An insane and eclectic collection of animation, comedy, music, and whatever else to wake your ass up.

Pile – Born at Night (2025): Directed and written by Joshua Echavarria, this is a video for the song by the Boston band Pile. Stereobar describes their music as a “philosophical exploration of existential nihilism, wrestling with the idea that perhaps there is no ultimate enlightenment or end to human suffering.” This black and white video matches the song so well — nearly a mix of light and dark, softness and noise. I’d never heard this before and came away really liking it.

Froggy Style (2025): This was directed and written by Jonathan Riles and is basically non-stop animation and images of frogs, well, having sex. The frogs are also gay. Such is life. If you’re upset about the frogs being gay, you’re probably Alex Jones.

Purple Patrol (2025): In Jessica Q. Moore’s film, “a vigilante trio summons an otherworldly being to help protect the queer community.” Pinkle (Oliver Herfact), Winkle (Charlie Wo), Dot (Dick (Richard)) and The Dyke (Sapphrodite) are ready to keep people safe from the straights. Great music, great message, and it looks really good along the way.

The Litterbug (2025): Park Ranger Charlie (Lillian Alexander) and her recruit, Casey (Lillian Alexander), track down a serial litterer known as “The Litterbug” (Travers Britt), who turns out to be not a man, but something else. Something horrifying. If anything, this has made me not want to throw any trash out the window of my car ever again. 

Christ Dance (2025): Directed by and starring Taylor Nice, this takes the music of Life Appreciation Renewal and creates a black and white canvas for this noise and sound. I’m sure that someone, somewhere, will be offended.

The Fly Squatter (2025): This movie by Vincent Vinãs claims that the original soundtrack was deleted during the 1980s Sergio Mendes disco craze. Through a mix of low-budget filming, costumes, dubbed dialogue and use of stock footage, this tells the story of a war between humans and flies, a battle that I feel like I’ve been in forever.

Burned Cans for Aluminum Children (2025): “The distant sound of church bells signals the beginning of an apocalypse.” With that description, I’m excited for Robert Kleinschmidt’s film. Good news. If you like to see cute claymational characters blow up real good and suffer in many other ways, this is for you.

Pizza Time Pizza (2024): This movie by Nicholas Thurkettle has pizza that comes to you based on your thoughts and what you want. They know your name. They know what they must know to fulfill their purpose. I was wondering why destiny and quantum theory were coming in with pizza — “the truth can be unsettling, but pizza brings comfort” — but then again, I realize that when I’m high, I want pizza. Actually, I’m not high now, and I still want pizza. This movie gets it; in a world of infinite diversity and complexity, pizza is perfect. I loved this. So much. Seriously, what an ideal short.

The Time Capsule (2025): Four childhood friends reunite to dig up a time capsule after 30 years… and encounter some unexpected visitors. Made by Michael Charron, this made me consider what I would have put in a time capsule in 1995. I would not have placed a Wendy’s Value Meal into it, hoping that it would last that long, but I have seen that fast food hamburgers do take forever to go away. I just had a Double Baconator the other night, and it may be inside me forever, if this movie has given me any insight. Well done.

Tortured Artist (2025): “An aspiring artist struggles with negative self-talk and unfair comparisons with his peers. Can his only fan save him from himself? It’s Art Attack gone very wrong in this crude comedy short.” Hey kids — would you like to see a clown shit all over a canvas for two minutes? Good news! You got it! Sometimes, art can be painful, and this shows us that. It has some great animation, and wow, the sound effects!

VHX (2024): Directed and written by Scott Ampleford and Alisa Stern, this film features a collection of VHS tapes gathering dust on a shelf, wondering why some are picked over others, only for one of them to come back as a zombie. This made me miss the times when all I had were tapes with handwritten labels, bootlegs of movies that were nowhere near 4K, fuzzy blasts of weirdness, mix tapes, utter strangeness that could fall apart at any moment because VHS was so fragile. I loved this!

Alpaca (2024): Filmmaker Sylvia Caminer has taught me that there’s a whole social media just for alpacas. Additionally, you should not feed them chocolate, as it will cause them harm and potentially lead to your own demise. Who knew that I could be terrified now of alpacas? Thanks, Syvia, and your co-writer, Matthew Wilkins! I really loved Fernando Martinez in this, who gets to say things like “Tap in, alpaca fam!” Just a hilarious — if frightening, I mean, there’s an alpaca down the street from me and now I’m eyeing him — movie. 

This series of shorts is curated by acclaimed author and filmmaker Samantha Kolesnik, featuring LGBTQ+ and documentary genre shorts.

The Shaver Mystery (2024): This is an examination of the strangest and most controversial episode of sci-fi history: The allegedly “true stories” of writer Richard Shaver’s encounters with evil underground aliens; stories that are collectively known as “The Shaver Mystery.”

Richard Shaver first encountered Lemuria when the tools at a factory where he worked allowed him to hear other people’s thoughts, as well as torture sessions going on beneath the Earth. He quit his job and became homeless for some time, but on the other hand, he may have also had paranoid schizophrenia, and this was all the result of electroshock treatments.

Shaver disappeared for some time, then began writing to the pulp magazine Amazing Stories, claiming to have discovered an ancient language he called Mantong. Editor Ray Palmer (the namesake of DC Comics’ Silver Age version of The Atom) thought that Shaver was onto something.

Shaver then wrote “A Warning to Future Man,” in which he discussed cities within the Earth, populated by the benevolent Teros and the malevolent Deros. Palmer rewrote Shaver’s allegedly accurate account and created the fictional story “I Remember Lemuria!” which appeared in the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories. That issue instantly sold out, and then something peculiar happened: thousands of letters began appearing saying that they’d had the same experiences as Shaver.

The Shaver Mystery also boasts Fred Crisman amongst its believers. The real-life inspiration for TV’s The Invaders, Crisman is a conspiracy nexus: he was supposedly one of the three hoboes in Dallas during Kennedy’s assassination, one of the first people in the U.S. to report a UFO and he battled the Demos in a cave during World War 2.

Amazing Stories‘ readership either loved or hated the Shaver stories. According to Wikipedia, “Palmer would later claim the magazine was pressured by sinister outside forces to make the change: science fiction fans would credit their boycott and letter-writing campaigns for the change. The magazine’s owners said later that the Shaver Mystery had simply run its course and sales were decreasing.” One of the most prominent critics of the Shaver stories was a young Harlan Ellison!

That didn’t end the Shaver stories. Palmer credits these tales with the public fascination with UFOs. John Keel’s 1983 Fortean Times piece “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers” claims that “a considerable number of people — millions — were exposed to the flying saucer concept before the national news media were even aware of it. Anyone who glanced at the magazines on a newsstand and caught a glimpse of the saucer-emblazoned Amazing Stories cover had the image implanted in his subconscious.” Indeed, Palmer was quick to defend the Shaver stories and claim that “flying saucers” were their validation.

Directed by Dean Bertram, this interviews Joshua Cutchin, Maxim W. Furek, Nathan Paul Issac, Gabriel McKee, Bryan Shickley, Tim R. Swartz and Steve Ward, as well as showing interview footage from Richard S. Shaver and Ray Palmer, the editor of Amazing Stories that published all of the Shaver stories. This is an early look at the entire movie, The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers, and I’m excited to see it. You can learn more at the official Facebook page.

Fisitor (2024): Directed and written by Llyr Titus, this is about Ioan, who is stalked by grief for his husband and a nightmarish creature from Welsh folklore, trying to survive Christmas Eve. Made entirely in the Welsh dialect, this is a folk horror that is — here’s that word again — completely of the Welsh tradition. It’s also gorgeous, a black-and-white, stark film that keeps you watching in terror.

Shadow Dancer (2025): A proof-of-concept film by Nikki Groton, an underestimated tap choreographer (Kelsey Susino), battles against surreal and violent hallucinations while trying to come back to her life before she loses the most significant opportunity of her career. Obviously, the nightmares that she sees coming to life — and hears, the sound design in this is fantastic — she isn’t just battling the supernatural. She’s fighting a sexist world that she’s trying to break through. I’m eager to see how this develops into a full-length movie. You can watch it here.

It Burns (2024): Directed by Kate Maveau, this is a short suicide prevention film about a woman dealing with her grief and trauma after her partner’s suicide. I loved the touch of this being dedicated to those who have lost the fight. This brings you into the story straightforwardly and directly, trying to fill in the emotions within something that we all face, as the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) claims that over 49,000 people died by suicide in the U.S. in 2023, which is a death every 11 minutes. Can one life matter? I think that it can.

Drainomania (2025): Directed by Christopher Greenslate, this finds Katie (Sally Maersk) at a crossroads she never realized with her girlfriend L (Gabrielle Maiden). She’s been asked to do something simple: clean the bathroom. Instead, she’s spiraled into a dream sequence that could trap her and destroy their love story. I think this movie is a good reminder to anyone in any type of relationship to respect your partner and always volunteer to clean the bathroom. Maybe it helps that I was once a janitor, because I don’t mind getting things nice and clean. Handsies and kneesies is the only way to clean.

Bath Bomb (2025): Directed by Colin G. Cooper, this starts with Dr. Jordan preparing a bath for his lover, Grant. Grant’s been cheating on the doctor and thinks he doesn’t know. Oh, he knows. This is totally a Giallo, and cinematographer Jeremy Benning gets the most out of the short running time and pushes the colors, the action and the dread with each moment. I learned that you can’t talk your way out of things when you’re naked, in the tub, and a sizzling bath bomb is about to be dropped on you (amongst other things). Totally amazing and one of the highlights of GenreBlast!

The Night Kills Lovers (2025): Jonathan Brito puts together a quick and fun slasher here, as The Caretaker (Daniel-Paul Sampson) introduces the story of lovers the injured — and sick — Wesley (Adam Wesley) and Francis (Matt Gallagher), who is taking care of him but also driving him crazy by putting on a mask and refusing to listen to him explain how dangerous the city is. Even worse, Francis left the door to their apartment open all day, which already had Wesley freaked out. Things aren’t going to get any better! This was a ton of fun!