The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession review
A horror anthology whose shorts are almost all, themselves, too short.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession
Directed by Carlos Goitia, Guillermo Lockhart, Andres Borghi, David Ferino, Ryan Graff, Maximillion Niemann, Jeronimo Rocha and Arie Socorro
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession Review
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession is a horror anthology that apparently came out in 2023 and 2024 in several places around the world. It’s finally available in the US (and Canada…and the UK) now. It’s also a sequel to a 2020 film called, would you believe it, The 100 Candles Game. Or, sometimes, just 100 Candles. One assumes to trick people into believing it was itself a long-belated sequel 16 Candles. In reality…it was a horror anthology. As is The Last Possession. We could have skipped most of this and just started off with that information.
We’re going to cover The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession the way that we cover all anthologies on this site. We’ll start by explaining the wraparound concept of the story and then rank the short stories contained within it from worst to first. The framing device, often a lowlight of horror anthologies, feels more necessary than normal. That’s because the individual shorts have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. Aside, that is, from being very short. The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession is short in its own right…clocking in at under 75 minutes.
The concept here involves a, wait for it, a game involving 100 candles. Four influencers head to a haunted mansion to play the game. They have to tell 100 scary stories and blow out all the candles. I either missed what the point of the game was…or it was explained better in the first movie. One assumes, since these are influencers, the point is to create content based around ghost stories. What I do know is that some bad things will happen if players don’t complete the game. We don’t see all 100 stories. That would be insane given the sub-75-minute runtime.
What we do see is six short stories…not including the framing story. We usually don’t rank that…but we’ll make an exception for The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession because it does a couple of interesting things with the concept.
And now…the rankings.
7. The Fortune Teller (segment 2)
After the Framing story gets going in earnest (more on that in a bit) …the first segment within the context of the 100 candles game is The Fortune Teller from director David Ferino. In what will become a running issue within The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession…the segment is far too short to accomplish much. Now…that makes total sense given the characters’ need to tell 100 of these short horror stories…but The Fortune Teller is incredibly short. It involves a babysitter and a kid and eventually a demon of some kind. The thing is…everything here works. It just works for such a short period of time you won’t remember it.
6. Arcana (segment 1)
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession begins with a short story before the game has even begun. Arcana, directed by Jeronimo Rocha, we meet a creature chained up in a basement. She eventually breaks free and escapes. The makeup and effects are top-notch. It ends very abruptly…and guess what…is way too short. But it sets a nice tone that matches the body of the film itself. It turns out to be a story told by one of the influencers on the way to the mansion. A nice introduction and a cool way to introduce us to the world. Just…so short.
5. The Last Possession (framing story)
Co-directors Guillermo Lockhart and Carlos Goitia’s framing story of the film (The Last Possession) is better than most. Not only does it create a plausible reason for these disconnected stories to exist in the same film…it has a few of its own spooky moments as it progresses. There’s even what appears to be a bonus story told through flashes of video cut into footage of the game being played. It even avoids drowning itself in tired influencer commentary. It does end abruptly…possibly teasing another sequel…but the bar for framing stories is low. The Last Possession easily exceeds it.
4. Black Moon (segment 6)
The final short story within The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession is Black Moon directed by Ryan Graff. It has a strong premise. A woman walking alone at night hears a child crying in a tunnel. When she enters the tunnel to help…she finds herself unable to leave. It’s very well done…with a great performance that relays genuine fear. Unfortunately, like many of the shorts, that’s all there is too it. A well-made piece that ends too soon.
3. Let Her Go (segment 4)
Perhaps the longest segment in The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession is director Arie Socorro’s Let Her Go. It’s also one of the best. A couple is having a rough wedding night. The bride is having a panic attack in the bathroom. The groom is dealing with a repeat caller trying to deliver him a dire warning. After unplugging the phone…they hear a knock at the door. Even with the extended running time…Let Her Go ends too abruptly. It does have a killer finish though.
2. Behind the Door (segment 5)
A woman attempts to contact her dead father in director Andres Borghi’s Behind the Door. The ritual is successful…with some dire results. She makes contact to ask a question. A question about hidden money she is desperate to get her hands on. Her father isn’t very helpful. Less so when he discovers where he is. The disembodied, slightly threatening voice is very unnerving. It has a fun ending…though, as usual, an abrupt one.
1. Five Minutes (segment 3)
Director Maximillion Niemann’s Five Minutes is the one short within The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession that feels like it’s of perfect length. It’s a zombie story…taking its title from the amount of time it takes to turn once you are infected. We watch a man who has been bitten spending his final minutes protecting his daughter. Some fun zombie action and an anthology best ending elevate Five Minutes to the top of the pack.
Scare Value
There is no “bad” segment in The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession. There are, however, too many segments too short to make an impact. Most of them end abruptly. This makes sense in the context of the titular game being played…but it dulls the effectiveness of the anthology itself. Still…it’s a fun watch with some well-crafted segments. At least until the end out of nowhere.
2.5/5
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession Link
Rent/Buy on VOD from Amazon
