John Shelton

Blade is one of those movies that was a little too influential for its own good.  It was the first time a they got Marvel superhero right on film. It pioneered the horror action genre that would spawn endless Resident Evil and Underworld sequels and ripoffs.  It was rocking the trenchcoat and sunglasses kung-fu style a year before the Matrix.

Calling a movie “formulaic” is usually meant as a dis, but should it be? Sure, a lot of movies get tagged as being formulaic because they lack of imagination or stick too strictly to a well-worn convention, but what about those other movies that just take a few elements that are proven to work, do a little mixing and matching and end up with something new, but oddly comforting and familiar? I mean, that’s pretty much the game plan of the Marvel movies that blow up the box office a couple of times a year, right?

Five shorts from a Disney-alum animator, based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, narrated by some of the most iconic horror movie icons of all time - if there has ever been a can’t lose premise for a horror anthology, this is the one. Raul Garcia’s Extraordinary Tales zips along with enough variety and serves up so many treats for lovers of both horror and animation that even when it falters, there’s another spooky delight just around the corner.