I ran out of Blood Money movies.

One of the first things you read about in director Alexander Henderson’s IMDB profile is that he was inspired to get into film making after watching M. Night Shyamalan and that makes this movie make a lot more sense. And I say that because most of these short stories will have you saying “what a twist” but in that mocking voice they do in Robot Chicken.

It’s safe to say that I’m not a big fan of anthology horror movies. The highest anthology film I’ve reviewed here on How About Notflix is Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and that was a C+. I have to watch V/H/S someday, I heard that’s a good series. But I don’t like anthology horror movies, or at the very least I haven’t really enjoyed the ones that I have seen. And why? I have explained it a lot in prior reviews. For now let’s talk about The Seven Darks.

This movie is exactly what the title suggests; a series of anthology stories that hits at 63 minutes yet somehow doesn’t even justify that runtime. The overarching story starts out pretty strong and then immediately becomes nonexistent; a dude recounts the events leading up to him finding something in the garbage room in his apartment building. Incidentally this is the spookiest story in the movie and it’s probably because it’s the only one I found relatable. Apartment buildings are spoopy, and city apartment buildings big enough to have their own trash room in their underground parking lot probably get really spoopy at night.

Also white women shuffling silently around underground apartment spaces are just creepy as it is. You don’t know how dangerous she is or how many White Claws and mayonnaise sandwiches she’s drunk on.

But then the film abandons this storyline and the rest of its involvement is a short sequence where the guy answers a phone and says “why are you calling?”. The first two stories are the creepiest, with the first story being around a girl who talks about how she’s lucky because she manifests good things through her positive vibes or some crap. Bet she’s gonna be killed by karma or a demon or a karma demon. For the second story, it’s called “the necklace” and it’s pretty cheesy but the timing and atmosphere make it kinda spooky. After that it’s just dumb.

You’d be remiss for thinking after story #1 that this was secretly a satire film about womens safety because the stories just become women being out at night in weird remote areas of the city, and being stalked by people and then being killed mostly by creepy dudes. The Necklace is girl finds necklace and then gets stabbed by demon Asian lady while waiting for the bus. In Stare a woman gets creeped on then killed by a homeless dude while waiting for the bus. In Photobomb a woman gets creeped on and killed by a woman waiting for her boyfriend. In The Ohio Parking Lot a woman gets creeped on and killed by a guy waiting for her boyfriend. In Toto’s Towing a woman gets creeped on and killed by a guy in a parking lot waiting for a guy to fix her car.

And the thing is you already know how these stories are going to go because it’s telegraphed about ten seconds into the piece. These are short horror concepts we’ve seen a trillion times before and the problem with them being shorts is that there’s not enough time to iterate and be creative/original with them. I suppose it would also help if there was a variety to the themes and locations.

I have finally discovered an acting gig worse than the body double they used for Luis Guzman’s scrotum in The Do-Over, and it’s thanks to Henderson’s short film library. Henderson likes to latch on to memes and of course that means he made three Skibidi Toilet videos where a dude whispers “skibidi” over and over again. Henderson has a new movie that is over two hours long and I can’t figure out where to actually watch it, Heirredrum.

You can watch the entirety of this film on Tubi with ads or YouTube for free. I gave some credits because it’s literally only an hour long. Zac Coats is the best actor in this movie, and surprisingly hasn’t done much. He’s very good at emoting with his eyebrows and that hair is ridiculous and I hope to see him again soon.

Rating: D+