Deadtime Stories (1986)
** (out of 4)
Brian is staying at his Uncle Mike's (Michael Mesmer) house and wants to hear some bedtime stories. Mike agrees to tell him some as long as he goes to sleep after. The first story has a couple witches using a boy to lure a woman into their home so that they can kill her in exchange for their long dead sister. The second story deals with a Little Red Riding Hood theme as Rachel (Nicole Picard) is taking grandma some medicine but she's sidetracked and soon a wolf show up. Finally, Goldi Lox (Cathryn de Prume) escapes from a mental hospital when she ends up at the Baer's home and they too have just recently escaped.
After the success of George A. Romero's CREEPSHOW several anthology films popped up with this one here being one of the weaker ones. It's really too bad that this film isn't better but there are all sorts of problems throughout the three movies. It should also be stated that it appears the MPAA got their hands on the picture because a lot of the death scenes have weird jumps, which is usually a clear sign that something had to be cut.
As far as the three stories go, each of them deal with a familiar subject but writer-director Jeffrey Delman was obviously wanting to do something different with them. As is the case with any anthology, the quality varies from story to story but I'd say the first two are the best but even they are flawed. Both the tale with the witch and the werewolf have great conclusions but sadly everything leading up to the endings are pretty bland and boring. It's really too bad because the first story has some terrific special effects and especially during the sequence where the dead sister is coming back to life.
The third story is a complete misfire as they're going for some camp and it just doesn't work. The idea for the spin on the story is a good one but the execution just isn't there, although you've got a young Melissa Leo playing Mama Baer. The performances throughout are above average and as I said there are some good special effects but it's too bad some of them were trimmed. Still, DEADTIME STORIES tried to do something different but the end result isn't as good as you would have hoped for.