User Reviews

After watching Slices of Life, SOL, I am reminded of what was once told to me. I know you can, but you shouldn't. In my case it was trying to steal road signs while drunk, in SOLs case, it's being made.

I take offense to the numerous reviews of this film which are clearly friends of people who worked on the film or those workers themselves. Simply put, don't review if you are related to the project, it's tacky and looks desperate.

I feel like direction may have been seriously lacking for the multitude of actors in this film. Not knowing where to look, not knowing what to do with their body, not knowing motivation for emotion or for lines... you name it, they don't have it. Another potential case of a Director/Editor/ADR/writer/Props/Producer/Makeup Artist doing a bit too much of everything else and not enough on any one job to do it well.

This all could also stem from the 4 stories. I'm not going to go into each in depth since each could have a whole review and it would take far too long to write. So as an overall... You can't just say, hey, we've got 3 maybe OK ideas so lets just add a meaningless frame story and make 3 shorts. They don't stand alone and together they look even worse. Work life features meaningless dialogue with characters who have no impact on the story (stretching a thin plot for length). Not caring much about or for the protagonist means the climax (if not the whole story) is meaningless...which a girl who likes a guy who feels lonely being shot in the head is a pretty poor climax regardless. Then the denouement is cheesy and completely ridiculous. Home Life (book 2) starts out promising but quickly falls flat as the set up is trumped by an over eager jump into the horror. Then the "twist" is basically given to you after the husband first walks in the door at the beginning. There is no rising action as things simply just happen. One minute it's a a baby shower, then a demon child. Then a loving talk with a husband, then another haunting. Then supermarket, where visions occur. then home, where more visions and another haunting... No build up makes for scenes feeling lazily put together as well as just a prelude to some gory death. As for book 3, Sex Life... it's better than the rest as a story, but somethings are simply bothersome. The girl being molested by her uncle then getting vengeance with her crotch monster is unnecessary as well as the characters reaction (or non reaction) to her being raped in the first place. Not saying this story is good, merely put together better...as unbelievable as it is. The 4th frame story is just weak and pointless with zero pay off as of course the girl named Mira is in fact Irma...must have taken a page from Troll 2. Also, the fact that she has amnesia seems to be lost as she knows the protocol of the motel at the end while all she did was read her books at the front desk.

I understand there are 3 separate stories wrapped up in the framing 4th story but the visuals within each sequence are confused. constant breaking of 180 line, unmotivated (frankly uninspired) camera movements, poor focus at times, completely unnecessary insert shots, inconsistent coverage, etc. Bottom line, not shot well.

Continuity suffers through this film, as a script supervisor it bothers me to see these things. However I do recognize editing has a big effect on this and given the massive editing problems through this film that may be where the continuity errors stemmed from. Bad cuts, bad ADR, horrible SFX, using every cheap filter and general effect trick FCP or perhaps even Premiere has, I got a headache from the constant flashes, dutch angles, and digital shakes/zooms.

Audio dies in this film. At times it's normal quality, then dips to on camera quality, then disappears, then reappears in ADR version... This isn't surprising as it took 4 years to film this so it's not realistic to believe they kept the same mixers or mics over that time frame.

Look, bottom line is this should have been just the stories as shorts, this way the proper funds and time could be allocated to make the stories more interesting and the final screen product more valuable and entertaining. But as is, it's a cheap attempt at Creepshow or even a slightly more adult version of Are You Afraid of the Dark? My recommendation... avoid if you can. Not even much fun to try to mock as after a while even to riff becomes tedious.

The on screen title III SLICES OF LIFE amusingly renders the "three" in its Roman numeral, aligning the look of its rough edges with the hand-hewn lettering on the covers of three "books of life," a central motif in this gruesome horror effort.

This omnibus movie, which is neither as bad as some here have said nor as fantastic as others purport, alternately succeeds in its various reworkings of horror movie motifs and fails on some of those trappings, too. Apparently inspired by George A. Romero's CREEPSHOW but also owning much to the classic British omnibus flicks from Amicus and other studios (TALES FROM THE CRYPT [1972] comes to mind), 3 SLICES OF LIFE -- I shall drop the Romans as the end credits revert to the Latin -- is a mixed bag but one that, in the end, I liked.

The best episode in the trilogy, SEX LIFE, closes the film. Neatly constructed, it weaves two seemingly unrelated tales into a clever pay off -- the heroine of the piece unwittingly inherits a literally monstrous family curse, which neatly ties up some plotting involving an incestuous horror that begs for final justice. The characters in SEX LIFE -- the villains, that is -- are not what they seem, which is a nice change from the previous two tales, which are much more obvious in their villainry. The acting in SEX LIFE is, likewise, far better than in the preceding segments, HOME LIFE and WORK LIFE.

However, SEX LIFE (as with the rest of the segments) suffers from director-writer Anthony G. Sumner's insistence upon bringing in unrelated horror tropes (the legend of Countess Bathory, in this case) that have no business in the movie at all. Sumner shoehorns various in-jokes and references as if to tell the viewer he knows his stuff about Romero, Sam Raimi, and David Cronenberg -- as well as the more arcane trivia, such as Bathory. This indulgence takes away from the basic storytelling, though, which is otherwise good.

SEX LIFE is good enough to stand alone without the baggage of 3 SLICE's framing story or the other pieces, of which the framing story is the most valid. It conjures a spooky was-it-a-dream attitude brought into focus via some supernatural folderol involving personality transfer; there is also a clever use of bringing in characters from the other episodes to create mild chills.

The second segment, HOME LIFE is also smartly framed, presenting some truly frightening ghost children who haunt the very pregnant protagonist. But the piece is frankly overlong and the nice build-up of suspense is damaged by a very messy, gory finale. Here, again, Sumner has a handle on special effects sequences but tends to fall back on cheap tricks instead of trusting in what is essentially decent storytelling.

The bane of many low-budget horror movie directors is they give up and rely on banal in-jokes and references to other movies to cover up obvious plot holes; or, they are just lazy and think a good wink and a nod in the direction of zombified George Romero-isms will tide them over. Meanwhile, the audience feels cheated. Sumner cheats us in the latter way in the first tale, WORK LIFE. An ostensible comic-gore romp, this segment offers a nerdy office worker who feels slighted and sends out his "zombie email virus" disk to infect the world. His transformed colleagues become drooling EVIL DEAD-like zombies and chase him around until destroyed by gun-toting government bio-terror soldiers, in the manner of Romero's THE CRAZIES.

In spite of these excesses, Sumner is a talent to watch. 3 SLICES OF LIFE succeeds admirably in some ways, especially in the last segment. Its failings may be chalked up to a filmmaker simply trying to bite off more than he can chew.

--Jeffrey Frentzen

What a total waste of time! When i read the review, the idea looked nice: 3 stories in one movie.

The opening looked promising, a girl wakes up, confused, and is put back to work by her (weird, drunk?) boss. She sits at the reception of a motel and finds a big book. When she reads it, you see the story.

The idea of the first sequence is nice; to program people to like you. The acting is terrible though! Really dreadful..

The second part is better, at least for the acting, and has a better storyline. Though, the plot in the second part is given away to soon in my opinion. They could have done more with this part.

The third part was completely insane.. and i do NOT mean that the acting or the story is so nice/great: A brother and sister escape from their father, who sexually abuses his daughter. In the end, an alien sort of parasite turns women in lustful monsters and kills everything on its path. Weird story..

Overall, the zombies in the movie look like they have been made by the "zombie booth" app for your smart phone, awful and not scary at all. I laughed out loud a couple of times because of the crappy sfx and storyline.

I recommend to NOT watch this movie is you are an "experienced" horror fan, you will end up laughing out loud and regret the fact that you wasted an hour and a half of your precious time. If you are a beginner with horror movies, this one might get you to know the horror genre in a funny way. Even then i would not recommend you to watch this movie, but instead look a bit further.

The idea of the movie is nice, but the result is really disappointing and a total waste of time!

The Cycle Segment: Sketcher---Mira, Tiny, Irma

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.

Vonda and Ally visit Mira, then Mira starts reading the Pink Snapper segment.

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.

------

Work Life Segment: W.O.R.M---William

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.

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Home Life Segment: Amber Alert--Vonda, Lamont, Ally

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.

This segment has a happy ending, except for Lamont.

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Sex Life Segment: Pink Snapper---Susan, Eric

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.

Susan survives this, and heads home to the recuperating Uncle Jack.

Poor Uncle Jack. Sort of.

------Scores-------

Cinematography: 0/10

Sound: 8/10

Acting: 0/10 Hire some actors next time.

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.

This is a really low budget movie but I totally enjoyed it. The stories are fun and have a twist, the production value and effects are really good and it never takes itself too seriously. I thought the second story was the creepiest, but the first and last segments had some really incredible outrageous moments. I recommend this to low budget horror fans who liked the first Evil Dead, Basket Case, Bad Taste and other imaginative low budget horror movies. It definitely has that low budget-indie feel to it but you quickly forgive that because you immediately get sucked into the story.I loved the concept, plus there are definitely some very creepy and bloody moments.

This is by far the best indie horror film I've seen, and I've seen many! The production quality is that of any studio offering. The wrap around ties each story together nicely. There's enough zombies to make any Romero fan happy, enough demons to make Hell feel full and enough blood to fill up an Olympic sized swimming pool, oh yeah and a parasite that is sure to become the film's mascot. what Anthony Sumner and company has made is a future horror classic. This anthology is simply right on par with last years Trick 'R Treat and it's earlier predecessor Creepshow. A welcoming anthology that all horror fans should check out. Don't miss this movie!