Extraordinary Movie & Video Guide

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The Horror Vault. USA/Denmark/Australia 2008.

The Horror Vault is a compilation DVD or anthology of horror shorts, made by indie film makers from U.S, Denmark and Australia. Full running time is over 100 minutes, and there are some gems in this nice showcase of yet unknown talents. And then there are some mediocre efforts, but not one of them goes below the par. Naturally some of the shorts suffer from lack of quality acting and some technical aspects, but the enthusiasm is the key word here.

The Horror Vault starts with Danish Kim Sønderholm's When John Met Julia, that gives a grim story of family man giving a ride for unknown beauty. The ending could have been more imaginative, but this short works as a premise quite well.

Delusion is essentially a black & white crime thriller, that tries to look like a 50's era film - and succeeds fantastically. The cinematography, props, hairstyles, clothing.. everything, I mean everything is designed to take viewer back to the 50's. The professional actors and actresses add a lot to pretty effective psychological crime plot. Great work by American director Mark Machillo.

Alone is simple and effective thriller, having a same creepy atmosphere that John Carpenter's Halloween and the fellow coevals gave some centuries ago. The sorority girl locks herself in the dormitory, as the maniac killer is on the loose.

Dead to the World is an interesting and appealing glimpse to Ted Bundy's sick world (and if you don't know who he is, please find out). In the short, Bundy is on interrogation and flashbacks take us to events of disturbing killings.

Kim Sønderholm's Mental Distortion is whole lot of better than the first one, as the psychological horror short develops to the great ending. Sønderholm is once again playing the lead role, as a man discovering his girlfriend dead in the bathroom. The ghost of a girlfriend begins to haunt him.

The makers of Disconnected have probably the blackest sense of humor that I have witnessed in a long time... and I love it! Ultra-violent, black & white torture story with an ending, that makes you laugh - and shame yourself for laughing.

The Demon succeeds being a short film with no dialogue, but the story is just not too original or outstanding to be praised of. It has its moments, though - the scenes with scary demonic man are chilling. A good experiment, I bet these Danish film makers can do much better.

Australian Echoes and American Retina leave a bit to be desired. Echoes is a simple tale of a man trapped in a strange hospital. Sadly it never creates a tense atmosphere in a way it could or should. Some scenes are disturbing enough to raise Echoes above average. Retina on the other hand, is the strangest one of this compilation DVD. Black & white experimental short reminds of David Lynch's early efforts. I didn't understand those, either. Still, Retina has its creepy moments and is probably the most original one of the anthology.

All in all, The Horror Vault is a high-quality showcase of indie film makers. Besides the nine tales, there are few trailers of imaginary horror movies, which were quite fun - but I felt they were not in the right company. I am eagerly waiting to see the sequel, and you should check out this first one - right now.