Named in honor of the wild collections of short genre fiction curated by the luminary author Harlan Ellison, CFF’s Dangerous Visions block has long been the dark heart of their short film program each year, and this year, there were too many fantastic horror and sci-fi shorts for a single block to contain them so they’ve expanded things to include our virtual SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE DANGEROUS VISIONS block. No summer spent at Camp CFF is complete without the heaping helping of HOLY SHIT that are these two blocks!
13th Night (2024): Directed by Benjamin Percy, this is a film all about the lengths a father will undertake to save his daughter, who has become ill with a chronic condition. It starts with the subtitle “sounds of murder” and we see a man taking a Polaroid photo of someone he has killed via s shovel to the throat before cutting to the title.
The long haired man who did the killing comes home to his daughter, asleep in bed as cartoons play on the TV. He has a massive arsenal of bladed weapons, just as she has an array of prescriptions near her nightlight. He falls asleep after drinking — and checking the locks to the basement — before discovering that all of the locks have been removed. A strange man in a suit and American tie appears, says “Hello, Jacob. It’s time.” He passes the demonic figure the Polaroid of his last murder and is told on the 13th of the next month, he must kill again. The always smiling man passes pills to him and tells Jacob that he didn’t promise a cure for his daughter, but he did tell her that she will have a heartbeat. However, their arrangement can end tonight if he wants his daughter to die.
Then, the demon appears to his daughter and Jacob knows that he’s stuck in this arrangement.
This short has some confident camera work, gorgeous lighting and really solid sound design. In fact, I’d love to see this become a full length feature, as it feels like there’s so much more of the story to tell. You can learn more on the official site.
Butterscotch (2023): A young boy (Reid McConville) spends several moments in a nursing home tormenting a man (Clifford Deeds) who obviously can’t move and may not be aware of what is happening around him. As the child whistles and waves in front of his face, we notice that the entire room is blue and the only other color is provided by the comic book red hue of the kid’s hair. He steals a piece of butterscotch candy from the man — I’ve often heard only old people like this candy, so I must have been old my whole life — and then notices that the senior citizen is sticking his tongue out at him and bugging his eyes. I won’t spoil what happens next in director Alexander Lee Deeds’ short but sometimes, people get what they deserve.
Hi! You Are Currently Being Recorded (2023): Kyle Garrett Greenberg and Anna Maguire directed and wrote this short, which stars Maguire. She plays Anna, who is visiting a new lover in Los Angeles. We notice that her kitchen has wine and weed, which she uses before she goes out the door and talks on the phone with a friend, discussing how easy it is to get lost here, how everything feels so extra. Before too long, all the neighborhood watch signs seem to come alive and the idea that everyone is filming her becomes too much to bear. This takes the horror in the mundane, the everyday and shows how we can feel like an alien within our own world, even if it’s just in a different city. I once got lost in Tokyo trying to make a pay phone call and couldn’t remember which of the many similar apartment buildings my friend lived in. I just wandered the streets until he found me and he just laughed. This is sort of like that and kind of like how I tried to take a video of a cute dog last week to show my wife and a neighbor — with faith over fear and Trump flags all over her house — came out and accused me to potentially stealing her dog. Have you ever tried to steal a chihuahua?
Let’s Go Disco (2024): Austin Lewis, along with writers Jake Gates Smith, Alexis Stier and Megan Stier created this tale of a woman trapped inside, you guessed it, a disco. The colors as if they’re living in a Mario Bava nightmare and the pulsing beat was enough to set my dog barking. Fog fills the air as the disco ball spins and soon, she finds her way to a table of people who know her but she has no clue who they are. She overhears stories of people getting killed by an axe murderer as laughter fills the soundtrack and even drinks being delivered feel sinister. The cab ride home is no escape either and she comes back all over again, as the girls become more violent with her, saying that she’s going to stay there and do whatever they say.
Wow. Just wow. This movie knocked me out. You have to see it whenever you get the opportunity because it looks and plays perfect, getting more done in its 12 minute run time than any film that I’ve seen go over two hours. If you’ve ever felt trapped in public, this will make your hands shake as much as it did mine. Also: So much screaming.
Accidental Stars (2024): Aspiring actress Nerissa (Madeleine Charmaine Morrell) has been attending David’s (Kyle Minshew) acting class as part of her dream of being a star. But it’s not enough and if she wants to have him love her work, she needs to be part of his private lessons. Yet all the pressure is seemingly too much for her. After all, this starts with the T.S. Elliot line from Hysteria, “As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.”
Directed and written by Emily Bennett, this makes the experience of acting feel like being a captive. I wonder if that’s what it’s like. I’ve found that being a writer is like having homework every day for the rest of your life, so maybe dreams kind of come true, even if you’re not ready for what they are.
Maybe I’m glad I never became an actor.
The Influencer (2023): Director and writer Lael Rogers has made a tale of a social media influencer whose dream day is being able to harvest the eyes and minds of her followers as she reaches for immortality. I mean, all those numbers on the live stream have to go somewhere.
This not only embodies the influencer characters that the characters — Ivy (Deisy Patiño), Shea (Laura Hetherington) and Madison (Mackenzie Wynn) — are all about, but the film effortlessly makes the switch over to horror with no issues, as the true influencer (Bria Condon) rises from the sea and guides the women to the sea.
Now I understand why”You all give me life” sounds so horrifying.
Pitstop (2024): A prisoner, Quinn (Emily Sweet) and a guard, Hannah (Mary Rose Branick) are stranded and out of gas. I’d say this only happens in movies, but it used to happen to my in laws all the time. The dialogue suggests that the world they live in is split between a walled-off city run by the government and a resistance who lives outside the walls. Quinn tries to reach out to Hannah and explain what she believes to be the truth, but she refuses to listen.
Quinn has been playing with a paperclip and is able to unlock her handcuffs, which causes the two to fight. As Hannah discharges her weapon, they hear a growl which belongs to a creature (Deryk Wehrley) that can embody your worst fear. Somehow, this brings the two closer or at least able to talk to one another. I really liked how director and writer David A. Flores has put together this story and I’d love to see where these two characters go next.
Souling (2023): An unsuspecting woman (Jacquelyn Ferguson, who also directed and wrote this with Jason Anders, who is one of the disturbing people who gather) finds herself at the center of an ancient Pagan tradition when she was just trying to take a bubble bath.
According to the filmmakers, this modern-day folk tale was inspired by a medieval practice that led to trick-or-treating. There’s a banquet put in front of the woman, who stares at the sack masked faces of those who have sat around her table, finally grabbing fistfuls of food and devouring it before enlightenment arrives.
While I’m not entirely sure what it all means, but I did learn that Souling was done during Allhallowtide and Christmastide. It included eating soul cakes (“sets of square farthing cakes with currants in the centre”) singing, carrying lanterns, wearing a costume, setting bonfires, playing divination games (including one that has been slightly altered to become bobbing for apples), carrying a horse’s head around and performances.
I kind of want to try Souling now.
The Thaw (2023): In 19th century Vermont, a young woman named Ruth (Emily Bennett) watches as her parents Alma (Toby Poser) and Timothy (Jeffrey Grover) drink sleeping tea in order to survive the harsh winter. They can only be awakened in the spring and she will be left alone, allowed to slaughter the sheep if she needs to. However, seeing as how this is a New England folk horror story, things don’t work out as they planned as there’s an early thaw.
Directed and written by Sean Temple and Sarah Wisner, this finds Ruth in this situation because her husband has returned her to her family. She speaks to her mother and cries, “He said I wasn‘t worth the cost of my keep.” Men are uniformly horrible to women in this, blamed for everything, including making the tea incorrectly, which keeps Alma asleep as if she were dead. Now, Timothy is filled with a hunger that can’t end and as they run out of canned and live food, he may start turning his eye to the living. Or, in the case of Alma, the asleep.
Filmed in black and white, this is stunning. Its monotone look and setting will remind some of Robert Eggers, but this can definitely stand on its own. In fact, it deserves to be its own full length feature.
Dream Creep (2023): David (Ian Edlund) and Suzy (Sidney Jayne Hunt) are asleep when she wakes him up. Someone is in their room and wants to attack her. However, they soon learn that the sounds that she hears are coming from inside her ear. The voice soon tells him that if he wakes her up, she’ll die. Well, what happens if she stays asleep?
Director and writer Carlos A.F. Lopez does so much with sound design and pacing in this. This is the kind of movie that you’ll wake up and think about as you watch your partner sleeps and hope that you never go through the horrific moments that these two do. It saves the grisly parts for the close but don’t worry. They’re coming.
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