XX

XX. As in the chromosomes, not the parental advisory guide issued by the motion picture association. There's no hardcore porn going on here. Just decaying magic, tucked away in the Victorian attic of the childhood mind: porcelain doll parts, baby teeth and blow flies. And with a nod to both Blood Tea & Red String, and the 1988 Czech film Neco z Alenky, we begin this much talked about and anticipated anthology of four short horror films directed by four women of horror.

 The Box
Based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson, which had been previously turned into a feature length film called Button, Button starring Cameron Diaz about a mysterious man with a mysterious box with a mysterious button on it which, when pushed, causes some mysterious stranger to die mysteriously and grants the button pusher a kajillion mysterious dollars.

This version has a mysterious stranger with a mysterious box, but that's where the similarities end. This time out, the box in question is a gaily wrapped gift box clasped in the lap of a disfigured dude in standard issue black trench coat and fedora. A little boy named Danny innocently asks what the box contains and Creepy Man obliges, lifting the lid just far and just long enough to allow Danny a glimpse of what lies within. Whatever it is, the look on Danny's face announces to the audience that childhood is over, raped and dismembered and strewn upon the wasteland like chicken bones.

Danny abruptly stops eating, and suddenly The Box turns into that once scene from A Christmas Story where Randy refuses to eat his Meatloaf Double Beatloaf. Except there's no ensuing game of Show Me How the Piggies Eat to alleviate the possibility of malnutrition.  Danny just stops eating, much to the alarm of his parents. Questions go unanswered. Demands have no effect. A trip to the doctor clears up exactly fuck-all.We never find out what was in the box and it's not supposed to matter, but it does. I need answers.

The Birthday Party

Melanie Lynskey is back, and she's goofy. With genre-twisters like Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners tucked under her voluptuous belt, Melly baby decides that a starring role in a horror version of Weekend At Bernie's is the next logical move. And sure, why not? I mean, it certainly makes The Oregonian seem coherent by comparison. This particular short is a blue steak with a thick vein of black fatty humor running right through the middle of it, except you don't really realize this until after you've chewed and swallowed.

Don't Fall

Pretty standard slasher shortie, sort of an Evil Dead Lite with a camper instead of a cabin and some stick figures smeared on a rock instead of a skin-bound Necronomicon. Apropos of nothing, a demon shows up, possesses everyone and they all die, the end. Oh, and the first girl to get possessy looks a lot like Ellen Sandweiss. The end.



Her Only Living Son
Rosemary's Baby Lite. I mean, the kid's name is even Andy. The end.

My attention dwindled as the shorts played out, hence the increasingly truncated reviews. I wanted to enjoy this a lot more than I did. And I'm not dismissing it as outright awful. It's more like that one Facebook friend you have, who posts pics of their kids every week. The kids look the same, with only slight changes as time goes on, but you respond with a polite smiley face anyway, because you don't hate the kids or their proud parents. You're just bored. Because everyone else is doing the same thing with their kids. And everybody's kids look the same, and you can't remember their names anymore and get them mixed up a lot. XX may be the long awaited daughter of the horror anthology brood, but it looks a lot like V/H/S and Holidays and ABCs and V/H/S/2...  And no matter how stubbornly their parents insist that they are gifted and unique and special in their own snowflakey ways, they're not, and could use some old fashioned discipline. 

Honestly, the best part of the film were the introductory pieces of stop motion animation starring a walking doll house, a rotting apple and a disembodied needle and thread. I would rather have seen a feature length film about that. But then I already have. I saw both Blood Tea & Red String, and the 1988 Czech film Neco z Alenky, the latter of which was entirely created by a woman, and both of which are vastly superior.

I know that, because I'm a female horror fan, I'm supposed to be gaga over XX. But I'm not. sorrynotsorry