start to act rebellious and dangerous in his life, he is about to hit 18 and once again commits an assault at school, only to get off scot free, with the school believing he is a prodigy.
Thoughts on XX
Story – The Box is a very interesting horror, it poses a question that would leave the audience much like Susan wondering what changed everything in her family’s life, it has a shock moment, while the rest is filled with the psychological side of horror. The Birthday Party plays out more like a dark comedy that a horror, it does work very well watching how hard the it is to cover up a death. Don’t Fall does seem to be the weakest of the stories here, mostly because it is way too short, it seems to take us to the location, hit night and everything happens and it is over way too quickly. Her Only Living Son does play out a lot like ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ only having a supernatural side to the outcome, it is one that could easily be a longer film too. Overall the stories are different enough, we have little sparks for each sub-genre of horror too which only means if you didn’t like one, you can skip to the next with ease.
Horror – The horror in the film gives us something different in each little story, we have psychological, dark humour, creature feature and satanic, which will give the audience something to enjoy between them.
Settings – The film does use each setting to make us feel like we are in different stories with Happy Birthday using the environment the best through the film.
Special Effects – The effects are strong when needed, we don’t turn to them very often which is nice for a horror film at times.
Scene of the Movie – Dinner with a difference.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Don’t Fall feels too short.
Final Thoughts – This is a nice little horror anthology which highlights the female film makers in the genre, each story will have something for each type of horror fan to enjoy.
Overall: Horror Anthology 101
