The second anthology by Little Terrors presents science fiction horror in Galaxy of Horrors. Mr. Brown (Adam Buller) wakes up in a damaged cryogenic pod and is forced to watch a series of sci-fi horror tales, as his life support slowly runs out. In Eden, a group a freedom fighters set out to do an assassination in a post-apocalyptic world. In Iris, a man’s plan of disposing a body is foiled by his phone’s AI. In Flesh Computer, a handyman has to defend his cybernetic pet project. In Pathos, a man discovers the downside of having his senses controlled by a computer system. In Eveless, a scientist conducts a birth experiment in a world without women. In They Will All Die in Space, a technician realizes that the men who reanimated him from cryofreeze have ulterior motives. In Entity, an astronaut finds herself drifting into a black hole. Finally in Kingz, a drug deal goes wrong at a mysterious nightclub.
Producers Justin McConnell and Avi Federgreen follow-up last fall’s Minutes Past Midnight with a new anthology made up of selections from the Little Terrors Short Film Event. This time around, the anthology is curated to include horror short films that have a science fiction theme to them. In some ways, this results in Galaxy of Horrors feeling somewhat less random than Minutes Past Midnight, even though the anthology is still a little hit or miss.
Justin McConnell himself directs Galaxy of Horrors‘ wrap around story, which involves a man trapped in a cryogenic pod desperately trying to guess the deactivation password before his life supply runs out. This framing story isn’t the most deep plot wise, though it is a step up from the animations from Minutes Past Midnight.
As with Minutes Past Midnight, and most anthologies in general, the shorts that make up Galaxy of Horrors are quite varied in quality and tone, ranging from the darkly humorous Iris to the outright weird Pathos. Arguably the highlight of Galaxy of Horrors is the French short Entity, which features some trippy visuals and would have probably made for a better conclusion to the anthology than Kingz, despite the latter’s Phantasm-like head drilling robots. Some other highlights of the anthology include the first short Eden, the gory and somewhat twisted Eveless, and black and white visuals of They Will All Die in Space.
While it doesn’t hit a home run, Galaxy of Horrors does improve from Minutes Past Midnight in providing a well-curated selection of sci-fi terror.
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