The Night Time World

Vampiric horror anthology almost sucks.

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I tend to dig horror anthology films (i.e. “Creepshow” and the “VHS” series) and vampire flicks and was therefore hoping to enjoy “The Night Time World” (now available on VOD) and to a certain extent I did, but not without some major caveats.

There’s a wraparound segment written and directed by Timothy Paul Taylor in which podcaster Nada (Doug Henderson, this dude has a great podcast voice and probably gives the film’s best performance) fields a phone call from a young woman (Selina Flanscha) claiming to be a vampire. Nada takes other calls resulting in a series of four separate stories – “The Backpage,” “Scarlet,” “Sorry for the Blood” and “Indictment.”

I definitely preferred the first story (“The Backpage”) and the final story (“Indictment”) to the two middle stories.

“The Backpage” as written and directed by Brandon Lescure was my favorite of the bunch. It focuses on the nerdy Paul (Brendan Krick) who was recently dumped by his live-in girlfriend. Lonely and at the behest of his ladies’ man buddy Shane (Joe Welkie), Paul calls a backpage number looking for an in-home massage with a happy ending. His masseuse comes in the form of Lilith (Annabel Leah), a looker who’s down to clown but also has one big, bad secret.

Paul is a huge horror head and as such his house is adorned with all sorts of cool memorabilia (I’m not sure how or if they even tried to get clearance for all this crap?) and Lescure provides Paul and Lilith with some fun pop cultural dialogue. Not all the patter sings – I am uncertain if it’s Welkie’s performance or Shane as a character (I’m leaning more latter than former.), but all his shtick is annoying as shit.

“Indictment” as directed by Gene Blalock has interesting things to say about police brutality and racial relations and is arguably the most visually-appealing of the segments thanks to the cinematography of Andria Chamberlin and the special effects of Ryan Ward.

“Sorry for the Blood” written and directed by Chaz Dray Schoenbeck and Adam Michaels feels like two dudes who saw “The Crow” and “Blade” too many times and unskillfully try to meld and recreate them … complete with Michaels who stars donning an Eric Draven look.

Sean Brien’s “Scarlet” was the shortest and weakest of the bunch and didn’t really resonate with me whatsoever.

“The Night Time World” has so-so highs and low-low lows. It’s probably best enjoyed by horror anthology and vampire film devotees and completists only.