Are you looking to achieve higher states of consciousness using nothing but the raw ass power of cinema? Would your friends or family describe you as “the weird one?” We want you to know that we’re here for you. We’ve carefully constructed our WTF (Watch These Films?) and BRIDE OF WTF short film blocks with weirdos JUST LIKE YOU in mind. Our yearly salute to the stranger side of short cinema is in fine form this year, with a slate of shorts positively guaranteed to make mush of your mind, which feels REAL cool. WE KNOW. We’ve seen them. Also, we aren’t telling you to go out and hot box your car before you watch these films, but we also aren’t telling you to NOT hot box your car before you watch these films!

The Shadow Wrangler (2024): Nan (director and writer Grace Rex) is trying to narrate Western romance novels from the tiny closet of her New York City apartment. There really are paranormal erotic Western paperbacks called The Shadow Wranglers! And then, as she gets to the best part — you know, the throbbing manhood — construction starts happening in her building and her ex also shows up to try to talk.

This is an interesting take on a woman trying to deal with the end of her relationship, a miscarriage and how life seems to not always be figured out. The ending may not seem to completely come together for me, but I really enjoyed what I watched and the touches of humor amongst the darkness.

Two Women Make a Lunch Plan (2023):  Two women (Eilise Patton and Jade Kaiser) who have neither seen nor heard from one another in quite some time run into each other and make a plan to get lunch sometime in the future. Directed by Elizabeth Archer and written by William Longsden, this is a quick burst of, well, what it feels like when you just want to escape a conversation or make plans and can’t figure out either.

MAKE ME A PIZZA (2023): A woman (Sophie Neff) is starving, so she orders a Meat Lover’s Pizza that she can’t pay for. Yet, in that old adult film cliche, perhaps there’s some other way she can pay the delivery man (Woody Coyote). Yet he explains that sex can’t be equated to currency and wonders what is the true value of pizza? How does her offer of a carnal evening of pure pleasure possibly pay for all of the many hands that have gone into the creation of these slices?

Then, they decide to become a pizza yet somehow create a pizza god that asks them to leave their flesh behind to become part of the pizza. Will this make them free? Probably.

Directed by Talia Shea Levin who wrote the script with Woody Coyote and Katie Peabody, this is one of the strangest shorts I’ve seen in some time and that’s a complete compliment. It gets the 80s VCA porn aesthetic — was there one? — while making me so hungry for a hot slice of pie. You know. Pizza.

Like Me (2024): Directed and written by Ashley Lauren Thomas, this is about a woman named catlady 5406 (also Thomas) trying to get noticed on social media. And also, cutting her bangs. After drinking. Even as a dumb guy, I know that this is the worst of ideas. I mean, I don’t think it usually goes as bad as it does in this short, but bangs should only be touched by a professional. This has a happy ending, though, as our heroine does finally get the social media interaction that she craved so much.

One Happy Customer (2023): Set in the red-light district of a world that’s created with foam latex practical effects, miniatures and animation layered together, this is the story of a veteran sex worker who tickles the feet of her customers, takes their money and launches them into space. It’s not exciting any more for her, but then she meets a customer who makes her look young and he wants something special. And he’s ready to blow her mind.

Directed, written and produced by WATTS, this has an absurd level of production design. It looks like every single inch of this short has been obsessed over and it’s worth it. This is a world that doesn’t exist anywhere but in this movie and for this small amount of time.

The Rainbow Bridge (2023): Tina (Tru Tran) takes her elderly dog MeeMoo (Fat Tony) to a clinic claiming to enable human-pet communication in the last moments before death. Then things get strange, because the two mad scientists — Dr. Bailey Picadilo (Heather Lawless) and Herb (James Urbaniak) — running the place learn that Tina and MeeMoo share an unusually strong bond that transcends time and space. They might just be the key to something great. But is the cost too much to pay?

Directed and written by Dimitri Simakis, this gets into how Tina and MeeMoo can create a world between our world and the one of our dead pets. This is what the scientists have been working on for thirty years. I loved that MeeMoo explained that he is just a chapter in Tina’s life, not that it makes losing a pet any easier.

The phone number for the Rainbow Bridge — 323-685-2626 — didn’t work. Ah, my plans to speak to my chihuahua Cubby will have to wait. I plan on him being alive forever.

Body (2023): Jake (Aaron G. Hale) and his girlfriend Dawn (Leila Annastasia Scott) have no idea where that dancing Frankenstein’s Monster decoration has come from. But Jake definitely saw it move and stare at him.

If you learn anything from this short, directed and written by Ronald Short, it’s if you find what seems like a cursed object in your house, you get rid of it right away. Have we learned nothing from every Amityville movie? Those dancing decorations have always upset me and this movie has proved to me that I have always been right to be afraid.

Cart Return (2023): “Your chances of being killed by a cart are extremely low. But never zero…” With those prophetic words, Cart Return, directed and written by Matt Webb, begins.

You can tell a lot about people by watching if they return a cart or not. Melanie (Whitney Adkins) is one of those people who just refuses to bring her’s back. This brings out of reality and right into a horror movie.

She’s also one of those people who talks on her phone the entire time she’s shopping, bringing everyone into her self-absorbed conversation. There are quite a few grocery parking lots where I’d love to see this short happen for real.

The Curse of the Velvet Vampire (2023): Two Chinese horror aficionados meet in a cult video store to watch the mysterious vampire film called The Curse of the Velvet Vampire. which stars the band 802 and a lot of beautiful vampire girls. They even worked with Warpigs Brewing to create a beer called Velvet Vampire.

Directed by Christoffer Sandau Schuricht, who wrote the script with Poul Erik Madsen (he and Schuricht made The Beast Will Kill Us All together) and Andreas Asingh (the lead singer of 802), this gets the Demons mask in immediately and I wish there was a video store like this close to me even if it rents tapes that seemed cursed.

I love the look of this and wish we’d gotten the full movie that 802 was in, because whatever it is, it’s awesome.

Gum (2023): An obsessive gum chewer (Sean Moskal) is working to hit a deadline that seems impossible. He keeps chewing gum, as he always does, in an attempt to stay awake. Yet the more he bites into, the less teeth he has. Directed and written by Sam Elder. this is one short to miss if you have teeth loss or bloody mouths as your triggers. I guess it must be hard to blow bubbles with a mouthful of nothing.

Type A (2023): A man (Joe Briggs) is one of those Saw situations where must complete a task in exchange for his life. Directed and written by Jake Barcus, we discover that task is impossible, because it’s plugging an HDMI cord in, which is the hardest thing ever. Also, maybe you shouldn’t discuss rimming with a masked killer with a gun and a voice changer.

STAIRWELL (2022): Directed by Anthony Ceceri and David Britton, who wrote the script, this animated short has a young girl start to notice the patterns of the stairwell in her building. Each time she is on the stairs, there’s another dead animal, from fly to roach, rat to cat. Always something larger. Always something dead. Short, sweet and sinister, this is well made.

We Joined a Cult (2023): Directed and written by Chris McInroy, this is the tale of Wes (Kirk C. Johnson) and Luke (Carlos Larotta), two guys who wanted to play kickball and ended up in the cult of “He Who Blows In the Wind.” Things get as out of hand as you imagine quite quickly with possession, brain licking, blood sprays and Lenny (Brant Bumpers). McIntroy also made GUTS, which is one of the few films made lately that made me physically sick, so I’m super excited to report that this has tons of the red stuff and no small shortage of moments that will make you feel queasy. A success!

The 44th Chamber of Shaolin (2022): This starts with a disclaimer just like Jackass which means that I’m already a fan. The 44th Chamber of Shaolin is about the fake training that a kung fu master creates for a student who may love Shaw Brothers movies too much.

Directed and written by Jon Truei, this discusses chi powers and how if you train hard enough, you can defeat guns. You know, all that Dim Mak stuff. If you pay enough money, most karate schools will tell you that you can do just about anything.

Sifu Carlos (Santino Marin) believes that the kid (Marshieh Johnson) has the potential to be a Shaolin warrior, to enter the 44th Chamber, started by a killer monk that he passed on to ninjas. To become invulnerable to pain, you must taze yourself in the nuts as many times as you can. This gives you the defense that you require to fight anyone.

I loved this. Between the flashback scene and multiple stuns to the sack, this is cinema.

You can watch so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.