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BLACK MANOR and the Rise of Anthologies

November 26, 2024

Written by Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is the Film Festival Editor for Horror Fuel; all film festival related queries and announcements should be sent to him at josephperry@gmail.com. He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Gruesome Magazine, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right. A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.

Anthology series Tales from Black Manor is now in its third season, and if you haven’t yet checked it out, this new season is a fine place to start, and you can do so at the link below. Following is the official press release from the creative forces behind Tales from Black Manor.

Genre anthologies are on the rise, and there’s a good reason why. From Love, Death & Robots to Black Mirror and V/H/S, these short-story collections have found a way to hook viewers who want just enough to get spooked, intrigued, or blown away, without committing to a long narrative. Tales from Black Manor — a series about a family’s dark legacy with Death itself, stretching from the 1300s to the present — taps into this trend with short, punchy stories that get to the heart of the story fast.

The beauty of Tales from Black Manor lies in its setup: each story is a glimpse into another Black family member dealing with Death in its own way, yet each tale connects to a larger, ominous history. One story might show an ancestor’s willingness to kill in the name of Death in medieval times, while another jumps ahead to a more modern character grappling with that same dark presence. It’s the kind of approach that lets the story unfold in fragments, keeping each episode fresh while building a deeper, shared story across time.

And because each episode is self-contained, there’s no need for filler or drawn-out explanations.

Genre and short stories go hand in hand. Why? Because the format forces each moment to count. In a short anthology story, there’s no space to relax. It’s about delivering a single, effective idea — like the perfect scare or the perfect moment.

People love the unpredictable nature of anthologies. In an era where binge-watching means hours spent on one story arc, an anthology series feels refreshing. Think about Black Mirror, where each episode feels like a one-off nightmare of the near future. And in Love, Death & Robots, the short format helps each piece feel like a glimpse into a strange, unfamiliar world, where not everything has to be fully explained. Tales from Black Manor brings that same focus, but it keeps a shared history, a family story that ties everything together.

Each episode is its own mini-thriller, but it also adds a piece to a bigger puzzle — a family that chooses their immortality over the life of another. This lets the series tell stories in different eras, with different characters, giving each one its own unique look and feel.

An anthology gives a lot of freedom, too. It doesn’t have to stick to one storyline, so it keeps things fresh. You never quite know what the next story might bring. For Tales from Black Manor, that’s half the fun. We see how the Black Family evolves with the times, how each generation encounters Death a little differently. Each story pulls you in, each setting feels different, and every episode ends with the same question lingering: What other extremes has the Black family reached in their pursuit of immortality?

Check out Tales from Black Manor Series 3 in the link below:

 

https://adventurecompany.org/black-manor-series-3

 

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