Here are some more shorts from the Chattanooga Film Festival.

Ringworms (2022): A sinister cult looks to gain occult power through cursed worms and find the perfect host within Abbie, a young woman with commitment issues hours away from receiving a marriage proposal from the boyfriend she doesn’t even think she likes. Faye Nightingale, who plays the lead, is absolutely supercharged awesomeness; so is the direction by Will Lee. A splatter relationship movie that ends with a double blast of garbage disposal and black vomit mania, then topped by a head graphically splitting open to reveal a hand? Oh man — I loved every moment. I want more. So much more. Also: There’s a cult!

Kickstart My Heart (2022): Director and writer Kelsey Bollig survived a near-death experience to tell this story of, well, a near-death experience. Lilly (Emma Pasarow) must survive three levels of living hell to return from the near-dead which ends up looking like scenes from horror movies and Mortal Kombat, which I can totally endorse.

You have to love when someone tells an incredibly personal story and does it with fight scenes involving ninjas and demons. More people should follow the model that this film has set, but then again, this is so original and well-done, they’ll find themselves wanting in comparison.

Shallots and Garlic (2022): Directed and written by Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto, Bawang Merah Bawang Putih is about what happens when sisters Nur and Karina reunite for their grandparents’ wedding. as the family partakes in the dinner ritual of numpeng, Karina blames Nur for her allergic reaction to garlic. Their grandmother only adds to the tension as their mother tries her best to bring harmony to the table. Despite the culture that you come from, the nervousness that comes from family situations is universal. This tells that story in a way that looks gorgeous but shows how alike we all can be.

Greetings (2023): I never saw this coming and I was floored by this short. Trish is a shy cubicle dweller in an office that’s big on birthdays. She hardly knows anyone, so when she has 15 minutes to write a birthday card from the heart, she makes the wish of the card reader come true. Soon, her birthday notes are in high demand, as she has the power to give love and money to people who never saw themselves with these high commodities. But when everyone forgets her birthday and she’s mistreated by middle management, she takes her pen and a stack of kitten cards to deal out the fates that people truly deserve.

Director and writer Stephanie Bencin has delivered a knock-out short here packed with character quirks remembered throughout and the right touch of absurdist humor that makes this one that I’ll be remembering long after this festival — and several after it — is over.

The Lizard Laughed (2022): Based on the comic from Noah Van Sciver, this short was adapted and directed by Allen Cordell. It tells the tale of Harvey (Sky Elobar), a man with no true responsibilities who meets his strange son Nathan (Jared Boghosian). As they explore the Laughing Lizard rock formation, Nathagets the courage to ask his father why he abandoned their family. It’s tense and strange and wonderful, a mix of well-shot live action and some beautiful animation that creates an unexpected twenty minutes of joy.  I plan on seeking out the comic book now to see how close the filmmaker got to capturing it and if there’s any more of the story to discover. You can learn more at the official Twitter page.

Black Tea (2022): Directed and written by Laura McQuay, this invites us to watch as a lonely Victorian widow (Allyn Carrell) brews tea and casts spells, all to hope to find a long-lost love (Matthew Simmons). This looks absolutely gorgeous, like a painting come to life and feels so well-planned and art directed. From the social media for this film, I’ve seen the storyboards and am astounded by how tight they are and how almost every shot from them ended up in the finished film. Like watching a work of art painted before your eyes. I watched this more than once as I was so taken by its look, its music and its closing moment. You can learn more on the official Facebook and Twitter pages.

Farmer Ed (2022): After isolated farmer Ed (E. James Ford) makes a shocking discovery on his land, he tries to keep it a secret from his wife Birdie (Samantha Nugent). But how long can you keep a floating brain from the person you are closest to? Director and writer Azwan Badruzaman has a great eye for setting up shots and pacing, while the cast is absolutely perfect. I’d love to see this as a full-length, as I feel like there’s so much more to explore and my appetite was only briefly sated by this great effort. There are a series of quick cuts as we see the being within the bar study Birdie that are some of the best put together scenes I’ve seen in a short. Can’t wait to see more! You can learn more on the official Facebook and Twitter pages.

Picture Day (2022): Director and writer Kelly Pike has crafted this story of Casey (Oona Yaffe), a girl who must go through picture day at the school located on a military base. From battling with her mother over earrings to her father trying to make things make more sense at the dinner table, this photo session seems like a never-ending source of stress and worry. Do we ever appear as we dreamed that we would or how we wish to look in the photos that capture just a second of distortion of who we are in our heads? Picture Day is a slice of life that ends in fantasy and I for one enjoyed every moment.

Canal (2022): A woman (Suri Jackson) must cross a bridge as she walks home, but she feels the pull of staring into the water below. This pulls her through a portal into another world, a maze where she must escape what has dragged her into this new world while gathering her own understanding of it. Director Will Rahilly wrote this along with star Jackson and Anna Boskovski, Will Rahilly, Aaron Rodriguez and Giovanni Saldarriaga; the results are absolutely awe-inspiring, as there are moments that play with perspective and even the direction of the camera, tilting and changing the world around its heroine. Black and white has never felt quite so expressive as the moments I spent within this world. I am truly wowed by what I have seen.

The Five Fingers of a Dog (2022): This was probably the movie I was the most looking forward to in this collection and, sadly, the one I was most let down by. You remember how exciting Fatal Frames seemed from the description and box art? Yeah, that. A so-called “gothic neo-giallo,” which means that this takes the masked killer, the strange weapons, the POV and the kills — well, they get way too graphic, so that puts this in the slasher genre, but man, why quibble at this stage of the game — of the form and puts them on video with out of synch dialogue that feels more like being silly than emulating actual Italian to English dubs, as well as a filming style that’s somewhere in-between digital video and a filter that makes it look like degraded film, except, you know, most gialli actually look gorgeous. Nice lighting, off-kilter camera angels and weirdness for weirdness’ sake do not a good giallo make. At least Kyle Tierce’s soundtrack is lovely. I really wanted to like this film by Charlie Compton and Justin Landsman, but when you call your own movie disreputable, it’s kind of like picking your own nickname and forcing us to call you by it. And I tried, I honestly did, watching this more than twice to try and see if I was just off. I wish that I could have loved it and not feel this disappointment.

Likeness (2022): Kaitlyn (Mary Rose Branick)’s mother (Virginia Newcomb) has been missing for four months and no one seems to be working all that hard to find her. That’s why she’s created a digital AI copy of her, using all of her social media posts, to help her find out exactly where her real mother is. Director and writer David A. Flores has created a film that starts with an interesting concept that really could happen in the future and explores the emotions that surround loss and how even all the technology in the world may not be able to heal the wounds left by someone. I also found it so fascinating how Kaitlyn can speak more honestly with the representative of her mother than she could to her flesh and blood parent. The ending is really well handled, too.

When You’re Gone (2022): In the midst of heartbreak, a writer-turned-party girl (Kristin Noriega, who also directed and wrote this) learns what it means to face pain, as her issues suddenly become moot when she becomes hunted by a subterranean mother and its horrific progeny. Is what’s happening real? Or is this just how emotional agony can make you feel? Either way, this has so much goop dripping into nearly every frame of its action, as well as a heroine not afraid to get her hands dirty and her teeth bloody by fighting back against whatever these creatures are that have her trapped. The elevator to stairwell transition scenes are dizzying and I feel like this needs to be a full-length to expand on each character and learn more.

The Waiting Room or Eggs In Purgatory (2023): Maya (Lyla Stern) died young at just seventeen. Since then, she’s been sitting in Purgatory for eternity in the hopes of learning where her final place in the afterlife will be. She becomes friends with Dean (Pavel Paunov), a young man who has lived a life on Earth very close to her own. But untold millennia of waiting for what’s next has gotten to Maya, which isn’t helped when the keeper of Limbo, Eugene (Colin Heffernan), loses his list of names which may strand her in nowhere forever. This really feels like the way I used to talk in my youth, when I would try to round off infinity and spent hours pouring over song lyrics in the hope of finding something, anything of meaning in this place. Director and writer Madeline Blair captures that and commits it to this film.

Cafe Cinatriz (2022): Director Jordan Bahat has created a story that arises from the last few years of our lives. During that time, Max experienced the loss of his best friend, yet tonight at Cafe Cicatriz, he finally has the opportunity for an actual authentic human connection with Lourdes. He hopes that with time, he can show her his true self, once he builds the courage he needs and perhaps together they can create an actual relationship. But when the word comes out that masks can be removed, he knows that he can’t show her what is underneath his face covering. Because, well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

The Spirit Became Flesh (2023): In a town in Alabama that few would know the name of, Sam (Christopher Dietrick) has come back home to see his sister Lilah (Chloe Baldwin), She is all that holds him here, as his parents are dead and he’s built a life in New York City. This place has always been religious, but Sam is shocked to learn that they now slavishly worship a creature in the woods that they believe is the Holy Spirit. Whatever it truly is, it demands ritual and sacrifice. Can Sam break the cycles of this religious world he no longer belongs in? And more importantly, should he? Director and writer Jesse Parker Aultman has created something really special here. You can learn more on the official site for the film.

The Stewards (2022): In this future-placed short by director and writer Hannah Eaton, a virtual reality conservationist named Avery keeps having the same dream, night after night, which makes her question the isolation that she lives within, the way that she lives her life and perhaps even the nature of reality itself.

The Chattanooga Film Festival is happening now through June 29. To get your in-person or virtual badge to see any of these movies, click here. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.