Category Archives: Short Films

Chattanooga Film Festival 2024: Bride of WTF (Watch These Films)

Posted on by

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!

Krampuss (2023): Known as Þið kannist við… (You Know…) in its native Iceland, this Guðni Líndal Benediktsson directed (with a script co-written with Ævar Þór Benediktsson) has a holiday tradition I’ve never heard of before. The Yule Cat, which eats people who don’t get clothes as Christmas gifts.

I’m amazed because this is a real thing. Jólakötturinn is “a huge and vicious cat from Icelandic Christmas folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the Christmas season and eat people who do not receive new clothing before Christmas Eve.”

The Yule Cat was often used by landowners as a threat to their field workers to finish collecting wool before autumn was over. Those who didn’t work hard enough were made to fear this holiday beast.

This short looks gorgeous and has a really great effect for the cat. When else will you see a horrifying Christmas kitten?

A.A. (2024): Directed by Auden Bui, this has a very simple idea: There’s more to A.A. than alcoholics anonymous. Bui has some great talent in this — Anna Akana, Malcolm Barrett, Ryan Decker, Sage Porter, Brandon Potter, Bobby Reed and Uttera Singh — who lean way hard into their roles. Can you imagine going out for an open casting call and getting the role of “Member of Asseaters Anonymous” much less have to say dialogue like, “There I am with four dingleberries in my face?” Acting is a rough business. That said, this is a short worth being proud of, a basic story told well and even a little twist at the end.

Disciple (2024): Made as a student film while director and writer Boston Enderle was at Western Kentucky University, this is a bold and well-made film about Isaac (Coltyn Parks), an abused preacher’s (Greg Brandenburg) son. When he doesn’t pay enough attention to his father’s teachings, he’s forced to pray while slicing stigmata — the wounds of Christ — into his hands. Then, he has a meeting with the Verdant God (Trinity Graves), an ancient being, and finds that he can finally escape the brutality that he and his family have lived with for their entire lives. A truly interesting idea that is treated with the care that it deserves, I’d love to see a longer and deeper take on this.

A Visual Poem (2024): Directed by Benjamin Walant with original music by William Walant, this short is described as “surreal environments take center stage in this visual odyssey.” Benjamin works as a digital matte painter and concept artist in the VFX industry. He says, “As a professional digital matte painter (DMP artist), I wanted to harness my extensive VFX experience to push what can be done with this age-old technique; transforming what is usually the backdrop to center stage.”

I would compare this to Koyaanisqatsi, which is meant as a big compliment. I really felt the energy in this and was soothed, challenged and inspired by it.

All Is Lost (2024): Todo está perdido is the tale of the Pérez family. They may seem normal, but so much of this short is about them fertilizing an egg that the laid of the house has just laid. Directed by Carla Pereira Docampo and Juan Fran Jacinto, who wrote the script with Paco Alcázar, this looks like nothing else, a puppet-style presentation with artwork that as much retro as it is unfamiliar. The colors are so gorgeous and vivid as well. I can’t even imagine how long this took to make, because it feels so meticulous. Yet it is open and airy, filled with a light comedy touch. This is something else.

Catacombs (2024): I love the slasher Prison. More horror movies should be set in correctional facilities and Catacombs is a strong entry in this unexplored genre. As a thunderstorm is just outside the walls, a guard has to go deep into the sections of the old jailhouse, confronting the horrors that wait within. Director and writer Chad Cunningham really needs to expand this into a feature, as I’d love to see what he can do with a bigger budget and more time. Mike (Kenneth Trujillo) is faced with more than he ever expected and — again — I’d love to see how this buried part of this correctional facility affects the rest of the prison.

Burn Out (2024): Director and writer Russell Goldman says of this short, “Burn Out is a gonzo, high-octane horror story inspired by my post-concussive syndrome and all-consuming bosses. This short is about how we push ourselves in breakneck work environments and make disastrous compromises with our bodies and minds. Nothing is scarier (or more absurd) than what we can do to ourselves.”

Again, as in all the best shorts, it’s a simple tale told well. Virgil (Everett Osborne), an assistant, will do anything to get his presentation in front of Gower (Tommie Earl Jenkins), the big boss. In fact, he’ll even set himself on fire.

Produced by Jamie Lee Curtis and Film Independent, this has incredible effects and captures the way that I felt in my years of working in advertising when I was allowed to approach a boss and genuflect before their brilliance as they would take a moment to give me their great secrets. I learned nothing. But this movie brought that all back.

Adding another layer to the corporate madness in this, it was shot in the abandoned Quibi offices.

Don’t You Dare Film Me Now (2023): Director and writer Cade Featherstone is a British filmmaker and award-winning designer who worked as a graphic artist for films such as The Favourite and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now getting an MFA in narrative filmmaking at NYU, he’s made this short, which is advanced beyond his years.

A drone finds an elderly woman who is, at the start, angry that the machine is invading her privacy. By the end, they have strangely bonded, both close to the end of their charge, as it were. This made me sit back and take notice.

Fck’n Nuts (2023): Sandy (Maddie Nichols) may be 19, but she’s still a child. She still lives at home with her parents (William E. Harris and Michele Rossi) and every man she introduces them to leaves her. She’s in love with Dan Deakins (Vincent Stalba), who is kind and sweet and hey, he knows wine. He’s in love with her too, but that means that he has to meet the family. Things go as absolutely bad as they can, beyond embarrassment and into pus-oozing anaphylactic shock.

This movie has a look that lives up to its name. Director and writer Sam Fox has created something truly special here, a piece of art that takes what in lesser hands would be sophomoric and here aspires to masterpiece. Here I was worried meeting my far right wing in-laws for the first time. I had nothing to worry about. I mean, I’m still alive.

A must watch!

Hunky Dory (2024): The 4,320 drawings in the film were drawn by hand on index cards, colored with Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils. The entire short was made in two years of full time work and each drawing is unique with no computer animation.

The story “juxtaposes scenes of animal life with images of human existence, observing the quirky and unexpected ways in which we are similar.” The banjo music  comes from Béla Fleck and his bandmates in My Bluegrass Heart. This has such a beautiful look and totally chilled me out. I’m going to save it to watch again for when things get edgy.

You can learn more at the official site.

Ouchie (2024): Mona (La Daniella) has had a bad experience with a new lover named Grace (Sara Lynn). She can’t even feel better with the self help recordings that she uses to give herself confidence. As a side note, I use these as well and my wife always comes in to make fun of me while I’m just trying to get the ability to make it through the day.

Mona soon begins to see strange rashes on everyone, including herself. Are they real? Or is the problem inside her? Director Kyle Kuchta and writer Jeanette Wall are asking the roughest questions here, where we must try and realize that the scars that we carry aren’t as visible as the ones on display here with great FX. Instead, we all have them and must all come to understand ourselves. Such a great short!

Shadow (2024): Ahtna (Katy Wright-Mead) and her daughter Elise (Valentina Gordon as the younger child, Christy St. John as the grown up) are playing when things grow rough. The mother gives chase and her daughter slams her fingers inside a doorframe. Then, her shadow begins to chase Elise through the home, changing in shape, size and even appearance, looking like her mother sometimes and something frightening when you get closer.

There’s no dialogue to speak of, but there is a mother repeatedly banging her head into the kitchen floor, an everyday piece of fright mixed with the black and white starkness throughout. Director and writer Kamell Allaway is someone to watch.

The Crossing Over Express (2024): Hank (Luke Barnett, who directed and wrote this with Tanner Thomason) wants to speak with his mother one more time. This brings him to a white truck. In the back is Dr. Gale Gustberg (Dot-Marie Jones), who can help him get the closure he seeks.

If you were given this opportunity, what would you do? There are so many people I wish I could just have one more moment with, so I would probably find myself paying that money and wondering if I was being screwed over, just like this film’s hero. I know I say this quite often about shorts, but I’d love to see even more of this story and these characters.

Quiet! Mom’s Working! (2024): “What happens in mom’s basement, stays in mom’s basement.” Yes, why is Del (Shane Brady) strapped to a table? Why is mom (Ana Krista Johnson) threatening him with a phallic drill? Will the daughter (Jillian Shea Spaeder) stop fighting with her brother? And what will dad (Jim O’Heir) say when he gets home?

Patrick Hogan is known for his sound work (Fire Country, Cobra Kai) but this is a short that he directed and wrote. And it’s an absolute burst of fun, one filled with tough talk, angry mom faces and dildo nunchucks. You may see the ending coming, but when it’s done this well, does that matter?

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.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2024: WTF (Watch These Films)

Posted on by

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.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2024: So Long and Thanks for All the Dangerous Visions

Posted on by

Named in honor of the wild collections of short genre fiction curated by the luminary author Harlan Ellison, CFF’s Dangerous Visions block has long been the dark heart of their short film program each year, and this year, there were too many fantastic horror and sci-fi shorts for a single block to contain them so they’ve expanded things to include our virtual SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE DANGEROUS VISIONS block. No summer spent at Camp CFF is complete without the heaping helping of HOLY SHIT that are these two blocks!

Nian (2022): This ran on Hulu’s Bite-Sized Halloween and is directed and written by Michelle Krusiec. It’s about Gertie (Lauren Mei), an Asian-American student who is bullied. To defend herself, she turns to one of the mythological creatures from Chinese New Year, the Nian. It’s a mythological creature said to eat rotten children. I loved her grandmother (Dawn Akemi Saito) who is in no way shy or non-profane about how angry she is that someone would tell her daughter to go back where she came from.

I didn’t know anything about the nian before watching this. When the Chinese New Year begins — usually at the end of January — the nian arrives to feed on anything a village has, even their children. Demon masks — like the one in this film — protect kids from this creature.

This looks absolutely gorgeous and better than most modern films. It’s quick and to the point, but gives Krusiec time to prove a great level of talent. You can learn more at the official site.

Consumer (2023): The PR line for this is “What if John Carpenter directed an episode of Goosebumps?” Well, that sets me up for something interesting.

Matt Fisher (Nate Ridgeway) is the kind of sensitive soul that sits in the mall and draws sketches. Well, that enrages the local bullies, who are Corvette t-shirt-wearing Johnny Porterhouse (Jack Anderson), Jeff Sally (Jeffrey Nichols) and a punked out girl named Harvey Keller (Bethany Carroll) who draws all over his work and is so mean that I’d furtively make mixtapes for her and wonder why the only attention I could get from her was scorn. Yes, perhaps I was a young Matt in the late 80s. I absolutely love that Jeffy carries a morningstar with him like teens my age used to walk Beaver Valley Mall with nunchucks.

Matt then meets Dave (played by Matt Fisher, who directed this short) and is given a video game called Consumer that offers him the choice between forgiveness or consuming. His choice drives the rest of this movie.

Directed by Matthew FIsher and written by Maximum Byrd, this is the kind of movie where someone is handed a floppy disk and told, “Those bullies are going to get what’s coming to them.” As a longtime fan of movies like Evilspeak and Trick or Treat, I am always down with geeks rising up and getting their rightful revenge. Also: the company who made the Consumer program is Theophilus, which means “loved by God.” Hmm…

The idea of learning to forgive instead of being consumed is deep within this. Even better, this parable is told with gorgeous colors and angles, as well as a feel for the mall that is often missing in modern media that attempts to recreate the 80s. I had a blast with this. You can learn more at the official site.

The Noise (2023): Ella secretly struggles with an eating disorder to the point that during her birthday dinner, all she can hear is the calorie counts of the meal her family has made for her. This is called The Noise, a force that becomes a monstrous form that takes over Ella’s life. As someone who has struggled with their weight their entire life and continually tracks calories on an app, I have felt all of the voices in her head but never to this extent.

Directed by Jillian Shea Spaeder (who also wrote, produced and stars in this short) and Bryce Gheisar, this is a terrifying film that can also explain in a very visceral way what it’s like to constantly be worried about what we put into our bodies to a level that destroys your life. I really loved — as much as I can — the sound design of The Noise.

Ella is obviously not out of shape and is a normal girl. I felt for her and what she’s going through in this. And the film, from an artistic perspective, mixes so many difficult shots — a long running tracking shot outside, angle shots in darker lighting with The Noise being revealed, darker lit shots that are never lost — that this is a confident entry that could lead to some teachable moments for those who don’t understand eating issues.

You can watch it here:

Apotemnofilia (2023): Clara (Lucía Azcoitía) is having difficulty transitioning from her pregnancy back to acting. Now, confronted with a packed house on opening night, she can’t stop the buzzing that is going on in her head, even when she — spoilers on — begins burning her leg with cigarettes and repeatedly stabbing herself to remove whatever is inside her.

Directed and written by Jano Pita, this doesn’t shy away from huge displays of splatter and literal geysers of blood as the world is falling apart outside Clara’s dressing room door. I learned from my friend Joseph Perry that apotemnofilia means the “desire of amputation for a healthy limb” and wow, this lives up to that medical term.

Extra points for a poster that echoes Tenebrae and has such a striking black and red color balance. Wow. This one is something else.

Giallo (2023): When a movie says that it’s dedicated to the masters of Italian horror and the Ramsay Brothers (Mahakaal), you know that I’m already going to be predisposed to liking it.

Director and writer Yogesh Chandekar has put together what feels like an honest tribute to giallo, as the music by Achint Thakkar is absolutely perfect, the lighting is gorgeous — our heroine’s (Saiyami Kher) mother doesn’t live in Bava Heights on accident — and I love the look of the masked, black gloved killer. I want to give away the big reveal but it’s just so good that I want more people to see this and be as surprised as I was. If anything, it makes too much sense to be a giallo and I say that as a big fan of the filone.

Here’s hoping that more people get a chance to watch this, because for all the recent giallo tributes, this feels absolutely spot on in look and feel. It even has the soft darkness that only Italian film looks like. It’s astounding how much the streets of India can look like the dark alleys of Rome.

Night Feeding (2023): It’s 4 a.m. when a baby monitor goes off and alerts a new mother (Leah Shesky) that her child needs fed. The crying leads her through the darkness, but the lack of sleep and strange early and late — the small hours — time disorients her as she picks up her baby. As the infant drinks from her breast, she leans back and feels comfort in the fact that the crying has stopped. Yet as the music gets darker and the camera pushes in on her, something has to be wrong. And that’s when we hear the baby still crying even though there’s something attached to her nipple.

Directed and written by Sarah K. Reimers, this has to be triggering for mothers to watch, who will probably cheer when the heroine launches the demonic child. And the father (Andrew Coates)? He slept through all of it.

Come Back Haunted (2023): A reclusive woman (Toby Poser, who is part of the family that made Hellbender) must go against her normal behavior and connect with someone when a blood covered girl (Catherine Bennis) appears, screaming that she has to escape her mother (Virginia Newcomb). The woman tries to become a surrogate to the child, but there’s darkness out here.

Directed and written by Logan J. Freeman, this should remind you that there are horrible people out there as well as those that need help. Yet you should never invite anyone into your home, because just like little me who measured the distance between everyone’s fingers and checked for pentagrams on the pa;m to determine if they were monsters in my kindergarten class, you just never know.

This looks absolutely terrific and has some intense performances by each actor. I’d love to see this expanded into something longer but perhaps it’s perfect just the way it is. Yet another reason to never be near cornfields. Or maybe the monster is inside all of us?

The Little Curse (2024): Abby (Ciera Eis) and Trent (Adrian Honner) have inherited an old house of Abby’s eccentric aunt and are giving a tour to their Rod Stewart vintage t-shirt clad friend Ratboy (Charlie Lind). As they look through the basement, they find a trunk with a little girl’s dead body inside, holding a corn husk doll.

The first thing you should do in this situation is leave the house and never come back. The last thing is keeping the doll, which is what Abby has done. Well, that night, the little girl (Audrina Miranda) comes back for it. Has no one seen Ghosthouse? Leave toys in the coffins of children!

Directors Nicholas Berger and Dana Berry — who also wrote this — know horror pretty well, as well as how couples like to make fun of one another. A lot of it feels natural, but man, Ratboy reminds me of my friend Dillon and he deserves justice.

Strange Creatures (2023): Starting with a Jane Austen quote — “What strange creatures brothers are! You would not write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world.” — and the sound of a phone call, we meet our protagonist as she parks her car. She remembers a phone call from her brother — before or after he died? –= and goes to where he died to seek out exactly what happened.

Directed and written by Nicholas Payne Santos, this breaks up the supernatural feel of this world with our ordinary sounds, like that iPhone ring that we hear every day. What is less expected is the still working payphone in the middle of nowhere. As her brother keeps calling and asking for help — she’s already seen something — our lead is reduced to panic and tears.

I’d like to see more of this and learn what happens next. It’s well made and I wonder where else Santos can take it.

Spooky Crew (2023): The Spooky Crew — Nancy (Olivia Peck), Tim (Jeff Pearson) and Emery (Jerik Thibodeaux) — are ready to go up against the local urban legend of Mary Jane (Wicken Taylor). Some of the team thinks that all of these paranormal things are fake. Some of them are skeptics. They all want you to pay into their Patreon so they can keep doing their podcast.

Mary Jane died on the night of her prom under mysterious circumstances and the Spooky Crew is on the case, live streaming their journey to discover the truth. Also: Tim is rocking a Vinegar Syndrome shirt, so of course I’d ask him to guest on our videocast.

Directed by Erin Bennett, who co-wrote it with Donny Broussard, this gets across the silliness of the whole livestream ghost hunts while remaining authentic to how they actually speak. Also: always pack face masks for when you go into places where there is mold. I mean, it’s as important as having that summoning spell.

Oddly, my town had the same legend but it was Mary Black. It’s the same as the Bloody Mary urban legend that they made an Urban Legend sequel about when people were all into folklore as slasher fodder in the 2000s.

My only criticism is that this ended way too soon. An entire movie of this would be a lot of fun.

Outer Reaches (2023): Directed and written by Karl Redgen, this is the story of two explorers trying to find a new home for the human race. Hargrave (Cam Beatty) and Nestor (Michael M. Foster) crash land on an isolated planet, they learn that the only thing there other than them are a swarm of sentient microorganisms. The air is breathable, but when Nestor gets them into his body, they must weigh the decision to leave. Is their own survival or the chance of spreading this virus going to happen?

The creature begins to speak through Nestor, telling Hargrave that if he wants his friend to live, he has to bring them into the universe so that they can have freedom after a thousand years. It’s an insidious virus that can even take on the voices inside Hargrave’s mind.

There are a lot of great ideas in this for such a short film. The effects are really good and the audio that finishes the film suggest that this isn’t over yet.

That’s Our Time (2023): Wow. Just wow. This movie floored me and I don’t want to give away the ending because it’s that great. It starts with Danny (Marque Richardson) finding that he’s unable to make a true connection with the people in his life. His therapist Dr. Miller (Debra Wilson, who is great in this and I didn’t even recognize her from Mad TV) attempts to show him that you must focus on the time you have left than the time you’ve already spent. But is it too late?

Directed by Alex Backes, who co-wrote it with Josh Callahan, this is a true surprise and perhaps the best short I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t wait to see what Backes does next.

The Cost of Flesh (2023): Alice is a totally paralyzed teenager and the only way that she can communicate with her brother and sister are through her eyes. That’s all we see in most of this film, just her eyes filling the screen and reflections of people within them. There’s an evil force causing this to happen, one that demands blood. Is her family willing to try and free her?

Directed by Tomas Palombi, who wrote the script with Flore Desbiens, this has such a cool look to it, shot in black and white and just remaining fixated on an uncomfortably close shot of an eyeball. We can hear the brother and sister, if barely see them, and otherwise can only hear the strained breathing of the teenager and the sound of thunder.

What a wild film and I can’t even imagine how terrifying the ending was to see on a big screen.

When Shadows Lay Darkest (2023): “It’s only a movie… it’s only a movie… it’s only a movie…” This film used that beloved language in its log line, as this is about a 1970s movie slasher terrorizing a real final girl from beyond her TV screen. It has to be difficult to go from yelling at dumb people in a slasher to suddenly being in their shoes.

There are some immeasurably inventive moments in this, as the TV itself is used to show what reality as become as The Shape-like character from the movie comes into our world. The real colors are replaced with the blues and reds of the horror universe, the synth music replaces any outside sound and then the TV goes black.

I saw and loved director and writer Jacob Leighton Burns’ film Shifter a few years ago, so it’s good to know that he’s still making movies. This is a triumph and one of the best put-together shorts I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Roger Is a Serial Killer (2023): A podcaster named Anne (Sara Paxton, The Innkeepers) believes that her stepfather Roger (Mark Reeb) is a serial killer. Or, well, maybe it’s better for her show Step-Killer if it’s Roger and not his business partner James (Chris Doubek), who planned all of their trips. Now Anne and Roger are worried that they’re about to be killed while her mom Carol (Barbara Crampton) excitedly says, “Tell her about your podcast!”

Director and writer Don Swaynos (who edited Chop and Steele) has put together a really intriguing film here, as Anne goes full Serial to tell the story of the Business Class Killer. It even has a Stamps.com ad.

As always, I love seeing Barbara Crampton in a movie and she’s great at the comedy in this. This is a total blast! Rest in peace to Reeb, who was also so good in this.

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.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2024: Dangerous Visions

Posted on by

Named in honor of the wild collections of short genre fiction curated by the luminary author Harlan Ellison, CFF’s Dangerous Visions block has long been the dark heart of their short film program each year, and this year, there were too many fantastic horror and sci-fi shorts for a single block to contain them so they’ve expanded things to include our virtual SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE DANGEROUS VISIONS block. No summer spent at Camp CFF is complete without the heaping helping of HOLY SHIT that are these two blocks!

13th Night (2024): Directed by Benjamin Percy, this is a film all about the lengths a father will undertake to save his daughter, who has become ill with a chronic condition. It starts with the subtitle “sounds of murder” and we see a man taking a Polaroid photo of someone he has killed via s shovel to the throat before cutting to the title.

The long haired man who did the killing comes home to his daughter, asleep in bed as cartoons play on the TV. He has a massive arsenal of bladed weapons, just as she has an array of prescriptions near her nightlight. He falls asleep after drinking — and checking the locks to the basement — before discovering that all of the locks have been removed. A strange man in a suit and American tie appears, says “Hello, Jacob. It’s time.” He passes the demonic figure the Polaroid of his last murder and is told on the 13th of the next month, he must kill again. The always smiling man passes pills to him and tells Jacob that he didn’t promise a cure for his daughter, but he did tell her that she will have a heartbeat. However, their arrangement can end tonight if he wants his daughter to die.

Then, the demon appears to his daughter and Jacob knows that he’s stuck in this arrangement.

This short has some confident camera work, gorgeous lighting and really solid sound design. In fact, I’d love to see this become a full length feature, as it feels like there’s so much more of the story to tell. You can learn more on the official site.

Butterscotch (2023): A young boy (Reid McConville) spends several moments in a nursing home tormenting a man (Clifford Deeds) who obviously can’t move and may not be aware of what is happening around him. As the child whistles and waves in front of his face, we notice that the entire room is blue and the only other color is provided by the comic book red hue of the kid’s hair. He steals a piece of butterscotch candy from the man — I’ve often heard only old people like this candy, so I must have been old my whole life — and then notices that the senior citizen is sticking his tongue out at him and bugging his eyes. I won’t spoil what happens next in director Alexander Lee Deeds’ short but sometimes, people get what they deserve.

Hi! You Are Currently Being Recorded (2023): Kyle Garrett Greenberg and Anna Maguire directed and wrote this short, which stars Maguire. She plays Anna, who is visiting a new lover in Los Angeles. We notice that her kitchen has wine and weed, which she uses before she goes out the door and talks on the phone with a friend, discussing how easy it is to get lost here, how everything feels so extra. Before too long, all the neighborhood watch signs seem to come alive and the idea that everyone is filming her becomes too much to bear. This takes the horror in the mundane, the everyday and shows how we can feel like an alien within our own world, even if it’s just in a different city. I once got lost in Tokyo trying to make a pay phone call and couldn’t remember which of the many similar apartment buildings my friend lived in. I just wandered the streets until he found me and he just laughed. This is sort of like that and kind of like how I tried to take a video of a cute dog last week to show my wife and a neighbor — with faith over fear and Trump flags all over her house — came out and accused me to potentially stealing her dog. Have you ever tried to steal a chihuahua?

 

Let’s Go Disco (2024): Austin Lewis, along with writers Jake Gates Smith, Alexis Stier and Megan Stier created this tale of a woman trapped inside, you guessed it, a disco. The colors as if they’re living in a Mario Bava nightmare and the pulsing beat was enough to set my dog barking. Fog fills the air as the disco ball spins and soon, she finds her way to a table of people who know her but she has no clue who they are. She overhears stories of people getting killed by an axe murderer as laughter fills the soundtrack and even drinks being delivered feel sinister. The cab ride home is no escape either and she comes back all over again, as the girls become more violent with her, saying that she’s going to stay there and do whatever they say.

Wow. Just wow. This movie knocked me out. You have to see it whenever you get the opportunity because it looks and plays perfect, getting more done in its 12 minute run time than any film that I’ve seen go over two hours. If you’ve ever felt trapped in public, this will make your hands shake as much as it did mine. Also: So much screaming.

Accidental Stars (2024): Aspiring actress Nerissa (Madeleine Charmaine Morrell) has been attending David’s (Kyle Minshew) acting class as part of her dream of being a star. But it’s not enough and if she wants to have him love her work, she needs to be part of his private lessons. Yet all the pressure is seemingly too much for her. After all, this starts with the T.S. Elliot line from Hysteria, “As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.”

Directed and written by Emily Bennett, this makes the experience of acting feel like being a captive. I wonder if that’s what it’s like. I’ve found that being a writer is like having homework every day for the rest of your life, so maybe dreams kind of come true, even if you’re not ready for what they are.

Maybe I’m glad I never became an actor.

The Influencer (2023): Director and writer Lael Rogers has made a tale of a social media influencer whose dream day is being able to harvest the eyes and minds of her followers as she reaches for immortality. I mean, all those numbers on the live stream have to go somewhere.

This not only embodies the influencer characters that the characters — Ivy (Deisy Patiño), Shea (Laura Hetherington) and Madison (Mackenzie Wynn) — are all about, but the film effortlessly makes the switch over to horror with no issues, as the true influencer (Bria Condon) rises from the sea and guides the women to the sea.

Now I understand why”You all give me life” sounds so horrifying.

Pitstop (2024): A prisoner, Quinn (Emily Sweet) and a guard, Hannah (Mary Rose Branick) are stranded and out of gas. I’d say this only happens in movies, but it used to happen to my in laws all the time. The dialogue suggests that the world they live in is split between a walled-off city run by the government and a resistance who lives outside the walls. Quinn tries to reach out to Hannah and explain what she believes to be the truth, but she refuses to listen.

Quinn has been playing with a paperclip and is able to unlock her handcuffs, which causes the two to fight. As Hannah discharges her weapon, they hear a growl which belongs to a creature (Deryk Wehrley) that can embody your worst fear. Somehow, this brings the two closer or at least able to talk to one another. I really liked how director and writer David A. Flores has put together this story and I’d love to see where these two characters go next.

Souling (2023): An unsuspecting woman (Jacquelyn Ferguson, who also directed and wrote this with Jason Anders, who is one of the disturbing people who gather) finds herself at the center of an ancient Pagan tradition when she was just trying to take a bubble bath.

According to the filmmakers, this modern-day folk tale was inspired by a medieval practice that led to trick-or-treating. There’s a banquet put in front of the woman, who stares at the sack masked faces of those who have sat around her table, finally grabbing fistfuls of food and devouring it before enlightenment arrives.

While I’m not entirely sure what it all means, but I did learn that Souling was done during Allhallowtide and Christmastide. It included eating soul cakes (“sets of square farthing cakes with currants in the centre”) singing, carrying lanterns, wearing a costume, setting bonfires, playing divination games (including one that has been slightly altered to become bobbing for apples), carrying a horse’s head around and performances.

I kind of want to try Souling now.

The Thaw (2023): In 19th century Vermont, a young woman named Ruth (Emily Bennett) watches as her parents Alma (Toby Poser) and Timothy (Jeffrey Grover) drink sleeping tea in order to survive the harsh winter. They can only be awakened in the spring and she will be left alone, allowed to slaughter the sheep if she needs to. However, seeing as how this is a New England folk horror story, things don’t work out as they planned as there’s an early thaw.

Directed and written by Sean Temple and Sarah Wisner, this finds Ruth in this situation because her husband has returned her to her family. She speaks to her mother and cries, “He said I wasn‘t worth the cost of my keep.” Men are uniformly horrible to women in this, blamed for everything, including making the tea incorrectly, which keeps Alma asleep as if she were dead. Now, Timothy is filled with a hunger that can’t end and as they run out of canned and live food, he may start turning his eye to the living. Or, in the case of Alma, the asleep.

Filmed in black and white, this is stunning. Its monotone look and setting will remind some of Robert Eggers, but this can definitely stand on its own. In fact, it deserves to be its own full length feature.

Dream Creep (2023): David (Ian Edlund) and Suzy (Sidney Jayne Hunt) are asleep when she wakes him up. Someone is in their room and wants to attack her. However, they soon learn that the sounds that she hears are coming from inside her ear. The voice soon tells him that if he wakes her up, she’ll die. Well, what happens if she stays asleep?

Director and writer Carlos A.F. Lopez does so much with sound design and pacing in this. This is the kind of movie that you’ll wake up and think about as you watch your partner sleeps and hope that you never go through the horrific moments that these two do. It saves the grisly parts for the close but don’t worry. They’re coming.

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.

RE/SEARCH Incredibly Strange Films: Wheels of Tragedy (1963)

Posted on by

Before reality TV, we watched movies like this in school, in which the officers of The Ohio Highway Patrol prepare for accidents and share the re-enactments of how these ones happened, as well as the gruesome and gory aftermath of the real vehicular mayhem that ensued.

Directed by Richard Wayman, who also made Signal 30 and Mechanized Death, and written by Bill Bradley and Charles C. McCue, who also appear in the film as the highway patrol. That’s not typecasting, as they were actual cops.

If you think this is funny with the badly acted lead-ups, get ready to be shocked into silence. There are accidents with people stuck face first in windshields and no one asked for a release to ask them if they wanted filmed. Neither did the girl who drowned when two boys listened to rock and roll and drove into a ditch and then the water.

They showed these movies to get us to drive better. I never wanted to drive at all after seeing them,

You can watch this on YouTube.

The Harpies (1987)

Posted on by

Some of us only watched Demons and Fulci’s 80s output while Fabio Salerno (who would go on to make L’altra dimensione and Notte profonda) made this, a movie that takes those films and attacks them with 8mm film in an attempt at possessing their wildness for his very own.

Veronica is a Harpie, a creature that gets attacked by junkies and then turns around and tears them to pieces. She’s also a college student and when a professor pressures her into sex for better grades, she tears his face off. Taking a page out of the Fulci characters that seemingly have supernatural powers but still use knives, she’s also partial to just stabbing people in the head.

A cop gets involved but can you stop myth? He shoots the demon so many times that it has to be dead, but the body goes missing. Did he just see her walking past him? Is she the friend of his girlfriend who is staying over?

Salerno made short films from his teens until his twenties and even seemed like he would finally get Notte profonda released on video before the distributor canceled on him. Sadly, he took his own life at 29. He obviously was a major Argento fan because this has the maggots from Phenomena, the transformation scene from Demons and the soundtrack feels like Goblin if it was recorded with the same equipment as a second wave of Norweigan black heavy metal band would rely on. That is to say, this sounds exactly like the music I want to hear.

“We are Harpies! We eat corpses! We kill insane people, maniacs, perverts!”

Fuck yes.

You can watch this on YouTube.

SLASH Festival 2023 Slash Shorts

Posted on by

I had the opportunity to watch some of the SLASH Filmfestival 2023 shorts and here’s what I think:

From the FANTASTIC SHORTS COMPETITION – CHAPTER I

Hole (2023): Directed and written by Hwang Hyein, JeongMi (Lim ChaeYoung) is a child services worker in South Korea who comes to check on Jun-seo (Kwak SooHyeon) and Jun-hui (Son JiYu). They’ve been missing from school and no one can find their parents. The secret soon comes out, as a manhole opening has appeared inside their bedroom.

A dark and strange movie from the very first moment. This feels like a movie that should be a full feature and I hope that happens.

Magdalena (2022): Czechoslovakia, 1971. A Slovakian woman (Susan Angelo) is trapped by her past as it seeks to destroy the new life that she has worked so hard to build for her family. 

Director Michael Lazovsky, who wrote the story with Max Hersh, based this story on his Jewish grandmother’s experiences growing up in communist Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

Storyboarded on an iPhone, shot in Los Angeles but yet looking like the sterile world of a Communist country and made by someone whose family lived these lives, Magdalena is a very rough watch yet a film that looks completely gorgeous. What a perfect short!

Demon Box (2023): After festival rejections pile up, director Sean Wainsteim revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide and the Holocaust. After ten years of painful work, it has become a dissection of the movie he wanted to make and may end up being more of a film than he intended.

This film is almost too honest and I mean that as a compliment. It made me feel uncomfortable, reminding myself of how I feel about the stories I heard growing up and how I joke about the continual negative darkness that came out of them, how it feels like everyone always has cancer and everyone is always dying.

If you feel like putting yourself through that journey, as well as Wainsteim’s, watch this.

 

The Old Young Crow (2023): Liam LoPinto has created this movie — which has some animation and some live action — about an Iranian boy befriending an old Japanese woman at a graveyard in Tokyo.

We hear the story told by Mehrdad (Naoto Shibata as a young one, Hassan Shahbazi in his older age) who remembers the Japanese woman and how he learned about grief and loss. It’s an incredible mix of media that creates this film, a joy to watch and experience. As I always say, I cannot and will not live these lives, so the chance to do so through film is so important.

From the FANTASTIC FUTURES:

Remove Hind Legs Before Consumption (2023): Even in a hopeless insect food farm — where millions of crickets are being bred, frozen, packaged and fried — one cricket survives and escapes.

Leslie Herzig, Finn Meisner and Lukas Wind have come together to create a violent and yet heartwarming film that teaches us that yes, even a cricket can do something important.

Also not that I was planning on eating tons of friend crickets but this movie has convinced me not to do so because they have souls. I feel bad for all of the one that I have chewed on before I watched this.

Chef Gustav (2023): This movie is simple but a lesson worth learning: never ever mess with a cat in the kitchen. You will be murdered.

This looks like near stop motion but I’m certain it has to be computers. However it was made, I love that orange cat and believe that it is innocent of all of this bloodshed, even if I saw it with my own eyes.

The Law Of The Jungle Gym (2023):Somehow, lunch and tag on the school yard gets transformed into the end of the world. This is some of the finest animation I’ve seen in some time and I was struck by both how realistic and unreal it is. I have no idea where this ideas came from, but Yoon Hei Cho, who seemingly did all of this themselves, is beyond a talent. Mindblowing.

On the 8th Day (2023): A gorgeous blast of color and fabric, an apocalyptic 3D short that drew me in with its cuteness before destroying every moment of it, then sending its purple people lilting upward into space. I can’t describe it more but it made me emotional.

Perfect City: The Bravest Kid (2023): In the second part of the Perfect City series, a paper boy has a horrific dream in which a gigantic iron knife hand and a series of other sharp objects are chasing him all the way to his bed. The even worse realization? His parents are not paper, but also knives. I can’t even imagine seeing this when I was a kid, as I would have been awake all night.

Director Shengwei Zhou also made Perfect City: The Mother which is just as strange as this, which is a compliment. This is the type of stop motion animation that I haven’t seen since the days of Liquid TV, which is much missed.

The Third Ear (2023): Sammy (Devin Burnam) has an issue. In his job as an art model, he often likes to look at the work that artists create from his body. But what if they draw him incorrectly? Does he really have an ear in the back of his head? 

Director and writer Nathan Ginter has created something really intriguing here, a quick and fun tale of a man’s fight for his own self-image.

The Hand That Feeds (2023): Irina (Anca Cipariu) is a single mother who moves in with her former mother-in-law Trudi (Inge Maux), who constantly cooks meals and gives her gifts. Yet something feels wrong. 

Directed and written by Helen Hideko, this makes you feel the unease that Irina feels as she attempts to create her own life within the one that Trudi has. This leads to visions of absolute terror that begin to tear at her and she feels a rage that she can’t explain.

I get the feeling that if I were a mother, this movie would totally trigger me.

The Taster (2023): Sometime in the future, in Romania, Ozana (Silvana Mihai) is chosen to work as the new taster girl for the occupying forces. On her first day, she breaks the most important rule. And that’s to never look the leader in the eye. Soon she finds herself alone and face to face with the man destroying her country.

Director and writer Sophia Bierend has created a future movie that is based in reality, such as the idea that the world’s ecology is destroying and the Danube is one of the few places that can produce food for the powerful.

Into this horrible world, Ozana is cast, made to taste each of the meals for the leader. If she dies, he will know that someone is trying to kill him. She must not make any friends. Just sit and eat. She hasn’t even had a solid morsel for two years, as she lives on a nutrient formula. So this position allows her to be part of the world of the elite, even if all she’s doing is possibly dying for their dining enjoyment.

SHORTS BEFORE FEATURES:

La Vedova Nera (2023): While cycling through the streets of Marseille, Alfredo (Siro Pedrozzi) crashes his bike. He goes into a porn cinema for help and finds an old giallo playing that creates the scene for a predator who either wants him for his body or murder or, well, both. 

Directed and written by Fiume and Julian McKinnon, this film looks absolutely astounding. The title means The Black Widow, which easily feels like a callback to the animal-themed post-Argento giallo of the early 70s. Beyond just being a homage, this feels like a creative team that intimately understands the genre and uses it to tell their own movie. There are hints of the past intricately woven with today.

I can’t say enough about this short. More work from these filmmakers now!

Chomp It! (2023): In a society founded on social hierarchy and privilege, two crocodile men ople are trying to cool down at a swimming pool. One of them is seemingly of a different and special kind; the other is unable to control his desire.

Shot on 16mm and directed by Mark Chua and Li Shuen Lam, I think that this would mean so much more to me if I understood the weirdness of life in Singapore. As it is, the colors and look of the film — I mean, a child’s riding machine powered by a heart? — are incredible.

Every House Is Haunted (2023): The realtor told them the house was haunted but as the title tells you, every house is haunted in its own way. Maya (Kate Cobb) and Danny (Kevin Bigley) move in anyhow, because to find a house like this, in this market, well…

And she’s used to not even knowing what she wants any longer.

Director and writer Bryce McGuire shows us that not every ghost is evil and not every living person is alive, if that makes sense. I really enjoyed the effects in this, as well as the way that Maya found a way to bond with the spirits that live in her home.

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…

FANTASTIC FEST 2023: Fishmonger (2023)

Posted on by

Fantastic Fest 2023 is from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. 

Holy shit, this movie.

Directed by Neil Farron, who co-wrote this with Alexandra Dennis-Renner, Fishmonger is the story of Christie (Dominic Burgess), a shy Irish man whose mother is doomed to eternal damnation because she’s been consuming her own curdled breast milk which she usually saves for him, the last bachelor on the island, but now she has St. Moira’s Bloat, a diabolical diarrhea that the Catholic Church can uniquely diagnose.

There’s only one unwed woman, Penny O’Brien, and he’s never spoken to her and she hates him to compound the pain. He only has two choices: suicide to damn his soul but to leave his mother free or an unmarried son at her soon approaching death or to go into the waves, bring a cat and find the sea monstress who can give him the wish he needs. But ah, she’s done granting the wish of Christian boys. It always ends in heartbreak.

How does the 25 minutes of Fishmonger contain so many multitudes? Gorgeous black and white cinematography? Romantic longing? Tentacle sex? Black metal? Literally, the end of this movie brought me to tears and then cut my breath short with the ending. I’ve not been surprised by a movie this much in some time and absolutely adored every moment. Quite literally the best thing I have seen at Fantastic Fest and go way out of your way to see this.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Shorts round 4

Posted on by

Here’s the last set of shorts that I watched at GenreBlast Film Festival.

Knit One, Stab Two: This essay film examines the representation of knitters and knitting, in over sixty horror films made by women, from the 1920s – 2020s, across South America, Europe, North America and East Asia. Alison Peirse — who also made Three Ways to Dine Well about eating in horror movies — explores these questions: What happens when the woman knits in a horror film? What might the representation of knitting tell us about social and cultural expectations around gender, genre and age?

Knitting is just one of many stereotyped representations of aging women across over a century of horror cinema, a fact that this movie attempts to get around. It’s really interesting, as is so much of Peirse’s work, which you can find on her website. For a list of the films in this, check out the Letterboxd list I made. This is so worth your time.

Peccadillo: Lorenzo (Huitzili Espinosa) is an 18-year-old boy struggling to come out to his religious family of female tailors. It’s difficult as he must be a man filled with machismo, yet he stares longingly at the dresses that they work day and night to create. But to them, being gay, much less wearing female clothes, the kind of sin that is stuck in his mind so much that he constantly has vision of the devil (Pablo Levi), who appears in song and dance numbers whenever the urge to be who he want to be strikes Lorenzo.

Director Sofia Garza-Barba has made a work of art that beyond sings. I loved every single moment of this, a movie that not only has something to say but looks like a painting come to life while it does so.

Some Visitors: Jennifer (Jackie Kelly) is home alone, mourning the loss of her child and worried about a recent series of home invasions. Then the door rings and brings Jeff (Clayton Bury) into her life. Jennifer seemingly makes the worst mistakes, like letting Jeff into her home, telling him that she’s there alone and revealing way too much about her life. But just like The Strangers, Jeff is not alone. There are two other intruders (Carlie Lawrence and Richard Louis Ulrich).

Director and writer Paul Hibbard mentioned on Letterboxd that this is going to become a feature, so I don’t want to ruin what happens for anyone. I’ve seen some say that it’s Funny Games if Brian De Palma directed it. And that’s close — the split-screens and super quick jump edits that hammer home the reveal do that pretty well — but this film feels like even more than that. I thought that once one of the masks from The Purge showed up that this was going to just be all the basics of home invasion and modern horror played out in a shorter film, but then I realized by the end that Some Visitors was using everything that I expected against me and when it happens, when you get it, it’s jaw dropping. So well done.

Raja’s Had Enough: Raja is a creature — an angel? — in human form working at The Afterlife Bureau, the place where souls are processed into the next life after their death. Fed up after years of processing femicide victims, Raja (Anisa Butt) decides to change fate and go to Earth with the goal of stopping the murder of Zooey (Veronica Ellis), a woman she doesn’t even know.

Directed by Ekaterina Saiapina and written by Axelle Ava and Lisa Gaultier, Raja’s Had Enough has a unique look and concept as well as an audience-pleasing idea. Raja may not understand humanity, but she can comprehend that all of the death that she sees as paperwork has actual pain within it. Perhaps some computer error can change things for the better.

Ikala: We always like to think that we are the Rebellion, but more often, it feels like we’re the Empire. In this short, directed by Maninder Chana,  a Sikh prisoner trapped in solitary confinement turns to his faith to make a daring escape before U.S. forces destroy a Mujahideen camp to cover up their role in funding the runaway terrorist organization. The attack goes FUBAR and everyone is dead except for the Sikh prisoner trapped in a solitary cell with little light or hope of getting out. Now the U.S. bombers are on their way to erase what’s left of the base. This film is one that shows us the other side and is quite daring in how it does so.

The Erl King: The erl king is “a sinister elf who lingers in the woods. He stalks children who stay in the woods for too long, and kills them by a single touch.”  In this film, directed by Genevieve Kertesz, who wrote the script with Keith Karnish and Rachel Weise, a young woman named Leora (Emma Halleen) leaves her strict village when she is seduced by the erl king (Marti Matulis). That said, his love is as horrible as the rules of the people who she has grown up with, leading her to having no place in the world other than alone. This film has incredible effects and the erl king looks as realized as a larger budget film. Really well made and intriguing short.

Bowling 4 Eva: Kristina (Olivia Claire Liang), a troubled teen girl, spends her time talking to men online and bowling with her grandfather, all while she is increasingly medicated by her psychiatrist. Directed and writer Aelfie Oudghiri, this gets a lot of the 90s right and not just the gigantic bell bottomed jeans. This is the kind of movie that I hope for when I watch shorts in a festival, one that shows me a world that I am not part of and never will be and lets me feel like I am inhabiting it.

I also never thought that I would watch a movie where insane bowling score monitor illustrations come to life.

Partnr: This is the story of Jackie (Melinda Nanovsky), whose bionic boyfriend Ethan (Brian Barnett) has just proposed marriage. Directed and written by Kaylin Allshouse, this is the story of finding a happily ever after as well as what love with an actual human can feel like. When a perfect love is created, is it really all that perfect? Or is it just what you think that you want? This film asks that question and tries to answer it.

Even in the future, people will still go to bars and sing karaoke. That is one of the many things that I have learned from this movie. I also really liked the black and white color scheme of the scenes between Jackie and Ethan as they are in bed versus the colors in the other scenes.

A Ben Evans Film: Directed by Bret K. Hall and James Henry Hall, who wrote the script with Josh Malerman, this is about a kind, yet delusional man named Ben Evans (Sky Elobar) who makes a film starring his recently dead parents. Yes, if you can get past the idea that a man is moving around the bodies of two deceased old bodies, well, you may enjoy this.

I wonder how much of this movie was inspired by the films of Charles Carson, who the documentary A Life On the Farm went into detail on earlier this year.

Exactly like the short The Lizard Laughed, Elobar is so great in this. What a strange concept and well made short.

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.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Shorts round 3

Posted on by

Here’s the next set of shorts that I watched at GenreBlast Film Festival.

Red Velvet: When Jack (Austin Lynn Hall) learns that the end of the world is on its way, he’s in the middle of getting an escort from the For A Good Time escort agency. She’s on her way and as she knocks at the door, he isn’t sure that he wants to invite in someone with all the warnings on the TV and radio. Except that Cassandra (Alisha Erozer) is pretty much a dream girl and she’s just begging to come inside. As she heads to the shower to clean herself up, he’s shocked when there’s another knock on the door and Cassandra is waiting outside.

Directed and written by Blake Simon, this looks incredible and moves so quickly that I wanted more. Great effects, well-shot visuals and even the colors look gorgeous. I’d love to see how he keeps this quality together for a full length film.

Jess Is a Clown Now: You know how there’s often a shocking reveal at the end of a slasher that explains it all to you? Director and writer Rylan Rafferty has put together an entire short filled with with those reveals that go on and on until they build into absolute baffling insanity.

Jess (Kara Jobe) has become a clown, as the title reveals. Mom (Lizabet Latvala) and dad (Randy R. Roberts) are already dead and Megan the gardener (Brianna Ripley) who may or may not be the half-sister or ex-girlfriend or not even connected to Jess may or may not be responsible. Stick with it, because this will take you to plenty of places and beyond.

This is a really fun short and I’d love to see if there’s anything else to this story.

The Haunted Baby Carriage from Hell: Spencer (Dylan Wayne Lawrence) and Cameron (John Reddy) have just moved into a new house- Kelli Maroney is their real estate agent Regina Kobritz, who is named for Mrs. Kobritz in The Fog — and discover that they are haunted by an old baby carriage. You know, if there’s one thing scarier than those wicker old wheelchairs like in The Changeling, it’s an antique baby carriage.

The bigger problem? Everyone thinks that they are finally announcing that they are adopting a baby, which doesn’t help, because that carriage shows up at the worst possible times. Director and writer J.T. Seaton has created something really great here, starting with a solid idea and infusing so many of the things that we all love from horror into a short that just plain works.

The Universe and You: Dr. Terry Hathaway (Cameron Dye, who has a ton of acting credits, including The Last Starfighter, Out of the Dark and a lot of episodic TV) has a cable access show sometime in the 1980s. Most of the callers want to ask him how to get ESP or to say Uranus on TV, but one caller claims that he’s been on the show over and over again and only Hathaway can understand that they are after him because only the two of them know a horrible secret. You can hear that there’s something alien on the other side of the line and it’s hunting the caller.

Director and writer Brendan Mitchell has created something that could be cliche here and instead made it into something that’s wonderful. It has a really well-shot look and goes from comedy to horror effortlessly.

Butt Stuff: I always wondered about those guys who buy those sex doll torsos. the ones that cut a woman’s body off and just make the sex areas. Like, well, the butt.

The hero of this movie is one of those guys. And the butt sex toy he bought isn’t just a piece of foam or rubber, it’s actually a sentient and fully aware as well as being fully in love with him.

Yet once he’s found actual love, he keeps jamming the butt under the bed. Or throwing it in the garbage. And that won’t do. That butt is going to get some revenge.

I really liked director and writer April Yanko’s short. It didn’t need the bug at the end, as the scene of the butt attacking her former love was enough. Otherwise, this is really great with some really solid special effects.

Righteous: Director and writer Ethan Grossman ​​​​​​has created a film that shows the nightmare of many children as their parents enjoy their empty nest perhaps a little too much and want to fill it a little bit. As a family gathers for Shabbat for the first time in a while, dinner doesn’t go as planned when mom and dad introduce a new “friend” to the family.

This is shot really well and feels more horrific than any monster that could show up in any other movie.

From Above: The second short that I’ve seen from Zachary Eglinton at GenreBlast, this black and white starts with audio from House On Haunted Hill before following a man outside into a dark and foggy night. As he holds a flashlight, the camera stays tight on his face before revealing a full moon. You know what that means — something is out there, something deadly.

From Above is quick but really a fun short, shot well and showing promise for what comes next.

Candor: Created by Timothy Troy, this is a quick film where a woman is reflecting with her date after they engage in a hot and steamy act. Stick with it, as it has a great reveal and the camera work is quite good for this under two-minute film. Paige Bourne, who plays Lena, is also quite good.

Fetch!: Jaime (Eduardo Saucedo) has warned his new dog sitter Brandy (Nicole Fancher): Logan should never lose his yellow ball. She feels like she can handle this job, because after all, her pet sitting company Fetch! has never had anything less than a five-star review.

Yet the first day back from the dog park, she finds the remains of some animal and is offer $50 and a guaranteed perfect review if she cleans it and Logan up. But when this happens again and again, as well as when she thinks back to what Jaime told her about where Logan got his name and his missing best friend, she wonders if she could be dealing with something more than just a dog.

No matter what he does in this movie, the actor playing Logan, Logan Bigtooth, is a good boy.

Play Dead: This movie is going to upset some people.

Robinson (Derek Martin) and Clementine (Yael Leberman) are on drugs and in the woods, looking for the final resting place of the man known as Elvis (Samuel Shurtleff). He’s left behind a videotape demanding that whoever finds him makes him famous by desecrating his corpse. Well, he gets exactly what he asks for.

There’s one moment when Clementine asks the more clean cut Robinson if she frightens him. I’ve been there, dude.

HIMS: Kids are frightening.

Krsy Fox directs, writes and stars in this film in which she plays a mother whose daughter Lulu (Elle Riot Fox) tells her that there’s a monster named HIMS that lives in her bed. A creature with long nails that just waits for people to go to sleep and sometimes, well, he’s bad.

Fox is the fiancee of Spider One, the lead singer of Powerman 5000 and director of Bury the Bride, which she also appeared in. This is really well made and I’d be up for seeing what she can when she makes a full-length movie. It really captures just how weird little ones are.

Foreign Planetary: On her last day on Earth before being forced to return to her planet of origin, a young woman must find a way to stay in her new home. Foreign Planetary, directed and written by Tiffany Lin, has some big ideas and major world building despite its short running time.

Angie (Chelsea Sik) can’t survive on Earth without a special device that regulates her emotions, something that makes her wonder if what she’s feeling is real or if it’s being created by the machine. What she does know is that she has to get her brother off their home planet and to do that. she has to stay on Earth by any means necessary.

There are no major science fiction blockbuster effects in this but what minor effects appear are so well-crafted that they feel authentic and true. This feels like enough of a story to last for an entire film and I’d love to see what could come of that.

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.