Free to a Bad Home (2023) Poster

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3/10
Bad home
BandSAboutMovies25 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Directed and written by Cameron and Scott Hale, Free to a Bad Home is an anthology about a box filled with cursed objects including a ring that gets passed from person to person, starting with Amy (Miranda Nieman) has lost her husband and found a drinking problem. Then it's found by Ryan (Jake C. Young), who breaks into a house where he finds a safe he can't open. In the next room, a woman is chained up. She promises to unlock the safe if he lets her loose. Except that, well, she wants to kill the family next door when she gets free. Then it makes its way to his sister Julia (Olivia Dennis) goes to a drug-filled Halloween party that gets much, much worse.

There are some pacing issues in this movie, but for a low budget, it does a lot right. The color and cinematography of the last sequence are great. And obviously the Hale brothers aren't just trying to make the same streaming horror anthology that everyone else is making. Here's hoping that the things they have learned in this film allow them to create something even better after this. Also: eyedropper drugs seem horrifying.
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1/10
Please get a dictionary
amymay-6991621 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Because nothing about this movie fits the word "horrifying" unless the phrase is "horrifyingly BAD." However it NAILS the definition of "confusion" because I had no clue as to what was going on or why. Some vague vignettes of out-of-ftame historical deaths open the movie. Why? No clue. None of the deaths related in any way to the subsequent story. And that's just the BEGINNING of the confusion cake. Amy has a fiance,and then she doesn't. What happened to him? We don't know!! Her sister visits,and again inquires about former fiance. Amy said he got bored. And she and her sister leave it at that. Turns out,she killed him. Where did she put the body? Where is his family to inquire about his whereabouts? Why isn't she in jail? Who knows!!! It's a mystery!!!! Then Ryan breaks into a house,and TA-DA! Supernatural Amy is there,chained, willing to make him a devil's bargain to get free. She telekinetically opens a massive locked safe. Ryan is cool with this,and lets her go murder the family next door. Then Ryan's sister and her eyedropper druggie friends go to a haunted house and get killed by Amy and her merry band of psychos. Lastly,Amy yet again drops of boxes of possessed freebies to lure unsuspecting victims into hell,or something. Literally nothing made sense. One star. I quote "event horizon" when I say libera te tutemet (save yourself from hell).
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3/10
A generally bland if still somewhat watchable indie anthology effort
kannibalcorpsegrinder4 March 2023
Finding a strange box while on a walk, a woman and her boyfriend find the items inside the box might have more cursed backstories than they were led to believe.

The Good Stor(ies): Ryan-After arriving at a dark and quiet house, a would-be robber tries to snatch some precious jewels inside but finds a strange woman tied up inside that makes his life troubled. This one really could've been more fun than it is but is still slightly disappointing. The fact that there's an immensely creepy and chilling atmosphere here in the first half where it's mostly built around the idea of the loner going through the pitch-black house in the middle of the night with no light and very little noise makes for a pretty fun setup to what's going on. As it leads to her reveal later on and what happens between them once he realizes what's going on with her. Still, that leaves large sections of the segment with nothing happening and very little action for its payoff which downgrades this one considerably.

The Bad Stor(ies): Amy-Heading back to her childhood home, a woman's attempts at reconnecting with herself are disturbed by the arrival of her friend and the secrets that come with it. Overall, this was a decent enough start to things but still isn't that great. The atmosphere present here, especially with the simplistic setup here to utilize that, makes for a rather intriguing start as things escalate from loss of time and strange bruises to waking up in strange places unsure of what's going on which leads to the shocking discovery of her purpose for visiting. The problems start with her friend arriving and starting their relationship which just leads to no end of bland babbling between them that goes nowhere and doesn't really generate much of a genre atmosphere here leading to a confusing state of events as to why it was included after a solid start so it's one that takes way too long to get where it's going and doesn't have much going for it beyond the atmosphere present.

Julia-Heading out with her girlfriends, a group of women on a road trip to a party in the middle of nowhere only to find their hosts' eccentric behavior might be their undoing. This was another massive disappointment that really doesn't have much going for it. About the only thing to like here is the series of outlandish and outright murderous behavior of their hosts who are quite fun and generate some solid chasing scenes along the way. Otherwise, this one is a highly dull and lifeless effort built around the endless and utterly banal driving scenes with the group doing drugs and making small talk that's excruciating to get through and really holds this one down with barely anything about it that's enjoyable or makes the group likable. Even the party scenes aren't that impressive with the group wandering around endlessly until they arrive at the central meet-up point with the rest of the group, so it's pretty long to get to its good parts as well which when combined with the lackluster reveal that connects all the stories together makes this generally underwhelming.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Language, and drug use.
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10/10
Anthology fans look no farther
henrybreaksit21 August 2023
Anthology movies are usually hard for me to sit through since they usually have weak set ups or lame segments but I found this indie film to rather interesting. The stories are all connected with a cool hook that easily flows from segment to segment. Each story builds on each other and the final story gives us cool an 80s like blood bath. And blood lovers don't worry, the blood does flow in the final act.

The first story sets up the entire film and it is a non chronological possession segment. Really moody and great acting.

The second story is a cool burglary story that involves characters from the first story. This one really gave me creepshow vibes.

The 3rd story is a 80s love letter with drugs and blood. This story is the pay off for the first two segments with some awesome reveals.

I had a ball watching this on tubi and couldn't have been happier to stumble on it.
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10/10
Imaginative anthology film
thesportislife5 April 2023
This anthology has an interesting hook and grounded stories that makes this film more scary since it doesn't get to crazy immediately. I like how the movie builds each story from slow burn to all out bloody. Story one is an awesome possession story followed up by a morality tale and the finale is an all out bonkers 80s drugs/blood story.

The acting was all believable and the cinematography was excellent. I'm sure the budget wasn't massive but the stories told in this anthology obviously didn't need a ton of money. I would like to see a sequel that gives that damn baby monitor a narrative tale since that object seems ripe for story telling.
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