Southbound 2015

 2015's horror anthology Southbound is on the agenda for today and I will say thins right up front:  Anthology horror movies just might be my favorite genre of horror movie.  So let's get some of the technical stuff out of the way first, shall we?  In this film we have five interlocking stories that all follow people traveling on a stretch of desert highway.  The stories are directed by Radio Silence, Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, and Patrick Horvath.  All of which are also some of the creators of the 2012 horror anthology V/H/S.  Brad Miska did the producing but I'm sure the others helped along the way as well.  Benjamin, Brukner, and Horvath also get writing credit for their individual stories as well as Dallas Hallam and Susan Burke.  Matt Bettinelli-Olpin of Radio Silence also wrote two of the stories.

 Along with writing and directing duties many of them also star in the film.  Comedian Dana Gould, Maria Olsen (Paranormal Activity 3, Lords of Salem, and Starry Eyes) also co-star along with many other actors and actresses who are unknowns but remember Kevin Bacon was an unknown a long time ago in a little movie called Friday the 13th, perhaps you've heard of it. 

 The five stories are: 

•      The Way Out which is about two men on the run from floating creatures.  They encounter odd happenings at a gas station and diner.  At a nearby hotel one of the men is haunted by the ghost of his deceased daughter who he feels guilty for her death.  
• This leads into the next story titled Siren.  Also in the hotel is are three girls who are a band traveling musicians.  As they leave the hotel they get stranded on the road after their van gets a flat.  They get rescued and picked up by an eccentric couple.  The couple tell the girls they are headed to their friends the Kensington's for dinner and they are welcome to join them.  There they are served burnt meatloaf and one of the girls, Sadie says she cannot eat the meatloaf because she is a vegetarian.  After dinner her two the two girls who ate the meatloaf get sick and start acting weird.  Sadie, fearing for her safety, leaves the hotel room and runs away as one of the floating creatures from the first story watches behind her. 
•  The third story, The Accident begins with a man driving down the road at night while he is distracted by a phone call with his wife.  In the middle of nowhere he hits a girl who is standing in the road.  Unable to tell the 911 dispatched where he is because his GPS isn't working he puts the girl in his car and drives to the nearest town.  There he finds a hospital and takes the badly injured girl into the emergency room.  Inside the hospital he cannot find anyone and he is told by the medical tech the 911 dispatched connected him to he must perform life saving surgery on the girl is he is to save her life.  
• The fourth story is called Jailbreak where a man named Danny barges into a bar and demands to know where his sister is.  Unfortunately for Danny the bar is filled with demons who look as human as you and me.  Well maybe not me but you get the idea.  Danny eventually finds his sister but he discovers she doesn't want to be saved.  Jesse, Danny's sister leaves Danny with the demons and drives away.  As she does another one of the creatures can be seen near the road watching her drive along in the moonlight. 

•  The Way In is the final story and it is about Jem, a young student ready to head off to her first year of college.  Before she does, however, her parent take one last opportunity to take a weekend vacation together as they head to their vacation home.  Three men break into the house and take Jem's parents hostage but Jem is able to hide.  What the men want and why they are there is the secret ending that ties the stories together so I won't spoil it anymore than I already have which isn't much.

While this doesn't have the typical wrap around story that ties all the stories together it's not needed because of the way this one was done.  You get five stories that after seeing the big picture work really well together.  Two of the stories are barely ten minutes in length while the other three are about twice that long each so it does have a bit of unevenness (is that a word) to it but the film doesn't suffer too much because of it.  All of the acting is serviceable without any real stand outs.  The Accident was my favorite story so I will give the nod to Mather Zickel as my favorite acting job.  He carried the story as he was the only actor in it except for the dying girl who has no lines as well as the disembodied voices on his phone.  There's plenty of better choices out there for your Halloween viewing pleasure but if you love horror anthologies like I do I say give this one a go, it's not as predictable as most of the stories in the genre.  The horror honey faded off after about ten minutes so she didn't have an opinion but that in no way implies how she felt about the movie.  So the rating is up to me and me alone so I give this one 3 Floating Creatures out of 5.