Sundance Review: The All Female Director Horror Anthology XX Was a Big Disappointment
I love horror movie anthologies, so I was looking forward to seeing the film XX. What made this whole horror anthology unique was the fact that the four short films that make up the movie were all written and directed by female filmmakers.
I liked what I saw in the trailer that was released, which I included for you below to watch, but unfortunately, the movie was a huge disappointment. I wasn't impressed with the series of films that made up the anthology.
One of the four shorts was "The Birthday Party," directed by Annie Clark, and it was the only one I kinda liked because it had some humor. It still didn't make any sense, though. A dad dies right before his kids birthday party and his wife tries to hide the body from them for some reason.
Another short was called "The Box," directed by Sofia Carrillo. I hated this short because it had no ending or conclusion. It centered on a young boy who asked to look in a box that an old man was holding on a train. The man showed him what was in the box and then afterward completely stopped eating because he was never hungry. We never find out why.
The there's the film "Don't Fall," which was directed by Jovanka Vuckovic, and it was a horror movie cliche that we've seen a hundred times before. A group of friends go camping to hang out and then one of them is possessed by a Native American demon and goes on a killing spree. The one thing I liked about this one was the creature design, but the story lacked substance.
The last film in the anthology is called "Her Only Living Son," helmed by Roxanne Benjamin. This was another kind of horror movie we've seen a hundred times before as it involves a mom who has been unknowingly raising the spawn of Satan. There was nothing about this short that was interesting.
None of the stories they told were very good. There was really nothing unique or original about them, and each of the shorts was like a mediocre student film. I hoped that they would've given us some better stories that hadn't been done to death in the horror genre. or at least these should have been well made.
I know there are some extremely talented female directors out there, and some of these directors have done decent work in the past, but they didn't bring the horror movie awesomeness to this anthology.