Scary Tales is a No Budget Production horror anthology, filmed on video with obviously a tiny budget and limited resources. I had never heard of it until I saw the Blu-ray in a recent sale (101 Films in the UK). I took a chance and am glad that I did. A ghostly character called simply The Story Teller, dressed in a black hooded robe, introduces each segment to - wait for it - a small audience of young children! Yes, this is very bizarre but I liked it. Each story is as follows - (1) "Satan's Necklace" A man out with a metal detector discovers a strange looking necklace, he wears it but it turns him into a bloodthirsty demon, ripping his wife's heart out, etc. My least favourite of the three but still an enjoyable "bad" watch, and check out those mullets, scariest things in the whole movie (ha, ha!) (2) "Sliced in Coldblood" A man discovers that his wife has been cheating on him so he goes out on a bloody and senseless killing spree. This was my favourite story, a very short and basic slasher flick with lots of kills. The special effects are very cheap looking but they are fun and I prefer this to horrible CGI any day of the week, a head split in half with a machete being my favourite gore scene. (3) "Level 21" A family man is obsessed with a video game, he tells his wife that he'll quit playing but he can't. Eventually he reaches Level 21, only to be dragged into the game itself, a land of sword, sorcery and Ninja! Again this was gory and fun but the end could've been better. I guess as horror anthologies go this is the polar opposite to say "Creepshow" (1982), as mentioned the budget is very very low, the plots are threadbare, it was shot on video and so the picture/sound quality reflects this, and the acting comes in various degrees of bad. But taking these limitations into account I think that they did a pretty good job, yes it is a BAD movie but I found it to be an enjoyable one. At only 70 minutes long it flies by, I will certainly be watching it again.
