What are you afraid of, asks the horror anthology Hi-Fear. A comic-book publisher poses the question to Natalie (Kristen Lorenz, 2019’s Bliss), a freelance illustrator hired for same-day-turn work. She’s told to draw whatever scares her most, with each round of real-time hot sketchbook action segueing into one of four tales.

First, a virgin is gifted “the Hope Diamond of pussy” for his birthday by friends. However, the whorehouse is staffed with killer prostitutes. Todd Sheets (Final Caller) quickly turns his ’80-style T&A comedy into extended gore, gleefully practical. Next, the legendary Tim Ritter (Killing Spree) turns his camera on a pastor with a bad toupée — and even worse temper — who kills his “jezebel” of a wife. This occurs after a confusing mélange of snake handling, eyeball puncturing and side-boob drug injecting. At least the pastor’s dialogue is far-right riotous: “This is the attire of a whore!”

Sodomaniac director Anthony Catanese’s segment is the shortest, but also boasts the best camerawork, as a young woman is terrorized by a mentally ill homeless man known on the streets as Krazy Killer Karl. Finally, in the most unconventional story, Camp Blood creator Brad Sykes (also responsible for the Natalie wraparound) depicts the making of an indie movie on a mountain where it’s never night. Maybe that cosmic ball of light has something to do with it?

Capping the trilogy, Hi-Fear follows 2013’s Hi-8 and 2018’s Hi-Death. A perceivable improvement over Hi-Death, it still suffers from a decreased story count set by the original’s octet. Ironically, as the Dogme 95-style shot-on-video rules established for Hi-8 have loosened considerably with each franchise installment, overall levels of quality and fun have decreased. —Rod Lott

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Even the most threadbare porno needs a minimum of set dressing. Among the scant accoutrements on the X-rated Tarzan parody being, er, shot in this film is a West African tribal mask. Unknown to all, said item is cursed, having been stolen by a genocidal white man in the late 19th century. Anyone donning it becomes instantly possessed — a setup bearing similarity to 1994’s The Mask, if Jim Carrey’s character were a psychopath who kills co-workers with dildos.

Here, the justifiably evil spirit exacts revenge on anyone who isn’t a virgin — good news for the audience’s surrogate, Mary (Nicole Katherine Riddell, White Sky). Seeking gainful employment to escape life under others’ thumbs, Mary lands this gig after naively answering a classified ad for a fluffer without knowing the job requirements, despite office wall posters advertising such flicks as Womb Raider and Die Semi-Hard — a sitcom-ready premise of har-de-frickin’-har.

Those two sentences alone adequately orient you to the wavelength of Mask of the Devil, a goofy British horror picture from Dogged director Richard Rowntree. Plowing forward with eagerness, it’s full of energy, but also unnecessary stylistic comic-book touches that detract from its greatest potential: to demonize.

I’m certainly not against humor in horror, but Mask of the Devil instantly abandons the sly satirical vibe of its opening: a fake trailer for a coming-of-age, Ken Loach-style kitchen-sinker. All the more appropriately miserable in black and white, the preview is a stroke of genius in an otherwise off-target, drawn-out feature. —Rod Lott

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Fleeing an abusive relationship, Portland restaurateur Kate (Beth Dover) jumps states and lifestyles, volunteering for a three-month stint as a fire tower lookout in the forests of Idaho.

Like a certain big-city, alcoholic writer transplanting the fam to overlook an empty Colorado hotel for the winter, Kate is out of her element, but insistent the silence is what she needs. Until the silence gets the best of her and brings out the worst in her. As a retired doctor in town (Dylan Baker, Trick ’r Treat) warns, “There’s no peace in nature.”

That one line serves as Outpost’s thesis, which writer/director Joe Lo Truglio sees through to its end. Yes, Joe Lo Truglio, the bug-eyed goofball of TV’s The State and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. As his fellow comedians have proved in recent years, from Jordan Peele’s Get Out to Zach Creggar’s Barbarian, funny guys have a knack for cracking the code of horror. I don’t know how or why they do, but to work, both those genres require perfect timing. Lo Truglio proves he has that.

Visually confident and with excellent support from Blood Diamond’s Ato Essandoh and My Friend Dahmer’s Dallas Roberts as Kate’s fellow rangers, Outpost is a pleasantly unpleasant surprise. Even for the desensitized, some scenes of terror land with the force of an ax. Although its ultimate destination is preordained (thanks in large part to its marketing), some of the turns it takes can shock.

Lo Truglio casting his wife in the lead role may have been a budgetary necessity, but Dover more than earns the showcase. Her name unknown to me until now (I never watched Orange Is the New Black), she qualifies as a revelation as Kate, a complicated character who’s believable even when she’s not all that likable. Their movie sure as hell is. —Rod Lott

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Desperate for inspiration after a flop, manga creator Jung Ji Woo (Sung Joon, The Villainess) visits Gwang Lim Mansion, a supposedly cursed apartment building. Some people, like first-time writer/director Jo Ba-reun, might call this a Ghost Mansion. (It’s also known as The Grotesque Mansion and, yawn, The Night Shift.)

As the caretaker shares, the place was an orphanage, until the day all the kids perished in a fire. Even since, the rooms are home to strange occurrences, five of which constitute this solid South Korean horror anthology.

For example, a novelist finds his creative juices sucked dry by the distraction of ghost kids and their damn, dirty, discarded tennis shoes. A pharmacist using the place for trysts with her boyfriend learns she’s dating the wrong man — as in, definitely married and possibly a murderer. And a heist is planned on a cult’s rumored safe.

Ghost Mansion’s most successful tales stand tall, back to back and right in the middle. In one, a lonely real estate agent lives with his sex doll and, this being K-horror, a hair-clogged sink. Immediately following, a student back from abroad crashes with a childhood friend with pustules all over his face and mold wallpapering the place. Junji Ito would be proud.

Each neatly compact, the stories don’t wear out their welcome. Even those steeped in Korean folklore and traditions translate with no problem. Rarer, the framing device comes fully formed and built with cleverly curated bits of overlap. hard to believe this is a freshman outing for Ba-reun as a writer, but especially as a director.

Oh, yeah: Several parts are authentically freaky, too. —Rod Lott

After having aliens invade his native Ireland in 2012’s Grabbers, director Jon Wright returns to wreak havoc on the Emerald Isle — this time with goblins — for Unwelcome.

Expectant parents Maya (Hannah John-Kamen, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City) and Jamie (Douglas Booth, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) leave crime-ridden London behind when he inherits a lovely rural Irish cottage upon his aunt’s passing. So what if she believed she shared her property with “leprechauns”?

Being told of the old lady’s Gremlins-style rule of leaving vittles for the creatures at night, every night, without fail, Jamie and Maya humor it. But they don’t follow it, which is when they find out what a mistake that is. Call it Don’t Be Afraid of the Feckin’ Dark.

These trolls, gnomes, whichever term you prefer — “redcaps,” per Wright and Mark Stay’s script — are why you’d want to visit Unwelcome. It’s only natural they be kept in the shadows to build suspense; however, they are hidden for so long, the whole second act is a slog. Only in the last half hour does the movie kick into proper gear, with lotsa hot redcap action. Via the magic of forced perspective, the film uses actors to portray the pint-sized creatures, kicking CGI to the curb and helping the threat seem more real.

While the prevalence of goldenrod grows drab, the outdoor sets bring a touch of visual marvel in an otherwise average picture. They’re built with purposeful artifice to resemble a children’s storybook come to life. This is no fairy tale, however, as I’m unaware of even the Brothers Grimm attempting something so brazen as a redcap taking a big whiff of Maya’s, er, motherhood. The final scene is bonkers … and protracted, as Unwelcome, like a drunk dinner guest, has no idea when to take a bow and exit. —Rod Lott

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