Chilling Visions: 5 Senses of Fear

Plot synopsis:
The film was composed of five short films and did not have a wraparound story, instead linking the shorts together with the mysterious company Watershed, a company with sinister intentions.
=== Smell ===
Smell (directed by Nick Everhart) follows a depressed man by the name of Seth (Corey Scott Rutledge). He's in a job he doesn't like and his despondence over his recent breakup has caused him to neglect himself. When a mysterious door to door saleslady offers him a cologne that can change everything for him, Seth takes her up on the offer. Her only warning is that he shouldn't use too much of it. Excited when the cologne starts making him more successful at work and love, Seth is soon horrified when the cologne's side effects start to work on him.
=== See ===
See (directed by Miko Hughes) follows Dr. Tom (Ted Yudain), an optometrist that is able to see through the eyes of his patients. This is initially fun for him until he discovers that one of his patients is experiencing domestic abuse at the hand of her boyfriend (Lowell Byers). Tom tries to intervene by using his ability to cause the boyfriend to experience hellish visions, but this soon backfires.
=== Touch ===
Touch (directed by Emily Hagins) follows a young blind boy that must go search for help after his parents are wounded in a car accident. In his desperation he comes across a killer who has an aversion to being touched (Lowell Byers), and who is living in a set of abandoned buildings.
=== Taste ===
Taste (directed by Eric England) is centered upon Aaron (Doug Roland), a hacker that finds himself in a large corporate building at the bequest of Watershed businesswoman Lacey (Symba Smith), who wants to interview him. He's offered a lucrative job, but refuses and is instead treated to a deadly encounter.
=== Listen ===
Listen (directed by Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton) is a found footage short that follows two men making a movie about Listen, My Children, a song that has the ability to kill. They manage to find footage of a doctor conducting experiments with the song and ultimately end up playing the song for others.

Tags: violence, cruelty, murder, sadist

Review:
With maybe one exception, this doesn't end well for anybody!SMELL tells the story of a man who's given the chance to change his pheromones to get sex and success.
Our protagonist fails to realize that something about that offer smells fishy.SIGHT deals with a lonely eye doctor who can see what his patients see.
Unfortunately, he sure lacks foresight when he tries to help one of them out.TOUCH starts with a blind boy and his family getting into a car accident.
When the interviewee turns down the offer, he's met with a biting critique.LISTEN breaks with the rest of the short films and is in "found footage" format.
It tells the story of two young men trying to piece together the recording of a song that is rumoured to kill all those who listen to it.
The title predicts what you will get, 5 short movies about our senses.
All of them contain horror and I must say that the quality of each flick looks superb.Smell, the first one doesn't has an original script but you have to watch and go through the first minutes to see what is going on.
The instruments used to control the eyesight do capture what's going on in the brain and so we are suddenly into a story about a killer taking revenge on a eye surgeon.
It also has a few of nice effects but isn't that scary at all, nice editing again.Touch, for me that was the weakest of stories involved on this disc.
Taste, a lot of blah blah and you're waiting what is going to happen, Beautiful girls running the business and the only thing you want to know is, what kind of work is offered...but once refused things go wrong.
A bit sad about the shaky camera's used but original story, nothing is explained and again on the edge of gore.
Some will be remember the bear trap from Saw.Hearing, the only short made like a documentary.
Didn't like it at all because it's a lot of blah blah even as they tried to involve us by removing the sound sometimes to think we would go mad too.
Sadly, you really have to wait until the end before the horror comes in on the found footage.
And from there it's uploaded to youtube, so be aware if you are watching youtube....Overall, not bad due the quality of all shorts but Hearing and Touch weren't the thing I was waiting for...Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5.
An anthology series about the five senses all interlocked together.The Good Story-Touch.
Stranded in the forest after a car accident, a blind boy tries to find his way to help only to stumble across a serial killer's secret hideout.
While there wasn't a whole lot to really like here, as the ingenuity of the boy having to use his other senses to outwit the madman is negated by the twist ending of requiring him to survive anyway, it really saps the entry of it's potential as the forest setting works nicely and the scenes of him wandering around finding the area is pretty chilling.
As well, it doesn't really use it's targeted sense all that well so it has some problems but remains the best of the episodes.The Bad Stor(ies)-Smell.
Unlucky in life, a man receives a mysterious bottle of perfume from a strange woman and soon begins a run of good fortune.
While on the surface this had some potentially intriguing ideas about the destruction of the human body and how those around us will forgo physical attraction over material wealth, the fact that these are downplayed so significantly in favor of a tired rehashing a romance between separated lovers makes this one feel much longer than it really is.
In addition, the fact that this one never really plays up the fact that the perfume makes all the difference and it never exploits how it smells to others is a real lost art, meaning this one is really only watchable for the make-up effects on the decomposing body.Sight-Troubled by his loneliness, an optometrist uses his machines to extract his patient's memories and use them to experience their life.
Frankly, this could've been something as it really plays on a true fear for once, in that the strange machines at the doctor's office do more than help us, and the stalking in the abandoned office late at night really get quite chilling at times, but this one is just way too short to mean anything.
It's got all the ingredients it needs to be creepy and chilling, except length for everything is over far too quickly and it never really uses the sight angle at all as the whole stolen-memories angle is used to experience their lives, not to fix his ailing sight and the process for stealing memories is happened-upon, which could've made this work more than it does.
It's the closest to going up, but it stays down here.Taste-Heading into an office for an interview, a man finds the agency who called him in to be quite unusual and strange.
The main point here is that it has no connection to it's chosen sense, and features a man running away from a woman with a strange contraption on her head that lets her devour human flesh.
It doesn't have any time devoted to it and really seems to be there simply to interconnect all the different story lines together since that's how we know they belong together, but it doesn't do anything with them and feels so lame and unrealistic the image of the contraption is wasted by all the negative elements around it.Hearing-Attempting to fix a documentary, a film crew finds their subject is an insane music composer who crafted a tune that made people commit suicide.
Another one that had potential with a pretty creepy set-up and a rather innovative approach to a clichéd subject, but instead the insistence of this one to appear as a found-footage piece severely diminishes it's impact.
The shaking footage and tons of obscure shots really do this one in, and when the horror finally hits home it's in the last few minutes since all they do is argue with each other over how to edit the piece together and then flashes of the song that they're working on.
This movie (1:30 long) is one of the most playful and enjoyable anthologies I've seen in a good while.
All the stories are cleverly produced with rather good acting and effects, camera angles, etc.
But these subtleties are important enough to make you feel the connection in a very roundabout way such as in "Cabin in the Woods." I'll go into a brief synopsis of each tale so you can get an idea of what to expect (skip this if you'd rather know nothing going in, but I've kept it bare minimum):1.
Smell - This tale is about a man who is down on his luck but picks up a special aroma that turns his life around, but at what price?
It's possibly the most playful of the 5 tales, but the ending is pretty funky fresh haha.
Sight - This tale is about a lonely man who works as an optometrist and uses his machines to extract memories from his patients in order to enjoy their memories.
3. Touch - The best tale in my opinion, this one is about a blind boy who seeks help for his family after a car crash.
This tale is amazing and feels so real and almost empowering as the boy makes his way through a rather troublesome environment.
4. Taste - If you've paid attention to the clues throughout the film, this is where they lead you - what ties the tales together.
This tale involves a young man who is offered a job for a strange company.
The film involves a song that has lethal effects on it's listeners.
It's neat little way to end everything though I suppose.
It's refreshing it see a horror movie that focuses on characters and story and not just blood and guts (although there are some great squirm-inducing moments in this that made a few audience members quite queasy).
Also, the stories are all loosely tied together, but it's not easy to pick up all the connections on the first viewing.
I'm excited to go back and watch this again to look for more details.I'm hoping this gets a DVD/BluRay release, because it definitely deserves multiple viewings.My only complaint is that I would have liked a bit more of a wrap-up at the end.
I remember liking the last section, Listen, with the music that makes people go crazy.
I checked the other reviews here, and it doesn't seem like any of them noticed this.The corporation that is centered on in the fourth segment has tentacles in all of the other stories.
It also sets up the fifth segment.All of the stories have something to offer.
The only one that suffers is the Sight segment, which seems like an interesting idea, but the execution is a bit confusing..
Another year, another horror anthology, and this time it's the turn of 5 SENSES OF FEAR which unsurprisingly contains five short tales each based around one of the human senses.
Like SCARY OR DIE or the V/H/S/ movies, this is acceptable stuff for horror fans, although it lacks the quality of something like TRICK 'R TREAT.The problem with 5 SENSES OF FEAR is not the production values, because they're actually decent for a change; although the stories were shot on the cheap and in a very short space of time, they look good and the calibre of both acting and direction is of an acceptable standard.
There are no big names here, but then you don't go looking for them.The problem is that all of the stories are focused on delivering gore rather than true scares so that the scope ends up being rather limited.
The first one, SMELL, is about a guy who comes into possession of a new and experimental perfume; this has a classic outcome and was my favourite of the five stories.
The third, TOUCH, is about a blind kid who has a car accident and is the most atmospheric of the quintet, although the story is very slight.
TASTE is an all-out gore effort set in an office, while LISTEN goes down the found footage route and isn't too shabby.
All of the stories are acceptable, but I found them lacking in delivering proper horror themes or scares; is gore all the genre has to offer these days, I wonder?.
"5 Senses of Fear" had a marketing campaign that gave me a lot of hope that it might inspire a resurgence in anthology based horror.
The directors on the ads for "5 Senses of Fear" indicated they were hoping this would be the movie to put the new spark in anthology horror.
I really hope that they are wrong.The reason horror anthologies work are because they are able to present the most important elements of a scary story without having to include any of the fluff.
They treat this movie as if an anthology is easier to make because there is less work in making a short movie.
A short story often requires more work than a long one because it does not have the time to tell the story and must concentrate on the central theme.
None of the stories has an interesting plot and absolutely nothing makes any sense whatsoever.
As I sat and hoped each following story would get better, the movie just descended into the ranks of pure and utter stupidity.
What each story lacked in plot, it more than made up for in cheap gross out tactics.
The shocking twist (and I use this term exceptionally lightly) involves his remains being used to make more of the cologne.The story about sight has an eye doctor who has the power to induce the power to see through others' eyes by potions he makes from his patients.
He uses violent scenes to try and make a patient's boyfriend stop beating her, but it ends up empowering the boyfriend to murder.Touch involves a blind boy trying to find help for his parents when they are injured in a car wreck.
He stumbles upon a man who doesn't like to be touched.
This is the only somewhat interesting story in the entire anthology and it is due to the performance of the actor playing the blind boy.
He is the only protagonist you can get behind, but this is not enough to save this movie.Taste is remarkably bad.
It involves a lady who offers people a job and them violently kills them when they refuse.
It involves a composer who composes a song that makes people commit suicide.
The plots are thin and remarkably bad even for a horror movie.
There are no stories here, only fluff supported by attempts at gross outs.
Chilling Visions has five stories based on the five senses.Smell.
Two video/sound techs and a camera girl receive some tapes about a Russian guy who composed a song that kills people who listen to it.
The tapes involve a researcher in the past who's trying to get someone to play the song.
The camera girl secretly uploads the song online.Chilling Visions has some good ideas and is somewhat original.
The second episode wastes an intriguing idea and ends leaving you nowhere.
The third episode has a good performance by the actor who plays the kid, it doesn't have any ideas but I guess is supposed to support the second story.
The final episode is filmed in parts in POV style, plus the black and white footage of the researcher, but despite the style doesn't capture what should be pretty creepy.
Overall, it would have been better had they worked out the purpose of the corporation a bit more.
Original "Horror" Anthology Offers Five Great Stories.
This is a very cool concept for an anthology film.
I thought all of the shorts had a very unique "voice." Each segment had an unexpected take on the sense that was portrayed.
The only segment that looked "different" was the "HEARING" segment, but that's because it was found footage, so it worked.
Surprisingly, each story had a very different tone, which was cool.A few notes on each segment (MINOR SPOILERS): SMELL: Had a bit of dark humor throughout.
The director said he was inspired by Tales From the Crypt, and it felt like a lost episode of that show.
This was a pretty intricate story with a lot of cool elements.
Fun to hear them talk about doing the gore effects.SIGHT: I enjoyed the performance of the "evil boyfriend." This segment also had some cool "vision effects." I felt the ending was predictable.
Cool sound design.TOUCH: Great performance by the little boy.
Overall, though, cool story with good tension throughout.
Cool camera work and "blind POV" shots.TASTE: This one looked really cool.
The main character is going to an interview at a strange corporation.
We see characters from the other segments that presumably work for this evil corporation, but that's not explained very well.
Cool, bloody ending.LISTEN: Nice play on the found footage concept.
Felt sort of like a horror version of the Dharma Initiative tapes from Lost.
The ending felt rushed or poorly executed and didn't quite work for me.
But it was great until the finale.After the five segments, the film just ends.
We see characters from all the shorts appear at the evil corporation in the TASTE segment.
I would have loved one last little segment at the end to sort of wrap it all up and give us some answers.Overall, I think it was a solid effort by everyone involved.
I think SMELL and LISTEN stood out the most, maybe because they were first and last and had the longest running times.
Most anthology films have one or two good segments, but every segment in this film had an interesting story, good characters, and great production value.
5 little stories about our senses.
I came away from this with a good over all feeling; at least a feeling of liking the movie, as a whole, not so much from the gore that was just a bit too syrupy.
Instead of that usual arc you get a "Wolfram & Hart" almost Umbrella Corp if somehow it had the Brazil twist running through the whole movie that works nicely, and has some nice little payoffs throughout, and upon re-review you see things from the new angle.
Sadly the first story is just so slow, and dry that it really bogs the rest of the stories down from the start, so when Touch ends so very suddenly it sort of makes more sense.
In the end I found that I really did Enjoy this movie, and would think that anyone not afraid of a little fake blood, and vomit (lots, of both) then you will to..
The short vignette format works very well for horror, maybe because we don't really want to stay in those designed to be unpleasant environs for way too long.
Is that all?" This is especially true of the middle film about a clever blind boy, we just barely meet him and he takes his leave, and he is an intriguing enough character that we would love to get to know him more.
The 5 senses motif is really just a pose of course, like a writer's class exercise, it offers nothing substantial to increase interest and every storyline is pretty much unoriginal and forgettable except the final one about a song that kills people.
One cute trick the filmmakers use is to recycle the actors, proper names and places in unexpected ways in different stories so that we get to have fun keeping track and see who pops up again.