There’s sort of a Big Three list of anime anthology films that are frequently recommended, all of which have Katsuhiro Otomo involved to some degree or another – Robot Carnival, Neo-Tokyo/Labyrinth Tales, and Memories. I’ve seen Robot Carnival a couple times in the past (and should probably give it a review here), and I got to see Neo-Tokyo as part of the OVA film festival at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. After that screening, they announced their next event would be a screening of Memories – so I had to finish up the hat trick.
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Body Bags: Film Review
One of the genres where horror thrives is the Anthology film, and by “thrives” I mean that pretty much the only anthology films being made these days are horror films. Often, they take the framing narrative from EC Comics and it’s like – horror stories book-ended with a narrative by a ghoulish presenter of some form or another – you know, the classic Tales From the Crypt formula. Well, when HBO launched their Tales From The Crypt anthology TV series and films, Showtime filmed a pilot for their own, to be titled Body Bags. They didn’t decide to go forward, but did take the three filmed stories and turned them into their own anthology film.
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Film Review: Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors
A while back I reviewed one of Amicus’ horror films – the 1972 Tales of the Crypt movie. For the first of my October horror film reviews, I have another Amicus anthology to review: Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors. Continue reading
Anime Review: Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond
Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond are a pair of anthology films from Studio 3°C. Anime anthology films often open up a lot of opportunities for experimentation and exploration of the craft, and Studio 3°C in particular is a studio who likes to nurture this degree of experimentation. I’ll be discussing both of the two films together, as the films were originally planned to be released together. Continue reading
Film Review: Tales from the Crypt (1972)
One of the strengths of the anthology film in horror, is that horror works really well in short form. It is almost as much the medium of the short story the way that Science Fiction is the realm of the novella and novel, and heroic fantasy is the realm of the novel. This is also why the horror comics of the 50s and 60s leant themselves well to anthology TV series and the anthology film in particular. Continue reading
Film Review: Extraordinary Tales
I really like anthology films – particularly when it comes to horror. Anthology films let you take a brief period of time to tell an exciting, concise story that can scare you, excite you, or creep you out. Perhaps this is due to many great horror stories being short stories. One of the masters of the horror story was Edgar Allen Poe. This brings me to Extraordinary Tales, an animated anthology film adaptation 5 of Poe’s short stories. Continue reading