SINPHONY | ©2022 Dark Sky Pictures

Rating: Not rated
Stars: Edna Raia, Kristine Gerolaga, Tony Aldrich, Thomas H.F. Gassaway, Paul Stelzer, Haley Bishop, Ronnie Meek, Karen Sternberg, David Ian Lee, Beckett Harrison Lee, Stella Stocker, Donna-Louise Bryan, Michael Pearson, Amelia MacIsaac, Alysse Fozmark, Antonia Miran, Katie Austin, Casey Schryer
Writers: Jason Ragosta, Steven Keller, Haley Bishop, Wes Driver, Greg Greene, Mark Pritchard, Kimberley Elizabeth, Jason Wilkinson, Nichole Carson, Sebastien Bazile, Michael Galvan
Directors: Jason Ragosta, Steven Keller, Haley Bishop, Wes Driver, Mark Pritchard, Kimberley Elizabeth, Jason Wilkinson, Nichole Carson, Sebastien Bazile, Michael Galvan
Distributor: Dark Sky Films
Release Date: October 21, 2022

Most film anthologies, horror and other genres, contain between three and five segments. SINPHONY provides nine, including the wraparound, which turns out to connect to several other portions. Clocking in at a brisk hour and twenty-eight minutes, it embodies the virtue of brevity.

Almost all of the shorts are each written and directed by a single filmmaker, with the exception of “The Keeper,” where director Wes Driver collaborated with Greg Greene on the screenplay, and the wraparound, which is written and directed by the duo Sebastien Bazile & Michael Galvan.

Bazile & Galvan’s wraparound introduces a song that finds its way, in various renditions and styles, into each of the episodes. It is suitably enigmatic and ominous, yet works in a lighter vein.

The first segment, written and directed by Jason Ragosta, shakes things up by blending a second horror genre with a conventional slasher.

Writer/director Steven Keller deals with father/son exterminators in a creepy old building.

Writer/director Haley Bishop stars in her segment as a woman very unhappy about turning thirty.

In the entry directed by Driver and scripted by Driver & Greene, a surly man, an exhausted woman and a sickly little boy check into an isolated B&B in Tennessee, run by a kindly innkeeper.

A vintage British automobile and a much more vintage book figure prominently in writer/director Mark Pritchard’s piece.

In writer/director Kimberley Elizabeth’s contribution, a woman is frustrated trying to get her husband’s attention for an unusual reason.

In writer/director Jason Wilkinson’s piece, Alysse Fozmark stars as a young woman who has been wounded in the commission of a robbery.

Writer/director Nichole Carson deals with fears of maternity from a pregnant woman (Antonia Miran) who, as a little girl, saw her own mother die in childbirth.

The acting is all good. Gore is moderate – everything here is on a budget, so there are no big effects, splatter or other. Driver gets points for accurately reproducing the color of a small amount of drying blood on a bedsheet. This episode registers as the one most likely to be turned into a feature.

The most fun is perhaps the first, with filmmaker Ragosta finding humor in bringing something new into what we might be expecting.

Writer/director Pritchard has a similar take, and strong lead performers in Stella Stocker and Donna-Louise Bryan. Triple threat writer/director/performer Bishop demonstrates astute instincts as both filmmaker and actor.

SINPHONY is brisk, clever, and sticks the landing on most of its component pieces. These fit well into something that feels thematically coherent.

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