The game of 100 Candles has trapped a group of friends, who find themselves forced to tell one another horror stories in front of a magical mirror. One story must be shared for every candle and the group cant’t leave until all of the candles have been extinguished. If they do, they will fall to a witch’s curse.

100 Candles uses this storytelling engine to enter into the anthology conceit while taking content from several other shorts, including The Visitant, Blight, When Demons Die, Black Eyed Child and A Little Taste. No, there are not a hundred stories in this movie.

Of these stories, The VIsitant has the most star power, as it features Amy Smart (The Butterfly Effect, Road Trip) as a mother trying to protect her children from a demon played by Doug Jones. It was directed by Nicholas Peterson, who has made several music videos for bands like Bad Wolves, Sixx AM and Five Finger Death Punch.

Buried Alive has one of my most fearful themes. Obviously, it’s being buried alive, but since this story is all in Spanish, it loses some of its power with Western audiences.

As usual with anthologies, not every story works, but those that do are pretty powerful. The framing sequence is well-filmed and sets things up quite well. Of the modern portmanteaus that have been released, this is one of the better I’ve seen.

Devilworks has released 100 Candles with a day-and-date DVD and Premium TVOD, followed by a full digital release.