Slices of Life

American live action feature length film, 2010, NR, 107 minutes, horror, slasher, aspect 1.78
IMDB: 4.6/10.0 from 466 users.
Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 100% want to see it from 56 users.
Netflix: 2.1/5.0 from 42,539 user ratings.
Directed by: Anthony G. Sumner. Written by Anthony G. Sumner and Eric Richter.
Starring (Sketcher): Kaylee Williams as Mira, Marv Blauvelt as Tiny, Helene Alter-Dyche as Irma.
Starring (WORM): Jack Guasta as William Robert Moss, Alan Rowe Kelly as Web Cam Vamp.
Starring (Amber Alert): Toya Turner as Vonda, Thurston Hill as Lamont, Jamia Vinci as Ally.
Starring (Pink Snapper): Deneen Melody as Susan Ballard, Galen Schloming as Eric Ballard, Mike Tracy as Jack Ballard, Judith Lesser as Elizabeth Nadasdy, Bruce Varner as Edgar Nadasdy.

Sketcher is the overview segment. Mira wakes up low on contextual memories. The people near her advise her to read the sketch books that Mira herself supposedly authored. Oi, there's a rotary telephone receiver.

The first book was about WORM; the protagonist is an office drone named William, who works at Nimrod Enterprises.

After completing the WORM section, Mira talks to Tiny and Irma, then starts reading again. This time, it is the Amber Alert section of the picture book.

After Mira finishes Pink Snapper, a drunk comes in followed by Susan. Yes, the same Susan as in Pink Snapper. Susan makes it clear she's going to kill the guy.

Mira finds a second book. The voices in her head tell her to read the book and to remember. She goes to a suite where Irma and Tiny are. Irma speaks of regeneration. She had drawn Mira, who is a young version of herself. Mira kills Irma, and Irma's spirit (or whatever) passes to Irma as low energy lightning.

One meaning of WORM is the derisive nickname that a lazy co-worker gives William. His office is in the basement, and he circulates through the offices above doing computer waste pickup work. The other meaning, W.O.R.M., concerns controlling people remotely using nano-technology.

William has just gotten his online 'degree' (whatever that means) in computer programming. He tries to interest the people in the offices of Nimrod Enterprises about his fake accomplishment. The people around him are self-involved and delusional, as is William. William thinks he will get a promotion into R&D. Then he tries to join an online porn/companionship site. Not surprisingly, this does not go well for the inexperienced young man.

To get on top of things, William gets the 'Nano Idea' disk, loads it, and figures out how to use it. Right. In terms of motivation, William's aim is to make (literally, as in to force) other people to like him. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit. Everyone wants to see him since he unintentionally e-mailed the nano virus (nonsense, of course) to everyone in the offices above.

Unfortunately, the virus causes people to become zombies. The authorities contain this, and lock up William because he started it, because he did not turn into a zombie, and they don't understand why not.

Vonda is quite pregnant. When she is alone for a short spell, the TV won't stay turned off, and she hears of several abductions of girls ages 7 to 10, including Ally. She sees Ally in her back yard. Ally acts strangely, and shows demonic transformations. Vonda goes back into the house, locks her doors, and tries to hold up while familiar things in her house change shape. She calls her husband Lamont to come home, then faints. When she wakes up, he is there. They discuss the missing girls; Lamont had not heard of Ally. She rewinds the TV, but cannot find what she had seen before.

Vonda has odd sightings at the grocery store. People seem to change before her eyes. She walks home, and finds a poster for Ally on the way. She telephones, in but the other end has never heard of Ally; the poster for Ally reads Amber when Vonda goes to quote from it. Vonda and Lamont get in an argument when he gets home. Lamont experiences the horror after that, seeing the abducted girls transformed into monsters. He gets a ride in his car, with the car under control of someone else. This does not end well for him.

Back at the house, Vonda has more visitations from the abducted girls/monsters. She gets to find out some of Lamont's secrets. The monsters come for Lamont (you will know why) as he's about to do in Vonda. The baby decides to show up about then as well.

Susan gets a call from her brother Eric while her drunken cop uncle Jack sleeps. When she gets off the phone, he molests her again. Eric shows up soon, and engages the uncle, even though the uncle is heavier, trained, and stronger. Susan slams the uncle in the head with a skillet, very hard. They take the uncle's car keys. They take the car and put some distance between them and the dead uncle.

Eric wonders what to do. Good question. They go to a house where they have a connection. Eric starts screwing Elizabeth, which is a really bad idea. Elizabeth's father Edgar recognizes that Elizabeth had killed Eric using the sexual parasite in her private parts. Edgar shoots Elizabeth in the head, killing her. Susan is upset by the yelling. She races upstairs, misinterprets the scene, and uses a hammer to kill Edgar. Great stuff. Three dead and quarts of blood strewn all over.

She gets too close to Eric. Elizabeth wakes up just long enough to mark Susan with blood. The parasite leaves Elizabeth and enters Susan. That was quite a penetration.

Long, odd, and out of date; not well executed. Some problems might have been fixed in post, but were not.

One line summary: Horror anthology low on scares and humor, terrible on acting and cinematography.

Cinematography: 0/10 Jerky, grainy, low-res, low contrast, stupid camera angle choices. Sound is half a step out of phase with visuals, such as speech. There is a rotary telephone. This suggests the date of the screenplay is pre-1980, roughly. Some of this film looks like mediocre to poor 1970s work. In the second and third segments, the out-of-sync between sound and visuals was pronounced.

Sound: 8/10 Nicely ominous. The sound was almost as good as the visuals were bad.

Screenplay: 4/10 Not executed well, but there were story ideas in each segment, and the ending made sense, given the nonsense that preceded it. The editing was bad, the continuity was bad, and better direction might have gotten more out of the non-actors.

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