Legendary horror host Joe Bob Briggs stars as a paranormal radio show host in Cryptids exclusively on SCREAMBOX November 5. The indie horror anthology features segments about Bigfoot, Frogman, Chupacabra, and more mythical monsters.

I’m not much of a cryptid kind of guy.

Not that I hold that against today’s movie or anything like that. I don’t believe in superpowers, either, but I obviously love comic books and movies based upon them.

But no, I’m not someone who is terribly interested in people talking about objectively fictional fantastic creatures that “might” be real. It’s the same thing for aliens and ghosts. To me, it’s all pretty easily disproven, so why bother speculating on it? And how do I know they aren’t real? It’s easy. I don’t have superpowers!

And in my mind, if I can’t have superpowers, then everything else fantastical must also not exist. Hey… it works for me.

But again, that doesn’t mean movies based on them can’t rock!

Enter: The new anthology movie, Cryptids. This Screambox flick stars horror icon Joe Bob Briggs as a radio DJ with a call-in show. During the course of the film, he takes call from fans regaling him with their “true” stories of close encounters with cryptozoological beasts.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ As is the case with anthologies that I have covered before, some of the stories are better than others. While some might not be your flavor, others are more likely to be your speed. And because the tales are all short enough, you never have to wait too long for the worm to turn if you want to try something new.

For my taste, there is a Halloween-themed story that was my favorite of the batch here. Even if it was a little off-topic–are aliens technically cryptids?–everything about it was about as good as it got in this effort.

+ Not the kind of Up I typically like to give, but you have to get them where you can on some movies, and this is one of those. The cast of Cryptids is pretty easy on the eyes. There are some gorgeous young actors and actresses in this movie, and they genuinely make the going a little bit easier.

Like I said: not the type of benefit I like to credit a movie for, but as we get into the Downs, we’ll see why I was reduced to this here.

– The acting all the way across Cryptids is… unfortunate. Obviously it ebbs and flows as the stories shift, but when it’s bad, it’s woefully noticeable. And when it’s good, it’s just barely adequate.

Even Joe Bob Briggs. I know he’s more of a host than an actor, but I at least expected some fun from his character. But he is so stunted and unnatural; it doesn’t come across as his believing anything he says. What a disappointment!

– The effects in this one are anything but special. And, yet again, it varies from story to story. There are some stories, like the one about the Dover Demon, that don’t shy much away from showing the peril, and that story doesn’t do too bad of a job with it. But a lot of the other tales do everything in their power to not have to display their monsters.

And, unfortunately, “everything in this power” often results in some painfully terrible editing. Quick cuts and shaky cam and extreme close-ups… it’s all in the tool chest to try to hide the beasties so they don’t put off the viwer.

OVERALL

So it’s not the best movie of 2024 by any stretch of the imagination; at least it has multiple stories, and it displays the talents and ability of many different filmmakers and performers. If you don’t like one story here, another might by more your flavor. Even if none of them really worked all that well for me, the joy about anthologies is there is usually going to be something for everyone.