'50 States of Fright' Review: Sam Raimi's gory horror anthology is optimized to give you a quick scare
Spoilers for '50 States of Fright'
Sam Raimi's new horror anthology series '50 States of Fright' is here and it is everything we'd hoped for and more. The series dives into the worst nightmares of the United States, taking folk tales and urban legends from across the country and adding a modern twist to them.
With each episode broken into three 5-10 minute parts, the Quibi show is optimized to give you a quick scare. '50 States of Fright' is perfectly paced so the breaks seem natural and in most cases, they help heighten the tension.
Different writer-director teams have worked on each episode and that does lead to a little bit of inconsistency of style but that's not exactly a bad thing considering this is an anthology after all.
For the average horror fan, this show seems like it would be a pretty fun watch, with the time constraint leading to less exposition and more meat-heavy storytelling. Unlike your generic horror movie, with '50 States of Fright' things are set up in a matter of minutes and you can get right on into the blood, bone, and gristle that we're all here for.
Episode 1 'The Golden Arm (Michigan) Part 1'
The very first story of the series takes an old American folk tale and puts a modern-day twist on it. In Part 1 of 'The Golden Arm', we're introduced to David (Travis Fimmel), a lumberjack and woodcarver, and his beautiful wife Heather (Rachel Brosnahan).
Obsessed with her own beauty, Heather bleeds David dry, making him pay for things he can't afford and taking full advantage of the fact that he can't say no to her.
Despite that, they seem to be very happy with each other until one day Heather's arm is trapped under a fallen tree and David is forced to cut it off to free her before she can die of blood loss. It's a gory start with plenty of splatter horror right at the end but believe us when we tell you things only get darker from there.
Episode 2 'The Golden Arm (Michigan) Part 2'
Continuing from where Part 1 left off, we see Heather struggling to adjust physically and emotionally to life as an amputee. More than the loss of her arm, it's the perceived loss of her beauty that hits her hard and before long, she talks David into making her a prosthetic arm out of solid gold.
As you can imagine, it costs a fortune but before long, the gold starts poisoning Heather. The doctor asks her to take the prosthetic off if she wants to live but she insists that she will keep it on even after she's died, making David promise to bury her with it.
However, once she dies, the recession hits and David finds himself drowning in debt as a result of all the years spent indulging his wife's every fancy. Desperate and with no other way out in sight, David decides to take the arm from Heather's grave.
We begin to see some elements of Raimi's classic style here, especially in the scenes where Heather is dying, with her breathless wheezing working surprisingly well as jump scares. Of course, that said, Part 3 is where things get really intense.
Episode 3 'The Golden Arm (Michigan) Part 3'
This one is an explosion of Raimi's trademark brand of horror-comedy, with moments that'll leave you conflicted on whether to laugh or scream. We start off with David digging up Heather's casket and opening it to take the arm, only to see her corpse lying with its eyes open.
Unlike most sane people, David decides to just close her eyes and go ahead with his planned grave robbery, chopping the prosthetic off her arm in a scene that is a little reminiscent of Part 1's ending. He then heads home with the arm and all hell breaks loose.
Raimi uses every trick in his playbook here from jump-scares to shaky-cam sequences and over the top body horror. As you might expect, Heather's corpse rises from the grave and attacks David, who responds by hiding under a blanket (as we said earlier, we don't know whether to laugh or be scared but we do know we love it).
David tries to give her the arm back and it seems she's been appeased by it. And then she appears again with an ax in hand and kills him before lying down next to his corpse. It's a pretty horrific story but with its own twisted sense of humor and we couldn't think of a better way to kick off this series.
Episode 4 'America's Largest Ball of Twine (Kansas) Part 1'
Directed by Yoko Okumura, this story follows a mom and daughter, Susan (Ming-Na Wen) and Amelia (Thailey Roberge), as they go on a road trip after Amelia's father's death. There's some tension between the two and Susan decides to break the monotony by stopping to see a roadside attraction, the titular largest ball of twine in America.
From the moment they arrive in town, it's clear there's something very off about this place and we see there's more than a little racism, with the town's sheriff Mary Laughton (Karen Allen) refusing to believe that Susan is from America.
But while that's going on, Amelia checks out the ball of twine and is pulled into it by ghostly arms, trapping her there while her mother frantically searches for her.
Episode 5 'America's Largest Ball of Twine (Kansas) Part 2'
The story continues with Susan trying to get the sheriff to organize a search party but things take a turn for the worse when it's revealed that the sheriff and all the other townsfolk are twine-people who live to serve the ball of twine.
They try to turn Susan into one of them but she manages to break free and armed with an ax, she faces a horde of angry townsfolk bent on converting her into a twine-person like them.
Episode 6 'America's Largest Ball of Twine (Kansas) Part 3'
Picking up right after Part 2's cliffhanger, Susan fights her way through the mob and barricades herself inside the building housing the twine. She hacks her way into the ball with her ax and gets in, discovering multiple demonic arms inside the ball.
Through sheer force of will, she manages to push through to the very center and finds an unconscious Amelia lying next to the corpses of two children. Susan realizes that these children are the deceased kids of the man who made the ball of twine to begin with and that it's their souls that have been causing all the supernatural events in the town.
Trapped by the ball with no way out, Susan resigns herself to die with Amelia in her hands and at the very last moment, Amelia wakes up and realizes just how much her mother loves her. In the present day, the sheriff takes someone looking into the disappearances to go see the ball of twine.
Much like the first story, there's nothing very unexpected about this one but it still manages to capture our attention with its sense of dread and body horror. Twine-people may not be very high on our list of supernatural monsters but there's no way we're going to look at a ball of twine or a roadside attraction the same way after this.
Episode 7 'Scared Stiff (Oregon) Part 1'
In this creepy tale from Oregon, a taxidermist named Sebastian Klempner (James Ransone) is approached with a special commission by a late-night visitor. Though he's reluctant to take it up, Klempner goes ahead with it and works overnight completing the project, discovering at the end of the process that the creature he has helped recreate is none other than Sasquatch (though much smaller than our popular idea of Sasquatch).
The episode ends with his visitor returning to Klempner's house with a panicked look on his face and Klempner opens the door only to find something on the other side that terrifies him. The episode features some stellar camera work and the classical piece 'Clair de Lune' plays in the background, adding an eeriness to the proceedings.
Episode 8 'Scared Stiff (Oregon) Part 2'
Picking up right where the cliffhanger left off, Sebastian opens the door and sees something terrifying. The "something terrifying" is Big Foot, and it is less than pleased. Hell hath no fury than a Mama Big Foot without her baby.
The monster is holding Sebastian’s visitor in his clutches. It squishes the man into a pulp, and the blood sprays on Sebastian. Praying for his life, Sebastian slams the door shut. But this is Mama Big Foot, and hell it isn’t going to let go easily. Sebastian gives the miniature Sasquatch back to it, but the eye pops out. An angry Big Foot ravages Sebastian, and his shrieks and screams are heard.
Cut to the narrator, played by Emily Hampshire. Sadly, she says that everyone was shocked by Sebastian’s untimely death. She says she found his body, "torn apart and scattered all over the workshop". She says that no one deserves to be remembered like that. And in order to preserve his dignity, she stitched him back together. The narrator is actually the most eerie character in the episode and provides chills, more than the actual Big Foot debacle.
Episode 9: 'Grey Cloud Island (Minnesota): Part 1'
Four young men are brought to Grey Cloud Island, the most haunted stretch of land in Minnesota, as part of their fraternity's initiation ceremony. They wander around the island, swapping stories about all the horrors that supposedly hide in the woods, and stumble onto a strange building.
Seeing some men in white robes enter the building, they assume this is still part of the rush week and head inside, only to find a woman chained and gagged inside, staring at them in terror.
Episode 10: 'Grey Cloud Island (Minnesota): Part 2'
Picking up right where the last episode left off, the boys are confronted by a man in a white robe wearing an iron mask over his face similar to the woman. One of the boys, David (Drew Ray Tanner), confronts the man, only to get stabbed in the head and killed.
The others then fight the man and end up stabbing him in the heart before taking the Prisoner (Lisa Chandler) and escaping. A woman with white hair and a pair of tomahawks (Brea St James) finds the corpse of her comrade and sets off to find the boys, killing the frat guys who brought them to the island in the process.
The boys find refuge at an old woman's house and Bobby (Dan Ginnane) tries to call the cops, only to get murdered by the old lady before he can tell them about what's happening.
Episode 11: 'Grey Cloud Island (Minnesota): Part 3'
In this rollercoaster finale, Brandon (Asa Butterfield) finds himself locked in the basement and calls out for help. Ashley (Alex Fitzalan) tries to look for a key but he's attacked by the old lady who sprays pepper spray in his eyes, blinding him. She's about to kill him when the Prisoner strangles her to death, saving him.
Brandon manages to break out of the basement and the trio goes into the woods while the Islanders march towards them carrying torches. The warrior woman from before chases after them and kills Ashley with one of her tomahawks.
Brandon and the Prisoner run into a truck driven by Mr Lindstrom (Joshua Mikel) the man who is narrating the tale and drive off with him. Relieved that the nightmare is finally over, Brandon uses an iron rod to pry open the Prisoner's mask.
She then smiles at him before revealing herself to be some sort of demonic creature and proceeding to maul Brandon to death. In the present day, Lindstrom is telling some investigators about the whole incident, ending with the monster running away.
The investigators revealed that the first settlers on Grey Cloud Island accidentally opened a gateway to Hell or something similar, unleashing monsters similar to the Prisoner every year with the Islanders serving as a community of secret guardians who hunt down the creatures and anyone who might find out about their existence.
To cover up loose ends, Lindstrom is also killed off and the camera pans into the depths of the gateway, finally bringing the story to a close. Compared to the other stories that have come so far, this one was definitely the most twisted and we're looking forward to the next one.
Episode 12: 'Destino (Florida): Part 1'
In this eerie found-footage story, we meet a group of cops working in Miami, Florida. The episode begins with some shaky footage of a man being attacked before cutting to the beginning.
Maria Vasquez (Danay Garcia) and her fellow cops are patrolling the streets of Miami when a call comes in about a stolen goat. Maria tries to pick up the call but her friends take it up and head off, leaving her looking quite troubled.
Once they reach the place the call came in, they meet a boy who asks for Vasquez. They tell him that's not how this works and he takes them inside. Hearing some screams, the two cops make their way into a dark room.
One of the cops turns around to look at his partner and sees his eyes lit up blue, just before the door closes on them both. It's a pretty dark episode that balances the vitality of Miami with a sort of grim horror and we can't wait to see where this is going.
Episode 13: 'Destino (Florida): Part 2'
Vasquez and her partner Wilkey (Greyston Holt) are asked to check out why their friends Soaper (Warren Abbott) and Moreno (Alexander Soto) have gone missing. Throughout, we see that Vasquez is extremely anxious.
Once they reach the location, she takes a magic amulet from her car and wears it for protection before entering the building. After an extremely tense journey during which the cops find human bones and other disturbing things placed on an altar to ancient gods, they begin hearing screams.
Despite Vasquez's warnings, Wilkey charges into the unknown, ending the episode.
Episode 14: 'Destino (Florida): Part 3'
Picking up where the last episode left off, Wilkey and Vasquez make their way through a maze of twisted artifacts before stumbling on an old woman who appears to be covered with vines or tentacles of some sort.
They hear sounds and follow them to discover Moreno's decapitated body dripping blood into a basin. The two are attacked by a strange man who mind controls Wilkey and tries to get him to kill Vasquez but she manages to kill the stranger instead and exorcise Wilkey.
They begin to leave but then they are attacked by Soaper, who fatally stabs Wilkey (repeating the sequence from the very beginning of the story) before Vasquez manages to grab the knife and stab Soaper to death. She then prepares to shoot the mysterious old woman, mentioning that she escaped from this same trap years ago because her mother killed the old woman.
But the old woman proves to be more than a match for Vasquez, overpowering her and forcing her to drink blood out of Moreno's head. 'Destino' is definitely the most terrifying story we've seen in this series so far, drawing on ancient ritual practices to serve a murderous mystery that truly chills you to the bone.
And to cap it all off, the episode ends with quite the twist. We see Vasquez dragging Wilkey's corpse outside and meeting the young boy who lured the cops into the trap in the first place.
The boy asks, "Did it work, grandmother?" to which "Vasquez" replies that it did, revealing that the old woman has now possessed Vasquez's body and her evil has been unleashed on the world.
(With the chapters releasing on a daily basis, this recap and review will be updated episode-wise)