Tres historias para no dormir

Three fairy tales are given ghoulish twists in what should have been a homerun for the horror genre. However, a slack production and a director who seems confused as to handle the stories sink it. Tale one, a romantic horror fantasy with attractive leads and a lush score is a moderate success compared to the other tales.

Three stories, only one is good, the others are okay. The gimmick of twisted fairy tales is stretched a bit, but works well enough. Where it falls apart is with the framing device and the last story, which is so hokey and over the top that it almost ruins the movie. The middle one is the best with the first one being a solid meh. Still worth seeing as a whole, but there are far better anthologies.

I recently made it a point to try and see every horror anthology movie I know about. Having neared the end of my "mission", "Deadtime Stories" sticks out as being surprisingly good. Creative effects, clever stories, and just the right amount of dark humor make this one a great movie to watch.

To start with, the wraparound story, while being somewhat tried, is dramatically saved by the character of the sleazy uncle. All he's trying to do is get his nephew to fall asleep so he can watch the Miss Nude competition. His introduction to the Runninghood story is terrific. I must have missed getting to hear THOSE fairy tales when I was a child.

The first story is the darkest of the three, Peter and the Witches. Its highlights are a hot blonde with big breasts and a stomach-churning sequence of a fully-regenerating body. It has a chilling ending, with an intentionally-corny "alternate" ending told by the uncle to satisfy his bratty nephew.

The second story is a clever variation of Little Red Riding Hood. Here Red Riding Hood is dubbed "Runninghood", and is, as the uncle graphically describes, a high school senior with firm breasts. The wolf is a werewolf, who attacks the girl's grandmother while our title heroine goes and has sex with her boyfriend (the woodsman). Even more interesting is if you know that the original Riding Hood fairy tale is largely a metaphor for a young woman's first sexual experience.

The third story is the best, offering the perfect combination of horror and dark humor. In Goldi Lox and the Three Baers, "Papa" Baer and his mentally-retarded son "Baby" Baer escape from an asylum (whose name I won't give away, but it immediately tells you that the segment is going to be funny) with "Mama" Baer's help and find that the murderous Goldi Lox, who has Carrie-like telekinetic powers, is living in their old house. The feuding Captains Jack B. Nimble and Jack B. Quick of the police department successfully bungle their effort to capture the group, and the four go on their merry way at the end. Several parts are funny in this one, particularly when Goldi Lox and Baby Baer have "sex". Some of the humor is subtle, too. I almost didn't catch the "plainclothes vehicles" part.

I quite enjoyed this one. Just one problem, though. You don't find out who won the Miss Nude pageant! 8/10.

A little boy begs his uncle to tell him bedtime stories. The uncle does, but gives them all macabre twists in this fair-to-middling anthology film.

"Peter And The Witches" is about a young man (Scott Valentine) who is a slave to two witches. This segment is slow and almost plot less.

"Little Red Runninghood" has a high school girl in a red jogging outfit picking up medicine for her sick grandma at the drug store. She's given the wrong prescription, and the man the medicine belongs to has a very special reason for needing it before the full moon (hint, hint). You'll guess the punchline, but it's still a funny segment.

"Goldi Lox And The Three Baers" is a very broad, very black comedy about a telekinetic young woman (the very sexy Catheryn DePrume) and a homicidal family - Papa Baer, Mama Baer and Baby Baer - that team up together and go on a crime spree. Sort of a R rated Looney Tunes cartoon, this is the best segment of the film.

Perhaps not the best horror anthology around, it's still amusing in spots. Apparently this movie was shot over the course of four years. The British title is Freaky Fairy Tales.

Fairy-tales gone bad, devilishly bad, in this total "B" cheese-fest anthology movie from obscure 80's horror heaven! It's an oddball flick, adding a lot of absurd and black humor. Bad actors and very low budget but still some cool & gory special effects (one scene in the first segment even had me thinking about the resurrection of Frank in "Hellraiser", of course a little less impressively staged this time). The last segment is as retarded as it is genius. And it's got Goldilox showing some upper nakedness. I just cannot flunk this bad boy; I had way too much fun with it. And regardless the painfully low production values, it does manage to be fairly original & spirited. Die hard horror anthology lovers should check this out some time.