A Masterpiece!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Another year, another horror anthology, and this time it's the turn of 5 SENSES OF FEAR which unsurprisingly contains five short tales each based around one of the human senses. Like SCARY OR DIE or the V/H/S/ movies, this is acceptable stuff for horror fans, although it lacks the quality of something like TRICK 'R TREAT.The problem with 5 SENSES OF FEAR is not the production values, because they're actually decent for a change; although the stories were shot on the cheap and in a very short space of time, they look good and the calibre of both acting and direction is of an acceptable standard. There are no big names here, but then you don't go looking for them.The problem is that all of the stories are focused on delivering gore rather than true scares so that the scope ends up being rather limited. The first one, SMELL, is about a guy who comes into possession of a new and experimental perfume; this has a classic outcome and was my favourite of the five stories. The second one, SEE, involves some predictably nasty eye violence and very little else. The third, TOUCH, is about a blind kid who has a car accident and is the most atmospheric of the quintet, although the story is very slight. TASTE is an all-out gore effort set in an office, while LISTEN goes down the found footage route and isn't too shabby. All of the stories are acceptable, but I found them lacking in delivering proper horror themes or scares; is gore all the genre has to offer these days, I wonder?

This movie contradicts its own premise in a way. The short vignette format works very well for horror, maybe because we don't really want to stay in those designed to be unpleasant environs for way too long. Everyone can remember being exhausted by some bloody and horrific film going on and on, like a nightmare we'd much rather just wake up from. Once we meet the good guys and the bad guys and the severed heads start flying, we get the idea pretty quick. The great old Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock TV shows both used only very short tales that were just long enough, they led us into and back out again of an chilling or startling worldview in a way that was just complete enough to be satisfying and never too much to be dull, like a great restaurant that brings just enough to your plate, but not piled on with a ladle. The problem with this effort is that the brevity is actually too brief. It suggests a writer's laziness instead of a skilled and intuitive conciseness. After each segment we are surprised by the fade out and ask, "Wait. Is that all?" This is especially true of the middle film about a clever blind boy, we just barely meet him and he takes his leave, and he is an intriguing enough character that we would love to get to know him more. The 5 senses motif is really just a pose of course, like a writer's class exercise, it offers nothing substantial to increase interest and every storyline is pretty much unoriginal and forgettable except the final one about a song that kills people. That is just bizarre enough to leave a permanent mark. One cute trick the filmmakers use is to recycle the actors, proper names and places in unexpected ways in different stories so that we get to have fun keeping track and see who pops up again. I kept expecting some of them to wink at the camera and say "Hey! Remember me"? I would be happy to wave back.

I loved this horror anthology, but I can understand how some people might not. It's not jump-out-of-your-seat horror. If anything, I'd characterize it as a series of unsettling and disturbing scenarios. I'd equate it with an episode of Tales from the Crypt or maybe season one of Fringe. Each section of the anthology starts with a natural sense and ties it to something very unnatural. With maybe one exception, this doesn't end well for anybody!SMELL tells the story of a man who's given the chance to change his pheromones to get sex and success. Our protagonist fails to realize that something about that offer smells fishy.SIGHT deals with a lonely eye doctor who can see what his patients see. Unfortunately, he sure lacks foresight when he tries to help one of them out.TOUCH starts with a blind boy and his family getting into a car accident. As the only one able to walk, the blind boy wanders through the woods to find help. As I'm sure he would agree, something doesn't feel right here.TASTE is about an unusual job interview. When the interviewee turns down the offer, he's met with a biting critique.LISTEN breaks with the rest of the short films and is in "found footage" format. It tells the story of two young men trying to piece together the recording of a song that is rumoured to kill all those who listen to it. In the end, our protagonists try to offer some sound advice -- but is it already too late?

"5 Senses of Fear" had a marketing campaign that gave me a lot of hope that it might inspire a resurgence in anthology based horror. Although there have been a lot of horror anthologies in the past decade, most have been rather lousy. The directors on the ads for "5 Senses of Fear" indicated they were hoping this would be the movie to put the new spark in anthology horror. I really hope that they are wrong.The reason horror anthologies work are because they are able to present the most important elements of a scary story without having to include any of the fluff. But I think that a lot of young directors don't understand that. They treat this movie as if an anthology is easier to make because there is less work in making a short movie. A short story often requires more work than a long one because it does not have the time to tell the story and must concentrate on the central theme. There is really almost no point to this movie at all. None of the stories has an interesting plot and absolutely nothing makes any sense whatsoever. As I sat and hoped each following story would get better, the movie just descended into the ranks of pure and utter stupidity. What each story lacked in plot, it more than made up for in cheap gross out tactics. The most common device is poking out eyes.The first story was about smell and it probably had the most story in it. A man is giving a bottle of cologne that makes him utterly irresistible to everyone. He tries to use it to get his wife back, but quickly finds it brings him the favor of anyone who smells it. The rub is that it slowly transforms him into a monster as it dissolves his life and flesh away. The shocking twist (and I use this term exceptionally lightly) involves his remains being used to make more of the cologne.The story about sight has an eye doctor who has the power to induce the power to see through others' eyes by potions he makes from his patients. He uses violent scenes to try and make a patient's boyfriend stop beating her, but it ends up empowering the boyfriend to murder.Touch involves a blind boy trying to find help for his parents when they are injured in a car wreck. He stumbles upon a man who doesn't like to be touched. This is the only somewhat interesting story in the entire anthology and it is due to the performance of the actor playing the blind boy. He is the only protagonist you can get behind, but this is not enough to save this movie.Taste is remarkably bad. It involves a lady who offers people a job and them violently kills them when they refuse. She puts on a big stupid mask and the stupidity flies off the screen.The last film takes the form of a found footage film; the most overused and highly misused form of horror film today. It involves a composer who composes a song that makes people commit suicide. It's idiotic and annoying to watch.This is one of the most disappointing movies I have ever seen. The plots are thin and remarkably bad even for a horror movie. It relies on gross outs displayed by third rate special effects. You'll find yourself wondering what the directors like so much about poking people in the eyes. As I mentioned in the beginning, horror anthologies can whittle a horror story down to its bare bones. By cutting the fluff out of the story, a good anthology can present really good stories. This is not one of those movies. It, in fact, does the exact opposite. There are no stories here, only fluff supported by attempts at gross outs. This movie is a remarkable failure and you should save yourself the time of watching it. It is pure and utter crap.The one star I gave this movie is way more than it deserves.