Every so often, I search around one of the streaming services I subscribe to and find something that at least sounds interesting. Such was the case when, while browsing through Hulu, I cam across The Field Guide to Evil. What was that? I had never heard of it before, but the premise sounded interesting: it was an anthology movie about folklore from different countries.
It turns out the movie was actually a result of crowdfunding, and the only name I even somewhat recognized was producer Tim League, one of the founders and owners of the Alamo Drafthouse. As it is, most of the directors assembled weren’t Americans, so at the least I’d get some exposure to foreign cinema.
As it is, the movie is basically eight stories told by nine different directors, each story running roughly 20 minutes. Each story covers the folklore of a different country as directed by someone from that country. The stories are:
- “The Sinful Women of Höllfall,” from Austria directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, about the Trud, a creature that torments people who feel guilty for their sins by crushing them at night but without killing them
- “Haunted by Al Karisi the Childbirth Djinn” from Turkish director Can Evrenol, about a demon that eats babies but can take the form of old women, goats, and cats
- “The Kindler and the Virgin” from Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynsk, about a witch who tells a man he can gain great power if he eats the hearts of three of the recently deceased
- “Beware the Melonheads” from American Calvin Lee reader, about an Applacian story where large headed children live in the woods and eat people
- “Whatever Happened to Panagas the Pagan?” from Greek director Yannis Veslemes, about a legend where minor demons come to Earth to cavort with the drunk on Christmas
- “The Palace of Horrors” from Indian director Ashim Ahluwalia, based on a Bengali folktale about a king who collects people with odd deformities
- “A Nocturnal Breath” from German director Katrin Gebbe, about a demonic force that possesses people and forces them to do horrible things in the guise of eplespy.
- And finally “Cobbler’s Lot” from Hungarian director Peter Strictland, about two cobbler brothers competing for the hand of a beautiful princess.
Now, it should be noted that an anthology is generally only as good as its best story and as bad as its worst. And, quite frankly, these stories vary greatly in quality. Some of the directors did quite well telling a spooky story in twenty minutes or so. The Austrian story, set in a medieval time, works quite well establishing a spooky mood, with an effective monster reveal and the general idea that the young woman being tormented is feeling guilty for her sexuality and not what her mother assumes is the problem. Likewise, the Hungarian story, told in the hyperstylized manner of a silent movie, also works well in its general uniqueness, with all dialogue told with title cards. The Turkish story had some nice stylized moments, and goat eyes are pretty creepy in my book no matter what, so that made an impact for certain.
But other stories, such as the German and Polish stories, probably would have worked a little better with a little more development. The Polish story, where a witch offers a traveler the means to ultimate power, just jumps right into the narrative. The German story ends a little too abruptly for my taste. Both stories could have used a little more development, but the time allotment didn’t really allow it. As for the Greek story, it seemed to suggest the humans were the real terror and the goblins were the victims. It made the story a little different and less a horror story and more of an accusation.
And on the low end of the spectrum was the American story. Good work utilizing hillbilly folklore, but the Melonheads themselves looked more silly than scary. The net result is the story just doesn’t work if the creature of the feature are more ridiculous than horrifying. I suspect budgetary reasons had their limits there. And truth be told, I don’t even remember much about the Indian story.
Did the movie work? Well, somewhat. The movie did use a framing device where a book defined each legend as each story started, but the whole thing didn’t really add up to much. Some of the stories were good, some weren’t. All things being equal, it was OK, but I would have preferred less stories given more of a chance to breathe.
Grade: C+
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