Anthology films – often three short tales with a common framework – are nothing new, even if the format isn’t used all that often today. We have, however, seen some interesting variations on the anthology film in recent years, perhaps most notably with The ABCs of Death in 2012, which made a minor stir and spawned a second edition. Certainly, what this anthology showed was that there’s acres of potential in the idea that a film can comprise several shorter chapters, whether or not these chapters are linked in the way that, say, the old Amicus portmanteau films were. As we know, sometimes a film’s cardinal sin is overstaying its welcome, or stretching a meagre idea over ninety minutes. Short filmmakers can’t get away with that. So, I was very optimistic when I came to watch Blood Clots, an anthology film which has taken the unusual step of compiling seven horror tales. Whilst the stories themselves aren’t linked, what they have in common is a punchy, decisively entertaining approach and enough variety to please any number of viewers.
The very first short film (or ‘Clot I’, which is perhaps a little unnecessary) is Hell of a Day, which is probably mood-wise the heaviest of all the films on offer, featuring an injured woman seeking shelter during a good old fashioned, honest-to-goodness zombie epidemic somewhere in rural Australia. In Shaun of the Dead style she breaks into an inn, but the tenants have disappeared and soon, the dead are able to follow her. Panicked, she locks herself in the cellar. This film focuses more on her plight and the effects of solitude upon her, albeit that the film is still bloody and one scene here is sure to make viewers wince and yelp (as I did). That said, the end sequence takes an odd turn, which ends the film more on a note of horror parody than full seriousness. Next up is Never Tear Us Apart, which starts with a man tied to a chair! Thankfully, this film doesn’t turn into a torture flick, as we instead follow two visitors to the self-same cabin in the woods where Chair Guy is currently situated. There’s a little twist here in a film which boasts a funny script, and a grisly riff on backwoods horror. Blue Moon, the third film, is a genuine oddity, and does something I have genuinely never seen and doubt I’ll see again: it starts off at a dogging event, and if you don’t know what that means, then definitely don’t look it up. On this particular night, which is all being filmed for the benefit of European fans of this rural pastime, an attractive young Romanian woman by the name of Nicoletta has turned up to join in. She looks decidedly uncomfortable, but – as the title might give away – it’s not long before men are fleeing through the woods in the awkward situation of having their trousers round their ankles, as Nicoletta isn’t some naive young girl after all.
Time to Eat is next, a short, sweet spin on the ‘something in the basement’ idea, followed by Still, which is a genius idea whereby a street performer – you know, the guys who stand stock still in city centres for the edification of tourists – is stuck, rooted to the spot during an incredibly gory zombie outbreak. We’re treated to his internal monologue as all of this unfolds, and this is a film both very camp and very slick in its delivery. Hellyfish has a daft central idea worthy of SyFy, as the unlikely couple of a Russian femme fatale and an Iranian jihadist look for a missing H-bomb off the coast of the US. We all know what ‘nuclear’ means where there’s any manner of ecosystem around, so before long this goofy skit on ‘B’ movies old and new winds up terrorising the beach with…well, nothing more needs to be said, I’m sure.
The final film in this collection is my pick of the bunch: The Call of Charlie achieves an awful lot in its short running time, but it’s paced beautifully, melding dinner party politics with Lovecraftian horror as if these things belong seamlessly together. When some Friday night uninvited guests disturb a dinner date which hosts Diane and Mark are laying on for their work friends, Maureen and Charlie, a lot of awkwardness ensues. This is exacerbated when unwanted guests Virginia and Jay actually clap eyes on Charlie himself. No one else seems to think it’s odd that he’s a tentacled monster, and dinnertime politics keep diverting the conversation away from what in hell he is and why exactly his date, Maureen, is quite so smitten. The big gag here is, of course, that the crashers are more of a hindrance than the guy rocking the Innsmouth look. A fantastic mask for the character of Charlie, made by the people at The Basement FX, adds gloss and gravitas to an engaging short film which keeps on layering the ridiculous and the sublime. I liked the little nod to HP Lovecraft himself in the end credits, too.
Blood Clots needs to make no apology for compiling such a whirlwind tour of horror themes and tropes; there’s something oddly comforting yet compelling about all the zombies, cannibals, lycanthropes, creepy basements and cabins in the woods we get here, like a gathering of old friends in old haunts. The twists in these tales are fairly easy to spot, but the films are none the worse for it, instead keeping it all tonally light, albeit that things get very grisly (and inventive in that grisliness). Often funny, and well-matched to the short film format, this anthology film is terrifically enjoyable. If you’ve ever seen a great short film at a festival, say, and wondered whatever becomes of them, then you’ll find this format and this release very welcome, and I for one would definitely like to see more compilations like this one available in future.
Blood Clots is available now on Vimeo and Amazon.