The Second Coming (2025): A young couple is trying to navigate the normal stressors of life. They are looking to cement their future, but that future gets derailed when a divine entity descends. This isn’t your standard angel-on-the-shoulder visit. This entity is cold, intrusive, and treats the couple’slife like a lab experiment. As the entity begins to systematically sabotage their bond, the film shifts from a relationship drama into something far more hallucinogenic. It’s not just about losing your partner; it’s about losing your sanity to a power that doesn’t care about human concepts like love or fidelity. Director Micha Straub has an interesting subject here and turns in a great short.
Nebuchadnezzar (2025): Directed by Samuel Ogunremi, this short follows a stage manager by the name of Ruth (Joyce Chen)—the eyes and ears of the studio—who starts noticing that the glitz of The Silly Show is a flimsy veil for something much more sinister. After an on-air outburst that goes viral for all the wrong reasons, she starts peeling back the layers of the production. She finds that Dane (Jack Powers), the charismatic, eccentric host, isn’t just selling snake oil. His goals are much higher, and he already has an entire army ready to follow him. What a strange and disturbing movie!
Hazelbeth (2025): Directed by Graham Hastings, this short is all about an obsessive conductor preparing for the concert of a lifetime. This is the kind of opportunity that either defines a career or ends with a breakdown. Enter the titular Hazelbeth, a mysterious, antique baton that promises to elevate his craft to a divine level. Of course, this is a movie about a cursed object, so you know exactly where this is going. As he practices, the music starts to warp, his sanity begins to fray and the baton starts acting like a parasite. Nice Bava lighting and sound design near the end, too!
Selfless (2025): Directed by Will Anderson, this puts Damien through the wringer. After battling to regain control of his mental health, he’s finally feeling like himself again or at least, like a version of himself he can live with. His sights are set on one goal: reconnecting with Liana, his girlfriend of three years. They’ve had their bumps, including a two-month break that left a void in their lives, but Damien is convinced that this is his chance for a fresh start. Fate, however, has other plans. Just as he’s about to make his move, he’s stopped cold. It’s not a medical relapse or a simple misunderstanding; it’s something entirely, unsettlingly not human that stands between him and his future. Anderson turns the simple act of trying to fix a relationship into a desperate fight for survival, where Damien has to prove that he’s capable of holding onto the things he loves.
Tick (2026): Directed by Sam Permar, Tick is a nasty little piece of body horror. It’s the kind of film that takes a scenic, high-end location like Martha’s Vineyard and systematically dismantles its peaceful facade, leaving you with nothing but paranoia and pus. A couple heads to a vacation spot with one primary goal: to conceive a child. It’s supposed to be a romantic reset, a quiet retreat from the stresses of their day-to-day lives. But the island has other plans. What begins as a seemingly benign tick bite quickly spirals into a full-blown medical catastrophe. As strange, aggressive rashes begin to bloom across their bodies, the film shifts gears from a domestic drama to a visceral, skin-crawling horror show. Man, I’m itchy.
Goldie (2026): Directed by Elise Frances Garner, Goldie is set in a dusty, fading 1930s traveling circus. Goldie was once the star attraction, but she has been pushed to the fringes by younger talent. The film doesn’t waste time with sentimentality. It’s a brutal character study of a woman who refuses to be erased. As the circus struggles to stay in business, Goldie realizes that the only way to remain relevant is to escalate. What begins as petty sabotage against her younger rivals quickly spirals into something much darker.
Caged (2026): Directed by Ben Caplan, Caged is a nasty, stripped-down short that wastes no time getting to the throat. The story follows a single mother who, on a routine night after a grueling shift, is plucked from the streets and abducted. She wakes up to a nightmare: she’s locked in a literal cage, held captive by a shadowy antagonist in a remote, inescapable location. The hook, however, is the only card she has to play. The captor’s young daughter is the only other soul in the house. The film transforms into a tense, agonizing psychological game as our lead realizes that her only hope for survival is to manipulate, befriend and ultimately gain the trust of the very child who lives in the shadow of her abductor. It’s a desperate, uncomfortable dynamic that forces the protagonist to push her moral boundaries to the breaking point. There’s also a twist, as there should be.
The Painter (2025): Casey Miller is dealing with the sudden, untimely death of her mother. While clearing out her estate, she inherits a singular, haunting painting. As Casey tries to grieve, she becomes increasingly distressed by what she’s seeing. The painting is shifting, and a figure that wasn’t there before appears. As Casey becomes obsessed with documenting the changes, a sinister presence begins to manifest in her real life, tethered to the canvas. Director Birdie Gilreath should make this into a full-length film.
Raccoon Soup (2025): In 1973, Lori, a young waitress, battles crazy customers, a feral raccoon and Ricky (Marx Mitchell), her sexist boss. But she has a goal. She’s trying to earn enough money to land a sponsorship for the state knife-throwing competition. It’s a classic underdog with a blade narrative, but director Janey Gentry injects it with manic energy. I love that the raccoon is a puppet, I love Megan Wilcox as the lead, and I am absolutely obsessed with the place they shot this, which feels like a Rax with that old-school sunroom. Even trying to have a cigarette with the cook, Jimmy (Daniel Beltram), turns out to be a revelation about lizard aliens.
You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.
