Deadtime Stories (1986)

It is a performances centric movie

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

In this anthology movie a shady uncle tells three stories to his irritating nephew to get him to go to sleep. In the first, called Peter and the Witches, two witches want to resurrect their dead sister. They need a young woman for this, so they task their nephew to find one. They intend to boil her in their cauldron; however, they don't take into account their nephew's attachment to the girl. The second - Little Red Running Hood - is about a fitness fanatic who wants to lose her virginity. Meanwhile a werewolf pursues her grandmother who has accidentally being given his anti-lycanthropy medication. In the final instalment - Goldi Lox and the Three Baers – a lunatic family of criminals escape from an asylum and come into contact with a female serial killer.I'm usually a fan of portmanteau movies. Even if the quality is not great, the short running time of each story means they are rarely boring. However, occasionally this general rule fails to hold true. Deadtime Stories is certainly a case in point. All of its stories try your patience to varying degrees but perhaps worst of all it tries to be funny. But like most cheap horror comedies it fails miserably at being humorous. As a result it isn't scary nor is it funny and this is not good. It's not clear to me who would enjoy this but if you do then congratulations, you've got one over me.

"Dead of Night"..."Trilogy of Terror"..."Creepshow"..."Twilight Zone: The Movie"..."Cat's Eye"...yessir, the horror genre has had its share of fine anthology films; films that crawl up your sleeve and slide down your spine to produce commendable shivers. "Deadtime Stories," however, is a horror anthology like no other, basically because it's utter CRAP. Via a lame, low-budget framing device, a 'randy' uncle tells his restless nephew fairy tales in an attempt to get the brat to go to sleep (I, however, had no trouble falling into a somnambulant state while watching this). The silly script takes a darkly farcical view of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears,' 'Little Red Riding Hood,' and some story about two witches looking to resurrect their dead sister. While obviously low-budget, we do get some fairly impressive, "Hellraiser"-style FX work...but that's about all "Deadtime Stories" has to offer. The soundtrack, the fashions, and the hairstyles, combined with a script that's obnoxious when it wants to be funny, and eye-rollingly stupid when it wants to be scary, sends "Deadtime Stories" to a watery grave in the latrine of '80s nostalgia.

Who would have thought it? My second horror anthology film in as many days. In this one, a paranoid lad who is having trouble getting to sleep at night is told three fairy stories by his weirdo uncle.. but with a twist. In the first, two witches are trying to revive their dead relative by getting their nephew to invite guests over, who they promptly slaughter and throw in a cauldron for ingredients. The second has Red Riding Hood becoming a fitness fanatic who is desperate to lose her virginity with her boyfriend while being pursued by The Big Bad Wolf (who just wants his medication back..) Lastly, in the best of the trilogy, Goldilocks is transformed into a homicidal maniac with psychic powers who has just escaped from a loony bin along with 'The Three Bears' and is on the run from the police. Yes, it is all as mad as it sounds.And pretty cheap too. Like 'Chillers' that I saw just yesterday, the production was obviously operated on a very tight budget. But that doesn't excuse scenes where the boom-mike thrusts itself into view or we can see daylight through the windows, though it is supposed to be night. Whatever else you might think though, there is some very imaginative premises here which I can only guess how the writer came up with. For instance, The Three Bears are now humans, with Baby Bear as a simple-minded giant, Papa Bear as a fast-talking midget and Mama Bear as the stern matriarch of the trio. can I have some of your stash, please Mr Screenplay guy??BUT (and this is a big BUT) the fact remains that this is still pretty awful stuff. It isn't frightening, the first two stories long outstay their welcome and the attempts at humour mostly fail miserably. A few one-liners stand out, like when Goldilocks is caught in the shower "You were expecting maybe Janet Leigh?" I also like the actor playing the uncle as well, who would rather watch porn on TV than read to his nephew. He deserved a bigger part than some of the no-talents in the cast. Ultimately though, this is one for those long winter evenings when you're drunk and can't get upstairs. If you're soused enough, it might just start to make sense.. 3/10

Cheesy, sometimes bland horror film centers on an uncle telling his nephew three bedtime stories, each one with creepy twists. The first story is about two nasty witches trying to resurrect a skeleton monster. The second, which is my favorite, is a take on the Little Red Riding Hood tale, about a high school teen and her boyfriend who get mixed up with a drug-dealing werewolf. This story works the best due to a fast-pace and good acting (minus the grandma). The third story comes out of nowhere, trying to turn the movie into a black comedy with a Troma-like mentality. The story, about Goldie Lox and the Three Bears, seems completely out of place and looks as if it were filmed a couple years after the first two stories. The dark humor comes off dorky, with stupid lines ("wow, what a woman!") and annoying characters. The special effects in this movie are pretty cheap looking, the best coming out of the first story, with a skeleton coming back to some-what human form. Features some interesting faces. A former member of White Zombie plays a dead punker, along with his sister who plays Goldie Lox in the third story. Matt Mitler (The Mutilator), Nicole Picard (Ghoulies 3) and Scott Valentine (Family Ties) all have parts in this. Average horror film is watchable, it's just cheesy in some parts (which I guess can be a good thing), sluggish in others and saves the most annoying story for last. Two stars.