Six directors (Charlotte Lilt, Tom J McCoy, Carl Jensen IV, Jordan Pillar, Ryan Kjolberg, Ryan Henry Johnston) worked on this horror anthology that, in the realm of small-budget horror anthologies concocted by six directors, holds together pretty well. Of course, look how awful other horror anthologies tend to be. But evident care went into this genre offering.
A town called Sugarton has a curfew imposed after an uncaught serial killer called Cutthroat resurfaces. On the same night Cutthroat slices to death personnel at a movie theater, a regular writing circle convenes at the bookstore run by Peter (Tom Sandoval). This time, Peter challenges his writers to pen horror tales drawn from their own lives, and we see them dramatized (with the novice writers typically acting out the leads in this films-within-the-film).
Often there is not so much a plot as a situation. In "Night Haul," a woman (Michelle Palermo) stuck after hours in a storage-unit complex interrupts a dying priest attempting to seal away a large crate holding a vampiric creature—but not holding it for very long. In "Dead Ringers" a hitchhiking vagrant Michael C. Alvarez blunders into another man battling some sort of demonic entity.
In "Untethered," the teenage son (Ethan Drew) of a troubled policeman falls victim to his father's trauma over morbid crime scenes. Only the final story, "The Resting," comes fully with a beginning, middle, and end, telling of Anne (Charlotte Lilt) who moves with her oddly apathetic husband into a large family home inherited after her mother's suicide. An okay atmosphere of paranoia prevails in the downbeat ending.
Whereas previous anthology thrillers throughout horrordom tend to strand the viewer with the same dreary "twist" ending in which we learn that the cast is all really dead and stuck in hell/purgatory/the Twilight Zone, Scare Us actually has a somewhat satisfying resolution-wrapup, as these things go—one which by inference, picks out the best of the stories (and might be interpreted as a sly little dig at writing workshops).
Despite diverse hands in the directing chair, the menacing tone is fairly consistent. Gore and creature f/x are intense but very brief, wisely shying away from letting the low budget become too visible. Some collections will be glad to note that gratuitous sex and sleaze are banished here. It may not be the greatest horror anthology out there but will work as a strong optional Halloween season spook show. (Aud: P)