A Film that, ironically, is quite unknown. I guess I just had my own...
To begin with, the whole 'Narrated by Rod Serling' Credit is only half-true.
He's one of TWO Narrators, the former of whom does the Intro and Outro to the Film that, I guess, Serling wouldn't do.
He also goes a bit off of the Script used for the Text Crawl, as he just skips right over a part implying a connection between the (apparently fictional- like Dr. Hellstrom) Dr. Rankin and his own experiments.
So now we get 3 random Stories that somehow relate due to these people being buried in the same Cemetery (or something).
In the first Story, a Funeral for a young man is broken up by...
She puts a curse on three young men at the event, whom she blames for her Son's death.
This gives us the first issue of the Film- Storytelling.
We see one of the young men on a Plane, which turns out to be 14 days later. He tells the Story of why the lady is mad at them (they pulled a prank that really inadvertently killed him) to a Priest.
In that Story, he casually mentions how one of his friends died a week ago. He's taking it well!
He's killed in an off-screen plane crash (of a plane that never left the Airport) and we end with the third guy going Skydiving...on the 21st Day.
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In the 2nd tale, we get a drawn-out Story from the early 20th Century.
It involves a kid, a missing dog and a mysterious hole that appears overnight.
Whatever the mystery of the hole is, it is- shockingly- unknown as the Father of the boy was apparently driven mad by it.
I guess he also knocked his own picture off of the wall before that- with psychic energy- in a claim that even John Newland would doubt.
The final tale *claims* to be the original Version of an oft-told tale (which I once saw a version of on Amish Haunting). This one is special...as the first, I guess?
A Couple finds a woman on a bridge and she asks to go home.
During the trip, we see a series of flashbacks showing how she was dating a poor guy in 1929 and her Dad said he'd 'rather see her dead than marry him.'
The Couple bring her home...but she vanishes.
Yep, she was a Ghost this whole time. Anyone not figure that out literally right away?
You think it's over...but it's not! Nope, this Film thinks that you are dumb, so...
First, we get like 5 minutes of the doomed Couple being happy. Do you get that it was sad?
Next our original Narrator returns to recap EVERY STORY and explain the 'questions' you should ask.
Now it's done...finally.
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Some things are best left unknown, I think. It's not truly terrible, but damn is it stretched out!
This was apparently a TV Movie, so I guess they had to fill 2 hours (with Commercials). Too bad they didn't do it in an interesting way.
Instead, we get the drawn-out Ending, a pointless beginning and the tendency of people in every Story to repeat themselves. For instance, the kid tells the Priest his Story. Later, the Priest talks to another Priest...and recaps the Story again! We remember what happened 10 minutes ago, Movie!
The Stories are alright. The first one has an odd structure- told half in flashback and then ending without resolution- and features some gloriously-silly overacting from Voodoo Karen. The second one has some good atmosphere...but that's it. The final Tale is so obvious from the get-go and is chock full of melodrama.
Unless you're someone like me who feels legally-obligated to see every Anthology Film ever made, you can skip this. Just think of Rod Serling as the guy behind The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, as opposed to this...
In hindsight, who expected a low-budget Film retelling Urban Legends to be good. Bonus- it was made entirely in Arkansas.
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