Tales of Halloween is the latest anthology featuring a variety of stories from ten different directors, with each one only being around 10 minutes long. The short running time comes as a blessing since a majority of the tales are pretty bland and forgettable, with only a few standing out among the bunch. Thankfully there's no terrible forced wraparound to sit through, but Adrienne Barbeau does play a radio personality whose voice is heard in one form or another in an attempt to entwine them all.

You'll also see some characters show up briefly in other segments, but that doesn't really amount to much in the end. It's clear each filmmaker was working with a VERY limited budget and making the best of what they were given, with some coming out better than others (showing where the true talents lie).

The first effort is from Dave Parker (The Hills Run Red), which proved to be a decent opener, detailing what occurs if you don't leave an offering of candy to a spiteful little demon. Darren Lynn Bousman (Saws 2 to 4) delivers the next tale, which was a highly amusing and comedic look at what happens when a cantankerous old man (the devil?) causes all sorts of havoc with a costumed boy on Halloween night.

Sadly at this point the movie starts to lose some steam (yes, already) with the segment from Adam Gierasch (Night of the Demons remake), which was a little slow going, but at least gave us some killer kids (can't go wrong there!). Paul Solet's (Grace) take is even worse, as it suffers from a dull story and some serious pacing issues. Axelle Carolyn's (Soulmate) tale isn't much better since it doesn't really go anywhere until the end and only seems to exist to give us a bunch of cameos from various genre figures.

Lucky McKee (May) luckily (pun intended) breaks up the monotony with his story about a troubled couple with a dark secret. This one definitely had its creepy moments. Andrew Kasch and John Skipp (who?) give us the next treat about neighbors dueling each other on who has the most elaborate decorations, which eventually proves to be fatal. Next is "Friday the 31st" from Mike Mendez (Gravedancers), which is an obvious spoof on good ol' Jason. This is probably one of my favorite segments from the list, as it's loads of cheesy fun.

The last two come from Ryan Schifrin (Abominable) and Neil Marshall (The Descent). Schifrin's story is a silly tale about a hostage negotiation gone bad, while Marshall delivers one of the more fun and memorable efforts from the lot, revolving around a killer jack-o'-lantern. All in all this wasn't an entirely bad anthology. Sure, there were some duds in the bunch, but we didn't have to sit through'em for very long, so that kept things tolerable and going at a moderate pace.

Also, a majority of stories were more amusing than scary, which might disappoint some viewers, but it didn't bother me much. Though, it would have been nice if they were darker or more creative and didn't feel so isolated from each other. At least there's a decent amount of practical gore when it was called for, but sadly not enough to save some of these segments from mediocrity.

Tales of Halloween is a decent anthology, despite some pacing issues early on. The segments were short enough to be tolerable, but not creative enough to be memorable, which is the movie's biggest flaw. It was at least an amusing effort and worth a look if you're in the right anthology mood.