CHILLING VISIONS: 5 SENSES OF FEAR (2013)

Studio:       Chiller Films
Director:    Nick Everhart, Miko Hughes, Emily Hagins, Eric England, Andy Mitton, Jesse Holland
Producer:  Andrew Gernhard, Zach O’Brien, Colin Theys, Irina Popov, Richard W. King
Stars:     Corey Scott Rutledge, Ted Yudain, Lowell Byers, Caleb Barwick, Doug Roland, Symba Smith, Lance Kramer, Joe Varca

Review Score: 

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Summary:

The senses of smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch connect five short horror tales. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Smell – Door-to-door saleswoman Miss Margaret invites herself into the slovenly home of bachelor Seth Kyle. She gives Seth cologne that will increase his attractiveness. Layoffs begin at work while Seth pines for his ex Sarah. He notices a rash developing on his wrist where he tested the fragrance. Seth uses the cologne and brings flowers to Sarah at the Javapalooza Café where she works. Sarah agrees to meet Seth for a date on Friday night. Seth returns to work and is summoned to meet with his bosses. He uses the cologne again and his bosses promote Seth instead of firing him. The cologne grants Seth a faster paced lifestyle, but his body starts decaying in the places where he applied the scent. Seth forgets his date with Sarah because he is busy clubbing. The black slime on Seth’s body continues growing. He collapses in his hotel room and calls Sarah to apologize. Sarah traces the call to the hotel room and finds that Seth has become a corpse of black decay. Miss Margaret appears and subdues Sarah with ether. Miss Margaret then collects a sample from Seth and returns it to Lacey Sharp at the Watershed Corp labs to be used in other cologne bottles.

See – Optometrist Dr. Tom uses a secret machine to extract fluid that captures visual memories from his patients’ eyeballs. Dr. Tom notices that patient Amy Kellerher has a bruise on her face that she explains away as clumsiness. When Dr. Tom extracts her fluids and drops them in his eyes, he sees that Amy was hit by her new boyfriend Travis. Dr. Tom arranges an exam for Travis that he uses to implant visual memories horrible events to frighten the abusive boyfriend. The visions drive Travis so mad that he kills Amy. Travis returns to the eye doctor and finds Dr. Tom using the drops to see memories of Amy dressing in her mirror. Travis forces an injection in the doctor’s eye to give him the same tormenting visions, although the doctor bites off Travis’ right pinky in the process. Dr. Tom stabs himself in the eye with a pencil to stop the visions. He then stabs Travis in the neck with the same pencil and escapes, but a vision of a woman appears and forces Dr. Tom to poke out his other eye.

Touch – Blind boy Henry is in a car accident with his parents. All three of them are left stranded on a forest road. As the only person capable of finding help, Henry sets off into the forest, using his sense of touch to avoid animal traps and other dangers. Henry finds a house. Inside is an imprisoned man who warns Henry about a serial killer who is missing one of his fingers. Henry takes a knife and returns to the woods where he encounters Travis. Realizing that Travis is missing a finger, Henry stabs him and hides. While Travis tries drawing the boy out, a man with a gun arrives looking for the boy and shouting at Travis that he has called the police. As the man looks into an underground pit, Travis knocks the man in and recovers his gun. Henry emerges to confront Travis and tricks the killer into stepping into one of his own animal traps as the police arrive.

Taste – Aaron Whitworth is taken by limousine to the mysterious Watershed Corp to meet Lacey Sharp. Aaron does not know what they want with him. Dr. Tom and Miss Margaret are seen milling about in the hallway. In the waiting room, Aaron meets several men who say that they have been assigned jobs by Lacey. A police offer with a deformed eye warns Aaron to accept whatever Lacey offers him. Aaron finally meets with Lacey and it is revealed that he is a computer hacker. Lacey tells Aaron that she wants him to find the origins of a song that has been separated into pieces that she needs recovered and restored. Aaron rejects the assignment. Lacey dons a mask with steel jaws and feverishly bites Aaron to death. The receptionist tells Lacey that her next prospect, Grace Englehart, is on her way.

Listen – Grace Englehart teams with documentarians Andy and Jesse to make a film about a lost piano piece by composer Mikkola Losif that is rumored to kill those who hear it. Andy and Jesse acquire a videocassette that shows hands performing pieces of the mysterious composition, although the segments are out of order. Another tape is delivered to their doorstep. The tape shows researcher Dr. Beck discussing auditory frequencies that can affect the brain with hallucinations. Attempting to use Mikkola Losif’s “Listen, My Children” in his research, Beck begins auditioning for a pianist capable of performing the complex arrangement. Multiple musicians break down while performing the piece and are unable to complete it. Pianist Vic Hambly comes closest and is selected for the experiment. An anonymous source leaves more tapes for the filmmakers at a drop location along with a series of numbers painted on a wall. In order to perform Losif’s composition without losing his own mind, Hambly’s eardrum is cut. Beck conducts a study that has Hambly performing the piano piece in front of four patients. By the end of the recital, everyone in the room goes crazy and tears themselves apart, including Dr. Beck. Hambly collapses on the piano keys. Andy and Jesse learn that the numbers left for them are timecode sequences that enable them to arrange the musical pieces in the correct order. The recording begins driving the men mad. Before they can stop her, Grace uploads the completed recording to the Internet. Andy and Jesse issue a public warning that no one should listen to the music.

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Review:

By definition, anthologies are a mixed bag.  “Chilling Visions” is no exception to this usually apt generalization, although it does have a cool concept for its connecting tissue.  With one short for each of the human senses, “Chilling Visions” presents five horror stories of varying effectiveness unified by one cohesive theme and a loosely interlaced mythology.

“Smell” kicks off the proceedings with an appropriately EC Comics vibe of black comedy and “be careful what you wish for” morality.  A mysterious saleslady gives slovenly bachelor Seth a complimentary bottle of cologne that makes him irresistible to women, loan officers, and even his bosses.  Unfortunately for Seth, the more he uses the mystery fragrance, the more he turns into a decaying pile of black goo.

Unfortunately for the audience, there is nothing more to the piece than that.  “Smell” is tied for the longest of the five segments and it feels like it.  The setup is straightforward, but it goes on longer than it needs to as the story over-illustrates Seth’s newfound fortunes.  The climax comes off as uninspired and makes for a lackluster introduction to the film.

Immortalized in genre fans’ memories as Gage Creed in “Pet Sematary” and Heather Langenkamp’s onscreen son in “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare,” actor Miko Hughes trades sides of the camera to direct the anthology’s second segment.  “See” is an interesting idea that has its mad scientist optometrist extracting ocular fluids that capture visual memories inside eye drops.  Dr. Tom likes to peep flashbacks of favorite patient Amy undressing in the mirror.  But he puts his drops to a nobler use after reliving a punch in the face from Amy’s abusive boyfriend.  Dr. Tom decides to give the bully a taste of his own medicine by filling the man’s eyes with horrible visions.

“See” works well as a short because the format provides a ready excuse for narrative shortcuts.  Logic leaps such as how fast the boyfriend realizes what the doctor is doing can be overlooked given the restricted timeframe.  There are also a number of inspired elements including a nice ripple effect for simulating eye droplets and a fine performance from Ted Yudain as the eye doctor.  The letdown is that the ending is not as satisfying as the initial concept.  The uniqueness of the story and the production design create an expectation that the story falls just short of fulfilling.

Filmmaking wunderkind Emily Hagins delivers the strongest chapter of “Chilling Visions” with “Touch.”  With his parents incapacitated after a car accident on a forest road, blind boy Henry searches the woods for help with only his white cane as a guide.  Blindness makes the segment ripe for sight to be its driving sense, but touch becomes doubly fitting when Henry is forced to match wits with a germaphobe serial killer.  The murderer avoids touch whenever possible while Henry relies on it to survive.

Tension comes from watching Henry tease danger as his fingers trace over the pointed metal of narrowly avoided animal traps and other obstacles.  Cleverness and fearlessness combine to make the boy into a compelling young hero and the way that Hagins weaves her employ of touch into the narrative exhibits a smart sense of storytelling.

“Taste” is another piece that comes out of the gate strong until stumbling down the stretch with a weak final reveal.  Aaron looks like an Average Joe in his hoody and tennis shoes.  Nonetheless, he has been chauffeured via limousine to the architecturally intimidating offices of the Watershed Corp for reasons unknown.  The people milling about the hallways, which include several characters from the previous segments, are just as mysterious in their motives and purposes.  The dialogue is just as cryptic and the story purposefully guards its direction to keep viewers cautiously in the dark.

Where writer/director Eric England succeeds is in creating a provocative and tantalizing environment.  There is a feeling of having stepped into a world with unknown rules and it is too late to turn back.  That feeling turns into one of having been hoodwinked when the story turns out to be an excuse to merge Shawnee Smith’s Jigsaw device with Pac-Man for an ending dripping in as much disappointment as it is blood.

“Listen” closes out the film with a “found footage” tale based around the legend of composer Mikkola Losif, who is said to have created a piano piece with the power to drive listeners insane.  Elements of “The Ring” mix with “All the President’s Men” and “At the Mountains of Madness” as documentarians Andy and Jesse attempt to find the lost compositions and assemble them in the correct sequence.

Despite a nod towards the often underappreciated “Halloween III” with its ending, “Listen” follows suit with the “Chilling Visions” theme of having a solid core inspiration that lacks in total satisfaction.  The story is creepy, but this is another segment that takes more time than it needs and some shaky acting from Lance Kramer and Joe Varca as the filmmakers’ doppelgangers undercuts the sincerity of the approach.

Although four of the five segments have noticeable flaws that lead to underwhelming moments, there are enough interesting story ideas and creative choices on hand to make the package enjoyable.  While everything does not work the way it should, or perhaps even the way that the filmmakers intended, there is never a sense that anyone is not giving their best effort to the production.  As with many horror anthologies, the varied voices, themes, and cinematic touches make it a reasonable bet that viewers are likely to find something that resonates with their individual tastes.

Review Score:  75

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