Verdict
Summary
While the first two short films in the anthology are nothing to write home about, the third feature, Going Home, is worth the price of admission.
Plot: Three different horror anthology stories cover a missing wife trying to get home to her husband, a Thai dance troupe besieged by demonic puppets, and a police officer held hostage by a deranged man insisting his dead wife is about to be resurrected.
Review: I enjoy horror anthologies. Be it Trick ‘R Treat, Tales from the Crypt, or the V/H/S series, just something about the horror genre lends itself so effectively to this storytelling format. I think it’s because horror films don’t require a considerable build-up or hours of character development to get to the punchline. Some of the best horror stories I know, like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, were told in short story format.
Therefore, I was looking forward to Three (known in the U.S. as Three Extremes II…even though the sequel, Three Extremes, came out AFTER this film…but before its release in the U.S., hence the name change). While I watch mostly the action genre in Asian cinema, I haven’t been opposed to other genres, and I’m always up for a good horror movie.
‘Memories’ is the first story in the film and deals with a missing wife trying to return home to her husband. The story is relatively slow and overrun by scads of bizarre imagery – during most of the story, I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The payoff works, though, and overall, the movie makes sense, but without that twist at the end, the movie would have sucked. I did feel an attachment to the wife and felt terrible for her predicament – the rest of the characters were mostly window-dressing. It has no scares unless you’re frightened of hallucinations and a doll’s head suddenly moving. ‘Memories’ is alright, but nothing to write home about.
‘The Wheel,’ the second story, just fucking sucked. It had to do with evil dolls who get pissed off if the right owner does not possess them. Huh? Okay…the story is plodding and nonsensical. What I did understand, I didn’t care about. The worst was this love triangle that came out of nowhere and led to animated doll shadows on the wall while a spurned boy murdered two lovers in their bed. Then, the movie backtracks at the end to show you something you missed the first time and didn’t care about. This was just a dreadful hodgepodge of nothing that wasted my time. Mercifully, it was short.
‘Going Home’ is the last story and miles ahead of the first two stories. If not for this entry, I would have tossed the whole damn DVD out in the trash and called it a night. It has weirdness as well, and I was rolling my eyes about twenty minutes in, thinking I was going to get another bullshit entry like ‘The Wheel’ was. Mercifully, though, the story becomes tight and engaging, and I became invested in the Louis Lai character, a seemingly intelligent yet deranged man believing his dead wife is coming back to life. I also found Eric Tsang as the helpless policeman looking for his missing son and, at the mercy of Lai’s lunacy, a nice foil to the quietly intense Lai.
The subplot of the missing son doesn’t lead anywhere, but that’s the only gripe I have about the story, other than the first twenty minutes needed a trim. I won’t spoil the ending, but I found it oddly satisfying.
Three isn’t a bad time, overall, but you can skip ‘The Wheel’ for sure, as it offers nothing other than confusion. Maybe you can find the sequel (which I’ve heard is vastly superior to this one, and maybe explains why it was released first in the States), and have a great night of creepy, weird horror. While it isn’t perfect, this anthology movie does have its moments.