You can usually tell the quality of a movie by the hook alone. Sometimes it takes a good ten minutes for a movie to grab you and suck you in and when it comes to anthology films, set up counts for everything. You have to have a proper set up to bring people in to your film to convince them to stick around and watch these separate stories and connect them somehow. "Nightmare Alley" raises no argument for sticking with it at all. There's no point in anything that happens here. Remember the set up to "Creepshow" and even "Creepshow 2"? Those were brilliant. This is not. Two stoner rockers are standing in an alley (Why?) talking about the concert they went to the night before. After suffering through a few minutes hearing them discuss the concert, they're approached by a bum who asks them for a smoke and offers them a comic book as a reward (why?), so for some reason they get in to an argument, the bum tosses the cigarette at them (why?), and as the long haired rocker is held at knife point by the bum (why did he ask for a cig when he could have stolen one with the knife?), his friend runs off with the comic book while the rocker is stabbed to death (why?). We have to sit and watch the bum piss on the rocker, while the friend runs off oddly composed and stands by a dumpster to read the comic book (huh?). He reads the comic to realize that the decapitated head on the page is a reflection of what is happening to him right there and then as he's killed while holding the comic.

These stories have no characterization, no drama, no depth, no complexities, no morality takes, no irony, and feel like low budget versions of what Taurus Entertainment would ultimately release. The first story involves these god awful cowboy cliches who find gold that isn't gold. This makes them sick, they become zombies and eat each other. That's all there is to it! The end! No big twist! No dimensions. Just a lot of bargain basement gore filmed on "grind-o-scope" film that makes the movie look grainy for no purpose other than aesthetic throwback to grindhouse films adding nothing to the quality of the stories or impact of the genre. The second story "Rebellion" (spooky!) involves a cliche Mexican woman in a party store who gets in to a scuffle with a business man (I'm assuming). The man walks around the store... and walks around the store... and walks... and walks... and finds a devil rat! The rat, in the box, is evil. Says the Mexican stereotype. She allows him to buy it anyway and shoos him away. If she knew the rat was cursed why is it in the store? The moron takes the rat home and becomes possessed in to becoming a hippy and we watch him drive... and drive... and drive.. you know what? Let's just say it's a god awful pay off with no creativity or imagination injected whatsoever. If the budget was too low to integrate actual storytelling or creativity why not feature only three stories instead of multiple ones with the same backdrops and cheap props? What is the point of the grindhouse aesthetic at all? Why am I still writing this?

I've learned to stay away and fear anything that has the name Scarlet Fry attached to it as an attempt to lure in potential viewers, and I was immensely let down by this waste of time. This has every aspiration to be a genuine B Grade anthology flick but is just bottom of the bottom of the barrel in the end. It's a colossal waste of time and effort and an actual nightmare if you can sit through it for more than ten minutes.