Tales from Pandora’s Box Vol 1-3 (2023)

 

Why watch one British horror anthology film made by a randy old pensioner, when you can watch three British horror anthology films made by a randy old pensioner? Since Tales from Pandora's Box Vol.1, Vol.2 and Vol.3 are currently available to stream on the Fawesome app in the UK. Billed by Fawesome as "A collection of short stories. Where each tale surprises the viewer with unexpected surprises" these are all the work of one Mol Smith of Oxfordshire, although I gather some people call him Maurice, presumably because he speaks of the pompitous of love. While the words British horror anthology automatically makes you think back to the days of Amicus, Mol's onslaught of low-fi production values, a love of filming nekkid people and underwhelming CGI tends to make him come across like a senior, British version of Bill Zebub.

Described on one website as 'a compulsive creator of books, images and movies', Mol, now in his seventies, has been directing erotically inclined short films since the early 2010s. However his efforts appear to have flown under the radar of most until these three Tales from Pandora's Box movies, which are in fact compilations of his short films. The trilogy suffers from similar issues as that David McGillivray 'Worst Fears' horror anthology thing, in that you're watching a series of unconnected shorts that were never intended to be seen bolted together. Therefore there are tonal issues and the problem of the same cast members repeatedly popping up in different roles. Mol having something of a rep company that includes Sean Botha, a beefy, hairy bloke who isn't shy about whipping his wedding tackle out in these shorts. As well as Tessa McGinn, who at a glance could pass for an older Jane Birkin.

Being the first out of the gate, Tales from Pandora's Box Vol.1 represents the best of the bunch, the crème de la Mol, if you will. 'The Artist' sees a nude model become fascinated by the work of her photographer, who uses digital trickery to make it appear that his models have cut off their limbs. He in turn becomes inspired by her, and while taking legs akimbo snaps, imagines that a dragon is emerging from her vagina. Soon after, she is haunted by a ghostly amputee, but the photographer tries to convince her that the spooky sounds she is hearing at night is in fact squirrels, who apparently make a noise identical to a one legged ghost. She is not convinced.

In 'The Magician' a seedy stage magician finds it difficult to keep hold of female assistants, due to the lecherous nature of the blokeish audiences he plays too. A mysterious man with severe COPD issues and a magic lamb offers a possible solution to this problem.

Vol.1 drops the ball a little with 'Which Witch' a silly diversion that adds up to little more than an excuse for Mol to film several young ladies cosplaying as feuding witches, complete with an overkill of CGI effects and comedy captions highlighting the witches' strengths and weaknesses 'Favourite Food: Bull's Urine...Sexual Preferences: Dwarfs'.

Things return to normal, or whatever passes for normal here, with the straight faced weirdness of 'The Quest for the Quantum Vagina' in which two scientists (Tessa McGinn and Sean Botha) pay a high price for inserting a tentacled creature into a woman's vagina. 'Non Compliance' sees a young lady escape from the back of a garbage truck, break into someone's house only to (literally) haywire when she takes a bath. Finally there is 'Haunted' aka 'Away for Christmas' in which a woman preps for a party, but why does she keep imagining that her face is falling off, and why do her knickers set on fire. You'll have to keep tuned till the end to find out.

Vol.2 and Vol.3 are allot more hit and miss affairs, they are also allot less lucid, with traditional storytelling often set aside for brief, baffling mindfuckery. There is a running gag in the glam rock movie Never Too Young to Rock, where various characters keep saying "what was that?" a question you'll find yourselves asking many, many times throughout the Tales from Pandora's Box sequels. Such is the case with Vol.2 opener 'My Beautiful Egypt' in which lightening strikes the crotch of a female mummy, causing her to come back to life and do a striptease out of her bandages. This rubs shoulders with home movie footage of Mol's holiday in Egypt and news footage pilfered from the now outlawed Russia Today channel. If ever there was a Tales from Pandora's Box segment that needed to repeatedly cut away to a Never Too Young To Rock character saying "what was that" it is My Beautiful Egypt. There are fortunately a few standout stories in the sequels which mean that neither of them can entirely be written off. Highlights of Vol.2, include 'Dead Positive' a tale of a mortician's apprentice whose first cadaver turns out to be an ex boyfriend of hers, which with its themes of necrophilia, domestic violence and suicide represents the darker side of the series. Also of note is 'From out of the Storm' in which a woman, alone in her house on a rainy night, is terrorized by a naked Sean Botha, who emerges, Terminator style, from a ball of lightening. Botha returns in 'The Invited' playing a guilt ridden Jack the Ripper who reaches out to a pair of girls who have been using an Ouija board. The girls turn out to be reincarnations of Jack's victims, but can they find it in their hearts to forgive him, even though he hacked out those hearts in their past lives?

Vol.3 has two good, and fortunately quite lengthy, stories. In 'ScareB&B' Sean Botha and Tessa McGinn play a couple who plan to turn their house into a B&B, mainly as a way for him to cope with her impending death. A UFO beams down a naked woman (Elinia Rose, whose IMDB bio makes for 'interesting' reading), who they discover in the woods and decide to take home and give her a bath. She turns out to be an alien in human form who has the ability to transmit the life forces of other aliens into people's bodies, which doesn't bode well for the future of the B&B. Here we are very much in Xtro/Under the Skin territory of sci-fi, sexuality and women's bodies doing gross things. 

Defying the often prudish attitude of 21st century genre filmmaking, ScareB&B has both female and male nudity and goes off in some highly perverse directions. Two of the aliens pose as a father and daughter team, with the father ordering the daughter to dress provocatively and come on sexually to an old man, played by Mol himself, who contributes towards the full frontal nudity.

Mol manages to make even a muscle wasting disease seem sexy in the other notable story in Vol.3. 'The Samaritan's Gift' finds a young gypsy girl (Lucy Pelso), out for a ride on her ebike, and asking a passing motorist (Sean Botha) for help. As she is suffering from a disease that makes walking difficult for her, she wants him to take her home and give her a bath. Older men giving vulnerable, incapacitated, younger women baths being a reoccurring theme in Vol.3. Unexpectedly, given Botha's track record in these shorts, his character turns out to be a highly moral man who doesn't take advantage of this unusual situation, and his kindness wins her heart. All of which spells trouble for this good Samaritan, since her plans for him turn out to be more sinister than merely trying to sell him lots of clothes pegs. The Samaritan's Gift is distinguished by a confidant, sexy turn from Lucy Pelso, with Mol showing good judgment by making her performance so front and centre here, and showing saucy judgment by making her the subject of so many upskirt shots.

While Mol is clearly a DIY filmmaker whose budgets often struggle to accommodate his imagination, there are definitely enough nuggets of erotic eccentricity and horror storytelling here to justify wading through the Tales from Pandora's Box threesome. But wait...there's more!!! As Fawesome is also playing host to Abduction 2: Revenge of the Hive Queen (2018) Mol's micro budgeted sci-fi epic that runs a daunting 102 minutes. Being of sound mind, I barely understood a single one of those 102 minutes, but was entertained and left slack jawed throughout. The Mol oeuvre certainly leaves you with the lingering thought that it must be quite the experience to live next door to the people who make films like this. Hooray for Mollywood!!!