HorrorVault3

The Horror Vault 3 (2010)

If you guys aren’t familiar with the Horror Vault series then let me give you some background. Basically these are anthologies that bring together a series of short films from different independent filmmakers from around the world. I’ve already reviewed the second Horror Vault here, but now it is time to take a look at the 3rd installment.

I’m going to review the individual segments in the order they appear on the DVD. First up is one called A Christmas Haunting. This one from director Kim Sønderholm, who also stars, follows a man as he is spending Christmas away from his ex in an isolated cabin. We see some mysterious and ghostly women (all topless) that seem to be haunting either the house or him. I rather like this one. It has a cool twist and there are some interesting effects. Though I’ll admit that there is also quite a bit of bad CGI, it can be forgiven. I say this partly because the twist feeds into the surreal look of the effects and partly because the story is interesting and solid.

The next short is called Zombie Office. It is an interesting bit about a man who realizes that his evil boss has turned everyone at work into zombies. Most of the movie is him trying to get away from his coworkers and his boss, who wants to “hire” him. I also sort of liked this one as well. Even for a short it has a fast pace, takes some humors shots at life in a “cube farm” and even attempts some gut munching.

Next up is my favorite of the bunch. It is called Undone and starts off with news reports of the Lollipop killer who targets, molests, and then kills children. The action then shifts to a bar where a man is getting thoroughly trashed. After getting tossed out on his butt he is taken home by a friend, who also happens to work in a prison. We find out the man is the father of one of the dead children when the guard shows up with the pedophile who killed his little girl. The rest of the short is the man working up his courage with ever increasing bits of torture. His only rule is not to kill the man. This ends up being a pretty nasty bit of work and implies a lot of carnage without showing you anything. I found it pretty damn effective.

The 4th short is called Unchangeable. I’m not entirely sure of what this one is about as the narrative jumps all over the place. It starts out towards the end, shifts back to the middle, flashes back to the beginning, and then ends up back at the end! That said I did think it was an interesting story as we follow a man trying to find out who killed his wife. It involves a rather beastly homeless man, or does it? It really is hard to figure out what is going on, but somehow I still found it entertaining.

Unfortunately that can be said of the final “short” (felt like it was never going to end!) called Psychomantrum. As best I can tell this is supposed to be some sort of visual representation of perhaps insanity, or at least an unhappy life. We follow a woman as she yells at various other people she meets. Between shouting matches we are hammered visually by random images. Truthfully this is one of those “artsy” movies that film students try to make all the time. I think they do it so they can look down their noses at the rest of us who would actually like plot and character with our films. Bottom line here is that I found this one segment to be infinitely boring and a real let down compared to the rest of the shorts included in The Horror Vault 3.

As much as I disliked this last segment overall The Horror Vault 3 is a nice bit of independent filmmaking. There are some really talented people here that I think we, as fans should support. So I recommend picking up The Horror Vault 3. For more information about this one you can check out their website at http://www.thehorrorvault.net/3

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer