Doc on Horror Anthologies Necessarily Captures Genre’s Best and Worst — Original Cin

Does this raw COVID-related version of cinema verité give the film an edge? Well, yes, but only as a mark of the times.

The film is most successful when veering off its limited focus and stopping to build a case for the film anthology’s success—much of which happens within the film’s first 20 minutes. One of the most engaging inclusions is a film historian who fills in blanks that the more celebrated guests—Eli Roth, Richard Stanley, Joe Dante, Tom Savini, and even Roger Corman—cannot.

The filmmakers strike more passionate notes when opening the discussion to Dead of Night (1945), the films of Mario Bava and Fellini’s bizarre masterpiece, Toby Dammit (a segment in Spirits of the Dead, 1968), and refreshing the memories of horror icons Peter Cushing and Conrad Veidt.

And with so many authoritative voices chiming in, the film inevitably lands on a few exciting observations just as a movie packed with comedians is bound to land a few good jokes.

The clips make the film. Fair warning, many of the clips give away critical moments in the movies they represent, and in this age of spoiler alerts, that might bother some.

But Tales of the Uncanny offers up a lifetime’s worth of movie titles to keep you busy well into the next national crisis, and that alone makes it worth watching.

Tales of the Uncanny. Directed by David Gregory. With Eli Roth, Roger Corman, Tom Savini and Richard Stanley. Tales of the Uncanny opens for a Canada-wide virtual run via the Winnipeg Cinematheque Tickets and further details can be found here.