Terror Tract

Terror Tract is a horror anthology film from 2000, starring John Ritter (the dad from 8 Simple Rules) and Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle). It features 3 scary stories.

Terror Tract opens with a wrap-around story called “Make Me an Offer”. A real-estate agent is trying to sell a house to a young newlywed couple. The only problem is, each of the houses he shows them has been the site of a grisly murder. Every time he shows them a house, he has to tell them the horrible story associated with it.

In the first story, “Nightmare”, a man discovers that his wife is having an affair with a younger man and decides to murder the pair. However, things go wrong and he ends up getting murdered by them instead. The cheating wife and her lover dispose of the body in a nearby lake, but the husband returns to get his revenge from beyond the grave. There are too many false scares but it’s a fairly well-done segment.

The second story, “Bobo”, concerns a little girl who finds a monkey while playing in her backyard. She names it Bobo and insists that her family adopt it as a pet. Her father, however, begins to suspect that the cute little monkey is pure evil. He hires an animal control officer to get rid of the monkey but the officer ends up dead and the father is framed for his murder. A cat-and-mouse game begins between the father and the monkey. It’s silly, violent fun with a ridiculous ending and Bryan Cranston gives a good performance despite the illogical script.

The third story, “Come to Granny”, is easily the best tale in Terror Tract. A crazed murderer called “The Granny Killer” is on the loose, killing young women while wearing a frightening old lady mask. A teenage boy has horrible psychic visions of the brutal murders before they happen. The teenager tries to convice a psychiatrist that his visions are real and she begins to suspect that he is the killer.

While Terror Tract is nowhere near as good as horror anthology movies like Creepshow and Cat’s Eye, it is still worth watching. The first story is not so good, the second is better and the third is the best of the lot.