A funeral director is interrogated about his having cremated more than one person at a time, which leads to him weaving four other tales of horror in Steve Sessions’s horror anthology feature Cremains.

As it is with any anthology, some stories work better than others.  Here there’s at least some consistency provided by Sessions, as he writes and directs each of the four stories as well as the funeral director’s wraparound segments.  The wraparounds even tie into the final story, which is a nice touch that helps bring things full circle in the end.

Actually there are five stories if you count the creepy and effective opening where a young woman, naked except for her bondage gear, discovers her savior might not be what he seems.  In its very brief running time it sets up just what to expect from the stories that will follow, both storywise and technically.  These are horror tales, usually with a twist ending.  And the shot-on-video quality will range from your standard shooting to some nice, stylish edits.  It’s a mixed bag, but it works more often than not.

The wraparound that follows and is then woven through the rest of the stories may be my favorite segment.  Set up like a police interrorgation, everything works - the lighting, the shooting, the acting, the writing - it all comes together nicely. My only beef might be with the audio of the faceless interrogators (one of which is Debbie Rochon), since their sound quality and tone varies greatly from the director’s screenplay.

Next up is the first tale that tries to tell a short story - a daughter is reunited with her father, and together they travel to visit her sick mother.  But along the way they find themselves separated in a small town that’s hiding a secret of its own.  It’s based on a good concept that unfortunately isn’t communicated well, and it’s not helped by taking place mostly at night.

The most effective of the shorts follows a serial killer picking up a hitchhiker.  It’s got a great twist at the end (one I actually used in a short of my own years back), and the acting is easily the best outside of the wraparounds.

This is followed by the most stylish, but least fleshed out of the tales, where a young woman is haunted by the death of her best friend - who may be a vampire.  If each of the stories had to be classified, this would be the vampire erotica of the bunch.  The stylized segments work well, but the acting and shooting are the weakest of the bunch.

The final segment starts out as the most promising - and quickly becomes the most disappointing.  We discover that the funeral director’s crime is that he cremated two people at once, including a young girl.  The girl’s mother is offered the chance to resurrect her deceased daughter by a witch, but it all goes wrong and instead they bring back the “Cremainder.” An entire micro feature could have been crafted around the concept, and the Cremainder looks like a creepy enough villain (although I’m still wondering where his clothes and hat came from).  Instead the tale goes from innovative horror idea to typical slasher movie as the Cremainder goes from house to house killing people at random, usually when they’re in the tub.  There are so many issues that could have been tackled here it was sad to see it devolve so quickly, but as a slasher short it does offer a good amount of nudity and some gory bloodshed.

When Cremains works, it’s one of the better horror anthologies around.  But as it is with any collection of shorts, the levels for each story vary.  Here the camerawork goes from average to excellent, usually depending on the lighting.  The acting varies as well - Jeff Dylan Graham as the hitchhiker and Chester Delacruz as the director are solid here, while the rest of the cast have their good and not so good moments.

The one area that’s consisently good is the editing, which at times is some of the best I’ve seen on the micro level, especially during montages and when used for cutaways.  Mention should also be made of the little things in some of the stories (a hidden key and a polaroid come to mind) - it’s nice to see that extra little something that shows the time and energy that went into crafting the script.



Cremains has a little something for everybody.  There’s the eerie small town, the serial killer, the nude vampire, and the undead slasher.  With some good acting, solid writing, and decent production values, odds are you’ll find something to like if your are into genre movies.

Three stars.