XX (2017)

Directed by Sofìa Carrillo, Jovanka Vuckovic, Annie Clark, Roxanne Benjamin & Karyn Kusama. Starring Natalie Brown, Christina Kirk, Melanie Lynskey, Jonathan Watton, Breeda Wool, Angela Trimbur, Kyle Allen, Peter DaCunha, Casey Adams, Sheila Vand, Morgan Krantz, Mike Doyle, Peyton Kennedy, Lindsay Burdge. [R]

A quartet of horror stories with the hook being that they’ve all been directed by women, although feminist themes are hardly front and center. A child refuses to eat anymore after looking into the gift-wrapped box of a stranger (“The Box”), a mother tries to hide a dead body while preparing for her daughter’s birthday party (“The Birthday Party”), desert hikers are assaulted by an evil spirit (“Don’t Fall”), and a mother has to come to terms with her disturbed and violent teenage son (“Her Only Living Son”). First and last episodes fare best, but none of them are unqualified successes, the key issue being that they’re all underdeveloped to some degree, which inevitably leads to a fair share of head-scratching and/or shrugging after each one expires. They all have at least something going for them—“Party” has a funny “subtitle punchline” at the very end; “Son” flips things around by starting out like a We Need to Talk About Kevin-style lament about hereditary evil, then retreating into Rosemary’s Baby/The Omen territory; etc.—but the vague dissatisfaction of wasted potential at multiple junctures is unlikely to make many viewers want to revisit it again and again. Surrounding each of the tales are creepy stop-motion animation bits from Sofìa Carrillo, which amount to arguably the highlight of the entire package. Director Annie Clark, better known as art rock musician St. Vincent, makes her filmmaking debut.

54/100