Murder Manual (2020)
3/10
A very troubled "anthology"
1 June 2020
It is quite amusing how persons behind this so-called anthology managed to take two decent short films (Sam N. Powell's "Uzi" starring Anthony Goss and, of course, Nour Wazzi's "Shackled" starring Emilia Clarke) and blend them with six other wretched short films (even Finnish "The Silent" with pleasing cinematography and non-existing plot). There is indeed nothing connecting them on any level without taking into account the fact that they are trying to be spooky.

In fact, this Frankenstein's monster shouldn't exist in the first place. The only reason it does exist is because someone bought the rights for these shorts (did they?) and slatternly stitched them into a feature film that could be sold on VOD. The whole "murder manual" is based on a poor CGI brief cards between the shorts with the instruction list about how to murder your potential victim. Did you know that in order to kill anyone you're supposed to stalk them? Wow! Astonish and bold, am I right? And this list, truth be told, has absolutely nothing to do with actions in the short films.

An interesting fact: "Murder Manual" producers should be prepared for the lawsuit from Emilia Clarke and her representatives for trying to fraudulently capitalize on her fame by using her name and face to promote a movie in which she was largely absent. And she wouldn't even be the first celebrity to do so: Jesse Eisenberg did the exact thing back in 2010 when he found out that the indie horror flick "Camp Hell" he shot three years ago has his face on the whole official DVD cover even though he did a cameo and the film isn't about his character. Eisenberg asked "at least US$3 million". Clarke might even ask more. Was this all worth it? I don't think so.
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