Nite Tales: The Movie starts as our host Flavor Flav introduces one of two stories...
First up is 'Karma' where four gangsters rob a bank in small town, expected to be an easy score an old security guard shoots one of the robbers. Later that night while driving back to the city the robbers car breaks down, noticing a farmhouse in the distance they decide to go there & steal their car. However the residents have other ideas & the robbers find that leaving the farmhouse in one piece is not going to easy...
Next up is 'Storm' where five teenage friends are having fun at home during a torrential thunderstorm, then a mysterious man dressed as clown knocks on the door asking for help. They let him in & a stranded cop follows shortly after & that's when the killings start...
Co-written, executive produced & directed by Deon Taylor this wasn't as bad as I had expected but it's hardly amazing, presumably a spin-off from the TV series Nite Tales: The Series (2009) this contains only two forty odd minute horror stories as opposed the usual three or four twenty minute stories that horror anthologies go for. The first story Karma is pretty much your average backwoods brutality horror film told in about half the usual running time, city folk are stuck in some isolated woods somewhere & fall prey to the sadistic inbred cannibalistic locals. There's no real twist here or many surprises & it just plays like a straight forty minute horror film, the character's are alright but the mysterious car breakdown is never explained & it's never explained when the cannibals want their money back why they don't just check the car as that would surely have been the logical place where it would be. Overall not too bad at all. The second story Storm goes more for twists & turns than visceral horror as a killer is loose during a vicious thunderstorm, the only question is who is it? Is it the creepy clown or the cop or maybe someone else? There are one or two problems with this like when Cindy is killed both the cop & clown are downstairs together & so couldn't have done it, I'm surprised no-one picked up on this & why, if he is a cop, did James dress like a clown? There's never any explanation given, do all undercover cops dress like clowns? Overall this one felt like a whodunit with slight horror overtones & the suspense & tension are built up quite well.
There's no real linking wraparound story, we just get this Flavor Flav geezer trying to be cool, he fails. There's a bit of gore here, there's some flesh ripping & eating, a few people get shot & there are a couple of gory blood spurting slashed throats. The make-up effects are pretty good & Tony Todd in full creepy clown make-up & costume is unnerving. There's plenty of swearing but no nudity. This is surprisingly well made with nice photography that thankfully never overdoes the shaky or twitchy style & the use of fast editing is kept to a minimum. I mean it just looks like a proper film. The story Storm has a decent atmosphere being set at night during a thunderstorm & it feels like a horror film should.
With a supposed budget of about $450,000 I am surprised at how good this looks, the production values are decent & it's certainly better made than a lot of low budget horror junk out there even if it's not exactly brilliant in terms of story. The acting is alright with Sticky Fingaz & genre favourite Tony Todd the names.
Nite Tales: The Movie isn't brilliant at all, the stories lack real punch & a real memorable twist but they are well made & feel more like little horror films in their own right. Not the greatest but not the worst either, not a bad effort really.
First up is 'Karma' where four gangsters rob a bank in small town, expected to be an easy score an old security guard shoots one of the robbers. Later that night while driving back to the city the robbers car breaks down, noticing a farmhouse in the distance they decide to go there & steal their car. However the residents have other ideas & the robbers find that leaving the farmhouse in one piece is not going to easy...
Next up is 'Storm' where five teenage friends are having fun at home during a torrential thunderstorm, then a mysterious man dressed as clown knocks on the door asking for help. They let him in & a stranded cop follows shortly after & that's when the killings start...
Co-written, executive produced & directed by Deon Taylor this wasn't as bad as I had expected but it's hardly amazing, presumably a spin-off from the TV series Nite Tales: The Series (2009) this contains only two forty odd minute horror stories as opposed the usual three or four twenty minute stories that horror anthologies go for. The first story Karma is pretty much your average backwoods brutality horror film told in about half the usual running time, city folk are stuck in some isolated woods somewhere & fall prey to the sadistic inbred cannibalistic locals. There's no real twist here or many surprises & it just plays like a straight forty minute horror film, the character's are alright but the mysterious car breakdown is never explained & it's never explained when the cannibals want their money back why they don't just check the car as that would surely have been the logical place where it would be. Overall not too bad at all. The second story Storm goes more for twists & turns than visceral horror as a killer is loose during a vicious thunderstorm, the only question is who is it? Is it the creepy clown or the cop or maybe someone else? There are one or two problems with this like when Cindy is killed both the cop & clown are downstairs together & so couldn't have done it, I'm surprised no-one picked up on this & why, if he is a cop, did James dress like a clown? There's never any explanation given, do all undercover cops dress like clowns? Overall this one felt like a whodunit with slight horror overtones & the suspense & tension are built up quite well.
There's no real linking wraparound story, we just get this Flavor Flav geezer trying to be cool, he fails. There's a bit of gore here, there's some flesh ripping & eating, a few people get shot & there are a couple of gory blood spurting slashed throats. The make-up effects are pretty good & Tony Todd in full creepy clown make-up & costume is unnerving. There's plenty of swearing but no nudity. This is surprisingly well made with nice photography that thankfully never overdoes the shaky or twitchy style & the use of fast editing is kept to a minimum. I mean it just looks like a proper film. The story Storm has a decent atmosphere being set at night during a thunderstorm & it feels like a horror film should.
With a supposed budget of about $450,000 I am surprised at how good this looks, the production values are decent & it's certainly better made than a lot of low budget horror junk out there even if it's not exactly brilliant in terms of story. The acting is alright with Sticky Fingaz & genre favourite Tony Todd the names.
Nite Tales: The Movie isn't brilliant at all, the stories lack real punch & a real memorable twist but they are well made & feel more like little horror films in their own right. Not the greatest but not the worst either, not a bad effort really.