Here are some of the shorts I watched at GenreBlast Fim Festival:

They Call It…Red Cemetery (2022): Director and writer Francisco Lacerda has seen the same Eurowesterns that I have — there’s a line that directly references Cemetery Without Crosses — and he uses it so well in this story of two men who meet in a cemetery for one last standoff. Rolando (Thomas Aske Berg) has a gun wrapped in rosary beads and Jose (Francisco Afonso Lopes) has one good eye, but they both want the treasure that so many have died for.

I have to tell you that I can make it through nearly anything in any horror movie but my real life terror is seeing someone put money in their mouth. This movie has extended scenes of a man eating silver dollars and I nearly threw up while watching it. There’s no way that it will upset you as much as it did me.

This looks and feels like the movies of the 60s that I love so much and it feels like it’s made with love.

We Forgot About the Zombies (2022): Chris McInroy made GUTS, one of the few movies of the last few years to make me physically sick, which is some kind of standing ovation. This one isn’t as intestine churning, but it does have multiple neon-colored liquids inside syringes, formulas that transform people into cake, a zombie ripping off chunks of its arm to appear more pleasing to look at, a clone and, man, I forgot the zombies too. Four minutes, dude. This movie did more in four minutes than some films and their sequel do in four hours.

Sucks to Be the Moon (2022): Creators Tyler March, Eric Paperth and Rob Tanchum have created an animated short in which the moon, tired of being lonely and in the shadow of the sun, decides to escape to meet other planets and falls in which a bad crowd — Pluto — and somehow comes back together to be friends with the Sun, only for both to realize just how important they are — were — to Earth.

This is a movie that has taught me that the universe is basically a club where all the planets hang out.

What have you been up to, Moon? “Hard drugs and crime.”

I’d say this was perfect for kids, but man, in no way should you let your kids watch it.

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.

Content: The Lo-Fi Man (2023): Brian Lonano, who co-directed this short with Blake Myers and wrote it, just wants to tell you about Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Yet he’s been replaced by the new and improved Brian Lonano (Clarke Williams) who is now a streaming content aggregator and influencer, asking you to smash that like button and ring the bell so you get the updates. Breaking free from the mouse-eared androids that have him locked up, he battles the Content Seeker by, well, kind of becoming Tetsuo and joining up with film revolutionaries Kino, B-Roll and Wild Track.

We live in a strange place now, a reality where you can get almost every movie you want but may not have the time to watch it. Or maybe you do and when you want to break it down and discuss it, you get lost in the machine of likes and shares. I try to keep my mind open to both sides, as sure, it’s nice to have the most perfect quality home media ever, as well as streaming materials and everyone deserves the opportunity to find and appreciate pop culture in their own way. But man, if I see another listicle or YouTube video that posits theories like “maybe all the shot in the Eastern Bloc SyFy sequels in the 90s were high art” or ten slashers you never saw before and #3 is The Burning, well…

It’s a fine line between discourse and gatekeeping, I guess.

Everyone really seems like they were having fun with this and it made me think about how I present what I love about movies with more thought. So…mission accomplished.

Stop Dead (2023): Directed by Emily Greenwood and written by David Scullion, this a short and sweet piece of horror. Detective Samantha Hall (Sarah Soetaert) and her partner  Nick Thompson (David Ricardo-Pearce) stop Jennifer (Priya Blackburn) as she walks down a deserted road, telling them that if you stop, you die. Hall stops her with a taser and watches her die in front of her, then her partner, before whatever is in the shadows (James Swanton) emerges and forces her to walk the whole way through the credits, which was an inspired idea.

Gnomes (2022): Joggers have no idea that they’re about to enter the world of murderous sausage making gnomes who lure them in with mysterious glowing mushrooms. This movie has shocking amounts of gore and I say that lovingly; director Ruwan Suresh Heggelman, who wrote this with Jasper ten Hoor and Richard Raaphorst, knows how to keep things moving as fast as possible. We’re here to watch gnomes eat human beings and we get it. Oh do we get it.

These shorts were watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.