Main cast: Courtney Akbar (Candy), Krystal Pixie Adams (Morgan), Tyree Cobbins (The Injured Stranger), Chris DaBella (The Satanic Stranger), Jocelyne Daugherty (Lola), Will Devokees (Robert Zirn), Eight the Chosen One (Jake), Emma Koiso (Olivia Yoshida), Kelly Koiso (Ava Yoshida), Lucas Koiso (Aiden Yoshida), Marcus Koiso (Jayden Yoshida), Crystal Loverro (Helen Singer), Ashley Mei (Mallory Yoshida), Tim O’Hearn (The Long Haired Stranger), Ryan W Phillips (Don Holland), Austyn Reale (James), Zak Seeley (The Sharp-Dressed Stranger), Shane Smith (Jamie Singer), and John Zirbes (Paul Harrison)
Directors: Asif Akbar, Will Devokees, Clint Kelly, Ashley Mei, and Mick Thomas
The trouble with super low budget films is that one gets what one can pay for, and in the case of Morbid Stories, they should have just allocated the money for pizza or something more palatable.
This is an anthology movie, but the stories in here are barely related. It’s like these people got together one evening and, after one too many beers, decided it would be a great idea to just splice whatever they had made into a movie and sic it on unsuspecting people.
The “main” framing story is about this idiot, Candy, who wastes everyone’s time. First, the movie sees her playing with her two Pomeranian dogs – the best actors of the lot, mind you – and then it wastes more time seeing her fry some eggs, which she then dumps into lunchboxes for those two dogs to eat. What’s the point of wasting time on all these mundane scenes again? Who knows, maybe the actress is the director’s girlfriend and he had promised her a movie so this is it. She eventually realizes that the phone is dead and the gas is out, so she decides to take a drive while the radio warns of a vampire and zombie apocalypse happening around them. Not that there will be much to see here, as this movie doesn’t have the budget to show anything. It’s just Candy… driving… in the desert… with a confused-constipated look on her face.
Then we have Invasive Species, which has a couple’s home coming under attack by four vampires. The actors that play the humans act like they would just die if they emoted even a little, and the actress especially is hideously flat. Worse, she has to fight off a vampire, which she does with weak taps and slaps that somehow manage to stagger her undead opponent. There is that unintentionally hilarious scene of a vampire bent over feeding on a victim and staying still in that position for the rest of this short segment, but everything else resembles something one would find in the trash can of an abortion clinic.
3 Months is an “idiot teens playing with the Ouija board” story. The folks behind this one probably can’t afford to rent the venue for long and have to film chop chop, because this whole thing takes place in broad daylight (“6 pm”). Ooh, talk about spooky ambiance! The kiddie actors here are tied with the dogs in the first segment as the most natural members of the cast, while the actors playing the teenagers have all the emotive ability of a toadstool. So far, all the principle actors utter their lines as if they were dead inside – probably stricken with the realization that they would be stuck in dreary movies such as this for the rest of their career, unless they wise up and go to the nearest fast food joint the next day to ask for a job. Anyway, this one is predictable – someone get possessed, shocker – and the whole thing is like what one would get when some try-hard kids attempt to replicate a Blumhouse movie with one-twentieth of the typical Blumhouse budget.
Writers Beware has an author being forced to stay at a house he describes as “Chainsaw Massacre”, and this fat dolt spends way too long being a whining asshole to his assistant and the guy that owns the place. Then he visits the attic, gets stuck in a really awful try-hard Insidious-wannabe moment, and then dies. Sadly, this is probably the best segment of the lot because it is so boring that I am compelled to go do the dishes instead, and had a far better time doing that. Washing dishes is a nice reprieve from the brain sludge inflicted by this movie.
Next is More Than You Can Chew. A vampire tries to give up blood because she has a human boyfriend now, and so I am treated with what seems like ten years of that vampire lady shrieking, screaming, flailing around, tumbling down, and grunting. I think I’m supposed to be moved or something by her pain… or is this supposed to be scary? If I am horrified, it’s because someone somewhere actually thought this kind of thing will cut it in a horror film. She finally gives in and bites on some guy, only to be bitten back because hey, he’s a zombie! So now our heroine is a vampire turning into a zombie, and that’s when the boyfriend shows up, completely unaware of her true nature. This one could have been an interesting segment as, after all, it’s not everyday I get a vampire-zombie running around. Alas, this one proceeds to squander that premise by having the actress continue her Oscar-winning “I’m having a seizure!” stunt for the rest of the segment.
Finally, Candy dies, and the whole thing is over. Thank god.
Morbid Stories is an utter waste of time, money, and everything with the bonus factor of making the audience feel a hundred times dumber for having watched it. Seriously, unless you have an excess of brain cells and you don’t mind losing a few hundred thousand in the space of the one-hour-and-fifteen-or-so minutes run time of this thing, stay the hell away from it.
