7 Deadly Tales

There is a problem with parsing the infobox 7 Deadly Tales is an independent horror anthology film released in 2016. Initially screened at local festivals, it was later picked up for distribution on Video on Demand by Ketchup Entertainment.

The film features seven stories themed around the seven deadly sins, each helmed by different directors and with different horror themes.

Plot

Each segment is divided by a sheet of paper containing the sins listed, with them getting crossed off one by one.

Gluttony

A family celebrates Thanksgiving. For every celebration, they eat whatever they could, and leave nothing for their long suffering cat. This year, they've eaten their way into morbid obesity and don't intend to give their cat any food. The cat conspires with various rodents to get revenge, with one of them stealing a small piece of chicken and the family attempts to get it back, only to fall down the basement floor, where a meal is in the works, and they're the main course.

Wrath

Wayne awakens to find himself in a simulacrum of his apartment with no recollection of what happened previously. He is guided by a mysterious woman via video conference, and she tells him this is part of an anger management program. When he demands to be released, getting more heated seemingly without provocation, a loud alarm goes off. Through further instruction, he is on a three strike rule, with the prior outburst being the first. If he loses his temper two more times, he will face punishment.

He and the woman go into a discussion on his past, Wayne is a blue collar worker who has employed his son. The two had been on shaky ground due to him not agreeing with Wayne's methods. His son is brought on to talk with him, but when he is upfront with his issues, Wayne dismisses them and gets angry when his son gets flustered, causing Wayne to get another strike.

In a final review, the apartment is converted into a sensory deprivation chamber, where he is confronted by everyone he had expressed anger toward. He is unapologetic and has a final outburst as the room becomes engulfed in flames. A doorway appears and he is set to be guided to the fiery underworld. The course acted as a final judgement to determine where Wayne would wind up, and we see he had been killed by his son during an argument.

Pride

Kep Siedel is a professional baseball player who had recently won his tenth consecutive victory. He goes home to fix his TV, where when he activates it, he sees an image of god, and a message telling him that he has taken his place.

The next day, Kep finds that he is able to make positive differences simply by being around people. He chalks it up to good luck. Soon, he is phoned to help a fan of his after he had been diagnosed with cancer. He is asked to hit a home run for him, and during a game, he does so and the victim is miraculously cured. Kep realizes that he may in fact be a god. A group of worshipers meet by his house and he exploits his newfound power to advance his wealth and image. However, dissenters arrive and war with the believers, leading to a bloodied fight.

Realizing what he has caused, he attempts to disown his title as god, but is met with more and more demands for diving intervention in endless droves.

Sloth

A diener examines a corpse recently delivered to the morgue. Through thinking out loud, we learn the diener has had a history with the departed, where the latter had one-upped him and caused him grief. The diener proceeds to mutilate the corpse, and through its eyes, we learn that it's still alive but under paralysis. As the diener prepares to finish it off, another man comes in, resembling the diener, and we see that his face is a replication. He had come in for some final revenge.

Lust

A woman lusts over a figure from an urban legend, a sex god who can fulfill anyone's desires. She dreams up various favorable scenarios between her and the god, to the point she alienates herself from her roommate, co-workers and family, following a mounting obsession. Previously hidden from her, she finds a way to summon the sex god, but in doing so, misses an aspect where when he performs whatever deed on her, she would become his slave for eternity. She is reduced to a spider and taken away.

Greed

A miserly coin collector, Walter Rollins, acquires a coin collection via inheeritance, and is encouraged to send each coin to different individuals. As Rollins looks over the coins, he notices peculiar inscriptions which depict grizzly deaths. At his job, he accidentally loses one of the coins and his clerk gets it, later dying of a heart attack. Rollins sees the coin has the clerk's face on it.

Rollins forces another coin on a beggar and sees he has gone through a similar fate, this time he had caught on fire somehow. Rollins decides to use the remaining coins to his advantage, giving coins to two cops who pull him over for speeding, his henpecking wife and someone he owed money to. After clearing all of his coins, he realizes too late that he forgot about one coin that slipped into his pocket, one that turns him into stone. The coin bears the numerals MMCDLXVI (2466).

Envy

Trevor and Tracy are twins in a dysfunctional relationship. Tracy wants to assert dominance from her brother, following a run-in with her school's clique. She begins verbally berating her brother, with no regard to embarrassing him and herself in the process. In doing this, she begins taking the clique's advice, leading to an argument with her parents and isolation. Tracy is invited to a party hosted by the clique, where she overhears them mocking Trevor. In a quick moment of clarity, she sticks up for her brother, but the clique reminds her that she was willing to mock him through her own will.

In this, she learns that the clique is actually a figment of her imagination, a personal excuse for her to lash out at her brother, jealous that despite his low social standing he was considered to be confident and friendly. As her world crumbles around her, she runs outside and gets hit by an oncoming car.

Production

Each director had taken influence from various films and shows, namely Tales from the Darkside, Audition and The Twilight Zone.

Filming took place throughout Southern California and Texas.