We already took a look at half of the 28 shorts contained in season 1 of Hulu's "Bite Size Halloween", so now it's time to take a look at the remaining ones! To access part 1, please click here.
Clock: This one’s a perfect example of when “original” doesn’t quite translate to “good." A successful businesswoman working late at an office hears noises in a parking garage, and can’t escape said noises after getting in her car. The reveal of the cause of her terror provides one of the funniest moments of the entire season, but it’s let down by an ending that’s neither funny, nor scary. In fact, the message (as I understand it) doesn’t feel at home here at all. And there aren't really many elements of horror. What a disappointment.
Eye Exam: A timid older woman answers an ad for free eye exams. After seeing a man quickly escaping through the waiting room, she begins to suspect something isn’t right…and as it turns out, that is the correct assumption! Another painfully lackluster story that leads to a cliffhanger ending that’s also awful, and the reasoning behind the exams (as well as the monster effects) are awful. Chalk this one up as yet another failure.
Retreat: A woman joins a meditation retreat and starts to believe she has just joined a cult. We can hear her thoughts as she talks herself through the situation...but we might not be the only ones hearing what's going on inside her head...
This one is helped along somewhat by an attractive lead and some comedy that’s actually funny - a rarity in this collection - but the lack of horror aspects (besides the cult) really kind of bogs it down and makes it feel like it should be in a different collection altogether. Not bad for what it is, though.
Trouble: One thing I noticed about this series is that a lot of the episodes seem to be showcasing the minorities of the film world: Many of these are directed by Black, or female directors. This one is easily one of the more powerful ones, despite its framing within a rather tired setup. A Black musician takes a last-second offer to play piano at a white couple’s wedding…on an actual former plantation. He starts practicing “The Wedding March”, before becoming aware of another presence in the room. This one has all the staples of a movie haunting (thudding door, random sounds, wind blowing through window etc.), but the ending is inspired and packs as close to a punch as anything else in the entire season. One of the rare standout entries.
Costume Change: Absolutely fucking stupid. A kid gets a new pirate costume which he refuses to take off. He takes it out trick-or-treating, but when his parents urge him to take it off, we get a twist ending that’s so fucking stupid my blood was boiling with rage. Also, the kid is ugly. If you’re going to center an episode around a kid, at least get one that can act.
Summoned: A woman attempts to bring back the spirit of her dead love…but ends up bringing back someone different instead. The setup is slightly humorous at first, but even within the miniature runtime, manages to overstay its welcome by dragging its one joke out over and over again. I'll take a pass on this one.
Just kind of adding to a previous comment, this is a perfect example of one of my biggest complaints (you know, besides almost all 28 of them sucking): We have the best episode of the series - and a completely serious one dealing with demons of the past - and it’s bookended between two “funny” ones. So instead of attempting to build on the momentum of that powerful story, the momentum is undone by shitty comedies that completely bomb.
Special Delivery: A woman picks up a mysterious package, from an older mysterious man, who repeatedly tells her not to open it, leading to predictable results. Final “twist” is a yawner. Another bad episode, and yet another one that strives for laughs instead of scares. I'm really hoping season 2 focuses more on actual horror.
Thirst: Half of the running time of this one is spent reciting the episode’s “rules”: “Don’t sweat, sneeze, spit, or cry; if you spill a drop, you’ll surely die.” This one finds a daughter and her father attempting to navigate a post-apocalyptic universe, while avoiding monsters who attack any sort of water-type liquid. This one is just way too restrictive, and while it’s kind of sad, there’s just not enough time for it to fully develop into any kind of meaningful story. One of the better ones as is, but within the confines of its short duration, it just becomes another example of lost potential.
Old Maid: Sometimes you can tell an episode is going to suck just from the name, and I’ll admit, those were the vibes I got from this one. I was more or less right, although it’s more an average episode rather than an abject failure: A bride with cold feet keeps seeing an “Old Maid” card in the room she has barricaded herself in, and then is attacked by some kind of unseen force (or something…I have to admit I barely remember the specifics of this one). Anyhoo, there’s another “cliffhanger” ending that’s pretty much by-the-books and that doesn’t hit the way it thinks it does. Completely forgettable.
Are we done with these yet? I got some other things I could be doing with this time….
Baby: This one has a bit of potential, I suppose, but - unsurprisingly given the shit before it - it somehow manages to squander it with another completely expected ending. A couple adopt a cat. It takes a liking to the man immediately, but not so much with the woman: it bites her. Slowly, she starts transforming into a cat. Is that a spoiler? I don’t know…it’s hard to fathom anything that’s the length of a movie trailer having the capability to be spoiled in the first place. At any rate, it just reinforces cliched jokes about cats.
This Old House: A Black woman wakes up in her home, only to discover Whities have taken over. There’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s the basic premise. Are we not supposed to know the final “twist” before it happens? It’s blatantly obvious from about the 30-second mark; I was expecting there to be more to it than the bare minimum, but that's all most of these episodes have given us, so I don't know what I was thinking.
First Date: Two women go home together (how progressive!), and one of them ends up scaring the other one away. But we learn this wasn’t their first date, after all…
I was initially “meh” on this one, and still kind of am, but it at least has a somewhat original plot. The “twist” is kind of stupid, but almost chilling in a way, and it’s one of the few tales that works within the confinements of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it time format. It’s not great, but it utilizes its limited resources better than most, and would probably work stretched out closer to feature length.
The Lake: If you like your horror to have a little bit of romance with it, well then this is the only short you need to watch. A couple are hiking up a hill in the middle of nowhere, and are sidetracked when they see a meteor crash land a short distance away. The woman suggests they go and check it out…with bad results. There's a slight creepiness to the entire affair, and the final shot is pretty cool, if not entirely foreseen. One of the better ones.
Missing: A mother is distraught over her missing daughter in one of the only shorts that has a human element to it. I thought it was going to build up to something special, but like everything else in this godforsaken collection of turds, the escalation just leads to a ridiculous ending that’s just plain stupid. Out of the entire collection, this one has the most gripping intro (and a great central performance), but it's sabotaged by its own ending.
Well, there we go…if you’ve made it this far, congratulations! Also, if you made it this far, you really don’t have to see any of these episodes - they probably took you as long to read them as the episodes are on screen. And since they're all awful, you wouldn't be missing out on much.
Now, I realize anthologies are going to be hit-or-miss by nature - when you have multiple directors (in this case 28) working on separate projects, you’re bound to have a wide variance of ideas and quality of execution. It’s just a matter of fact. I also realize the short running times of each one are more of a hindrance than anything, as there's really no time to fully flesh everything out. However, what are the odds that so many could be this terrible? Not to mention the wide variance in moods of the tales - which are grouped in no particular order - help ruin things the rare times it manages to build up momentum. This rivals ABC's of Death as the worst anthology series I've ever seen. It's truly abysmal.
And the idea that season 2 could be just as bad - or (gasp) even worse - might just be the most horrific part of this show, period.
RATING: 2/10.
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