Any regular reader of The Rotting Zombie will know that I love anthology movies, and so it was with some delight that I discovered the Ariel Luque (The Building, Ellose) directed The Red Book Ritual was one of these. In addition to the wraparound segment there are five other short films included in this nearly ninety minutes film, the theme revolves around witches and demonic forces.
Three young friends have gathered together one night to play 'The Red Book' game. This urban legend states you are able to commune with the dead by following certain rules. Not expecting it to actually work, the friends are scared to discover something bad is starting to happening. They realise that the only way to get out of their predicament is to follow the book's rules that they need to read the stories from within the book they are directed to.
The first proper short is the 2018 short film Stray that was directed by Dean W. Law. It takes place at a remote homestead in which an American soldier (David Breen - Post Mortem Mary) has recently returned from fighting in World War II. He is shocked to discover his wife, Bonnie (Melinda Joan Reed) acting very bizarrely, she is filthy, not speaking, and refusing to wear clothes, seemingly reverted to an animalistic persona. This all may be linked to a strange cat that follows her around. There was barely any dialogue here, while the remote location made the soldier feel very isolated. I particularly liked how this ended. This one was only really let down by some slightly subpar CG smoke effects used on a couple of occasions.
Next is Little One from 2020, which was co-directed by Logan Fields and Chris Beyrooty. The shortest of the films here, this has a couple who drive into a strange scene, a traumatised looking child (Tyler Bailin) standing in the middle of the road with an old man armed with a rifle who implores them to leave the area and not get involved. I found the female character to be a little bit annoying here, but I liked how suggestive this all was, it finishes with the explanation left up to the viewer to decide, quite effective.
2017's Nose Nose Nose Eyes! was the most disturbing of the shorts here, even though nothing much was actually shown. A young girl is at her apartment building with her weirdly acting mother, while her father is strapped to a bed in a nearby room. Plenty of will they/won't they moments of the mother looking ready to jab a needle into her husband's forced open eyes, gave me Audition vibes. Sadly however this became the worst of the shorts, and that is purely with the decision to dub over the dialogue in English. Leads to characters mouths not matching the dialogue, and the little girl sounding like she has been dubbed over by a grown woman.
The penultimate short is another 2017 short, this time Daniel J. Phillips Release. A doctor (Hayley Sullivan) is determined to keep her brother in the coma that is preventing him from dying. In order to keep him in this state she journeys into the abandoned wing of the hospital in order to retrieve some medicine located there. However, the wing has been abandoned for a reason as it is home to a malevolent spirit. I enjoyed this one, I liked how there is no explanation for the abandoned wing, while there are many tense moments revolving around the spirit. I did think it strange that the girl in the wraparound section comments afterwards that this story was about her mother, seeing as they have completely different accents.
The final short was almost the best, this was the 2018 short horror The Sermon, directed by Dean Puckett (Satan's Bite: or The Foolishness of the Witchfinder Thomas Eastchurch). A highly religious rural commune look down on those who stray from the strict bible teachings, one girl is determined to fight back against this. The highlight of this one was Grant Gillespie who gave a scene stealing performance as the Pastor. I liked the protagonist (played by Molly Casey), while actors Oliver Monaghan and Joshua Oakes-Rogers gave off cool Children of the Corn style vibes. It wasn't all perfect, a late shot from above was ruined by an actor visibly closing their eyes when they were meant to be a corpse.
The shorts were not all perfect but they were all good in their own ways. It's a shame that the Asian one was dubbed over as that did impact on its effectiveness. Overall though I was impressed, the shorts felt unified in a shared theme despite originally being stand alone movies, making for a decent anthology. The Red Book Ritual is due for release by High Fliers Films.
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