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| This one and its sequel are some of may favorites |
Sometimes a movie can take too long or get to the point, in horror it can make or break the film if the story isn't good enough to build it up, which is why I was always partial to anthologies. The first book I ever read was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories so I may have been sculpted to like shorter stories or stories grouped together since I was a kid.
In media, the awesome Rod Serling's Twilight Zone marathons got me into seeing that style of story telling on television and film. I watched them in blocks so again, it kept me interested by starting fresh every half hour. In the 80's, they made Twilight Zone: The Movie with Dan Aykroyd that was pretty good and had some of its own behind the scenes creepiness and drama included. Another popular 80's film had an "A" list of horror writers in it called Creep Show and its sequel Creep Show 2, these types of films have actors from all over in them and the short stories keep things fresh. I think a few years passed before they did a Tales from the Darkside movie as well, then after that we had not seen much in the way of anthology horror films on the big screen, Until, Tales from the Hood came out in the 90's but the genre was pretty dry still. Despite the title, there were some pretty good stories in that film and it was unique delivering it from the perspective of the gentleman visiting the mortuary.
I don't know if it is that they are not made enough, not popular enough or writer collaboration is not what it used to be, but it seems the release of films like these are less frequent than they used to be. I know you can find one writer or director anthology home video releases more then big budgeted releases but even those seem less and less. The last good one I saw was recommended to me by a friend called Trick 'r' Treat that cast some pretty good actors in it, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox to name a few. I'm sure there are more that come to mind along with what's mentioned in this but here are a few more:
Trilogy of Terror I & II (1975,1996)
Nightmares * (1983)
The Illustrated Man (1969)
Cat's Eye * (1985)
Body Bags (1993)
Any others I forgot or want to recommend?
(*) indicates a personal favorite
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