“Counter Parts” by Patrick Rea tells a story about twins and witchcraft, where one twin seems to get all of the luck, while another suffers a tragic car accident, leaving her blind and missing a leg. It’s decent and I think the effects were realistic enough. The twist was out of left field, but still, it made me chuckle a bit.

“Bedroom Window” is a short by Calvin Main I believe I’ve seen before in some other anthology. It’s about a boy who is abducted in the night and a video, found by the parents, that explains it all. It’s a very short short with a creepy monster.

Ramsey Attia’s “The Binding Box” is another quickie that reminded me of the classic TRILOGY OF TERROR “Prey” installment where a young woman gets a package in the mail containing a very evil looking jack in the box. I enjoyed the workmanship that went into the jack in the box design and though short and much less intense than the Karen Black classic, this one was pretty fun.

Another shortie, “The Sneak” again by Calvin Main, deals with a Facetime call between two people, so it has a found footage hand-held vibe to it. The story is a little murky, but it went by so quickly and the characters are never established enough for me to care much about it.

Patrick Rea’s “Do Not Disturb” is one of my favorites of the bunch. I again feel like I’ve seen this one before, but it involves a serial killer hiding out in a hotel from a manhunt who keeps hearing knocks at his door. Soon, he is getting message cards printed in ornate font being slid under the door and the story goes bonkers by the end. This one does a lot with very little and really handles its tension very well.

“Grief” is nicely acted and filmed by George Bessudo. It is about a family dealing with the death of a young child in their own ways. There are even some well thought out scares and a creepy ghost kid. But the story was lacking—as if there was a whole other section of story that was never revealed or dealt with by the time this was over.
“Sleepwalker” was my second favorite of the bunch. It’s a soulful tale from Calvin Weaver about a woman who lost her husband in some mysterious way and then is cursed by a black smoke demon in her sleep. I liked the little twists this one took and the playful nature with the horror. The smoke demon looked cool too. But the vague ending or more accurately, non-ending really soured this one for me.

Finally, “The Experiment“ signals Calvin Main’s third appearance as a director in this anthology. This one had a lot of strengths to it, and while other shorts in this anthology felt vague due to lack of budget or ideas, this one keeps things mysterious and it only adds to the effectiveness of the story. This one is about a soldier who is undergoing some kind of strange test. It goes through his final day of the test and while it moves quickly, you get a lot of nice intrigue. This was an appropriate and strong way to end this anthology.

All in all, not a bad batch of shorts. Patrick Rea has done a ton of shorts in his time behind the camera as well as a few very cool features like ARBOR DEMON and NAILBITER. His stood out as the best of the bunch, but all in all, this was a highly professional set of shorts.