GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Shorts round 3

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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.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Night Patrol (1984)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Night Patrol aired on USA Up All Night on August 25 and 26, 1989; January 5, June 30 and December 14, 1990; July 6, 1991; April 25 and July 18, 1992.

If you learn anything today, know that Linda Blair and Murray Langston, AKA The Unknown Comic, made two movies together: the romantic comedy Up Your Alley and this film, which takes Police Academy to an even filthier and more ridiculous level.

Jackie Kong directed four movies: The Being, The Underachievers, Blood Diner and this one, all with Bill Osco. Osco started his career producing adult films and would go on to star in The Being under the name Rexx Coltrane before starting to direct his own projects, starting with the comedy special The Unknown Comedy Show, a vehicle for Langston. Seeing as how two of his directing efforts are The Art of Nude Bowling and Cat Fight Wrestling, you’ll get an idea of where this film is heading.

Officer Melvin White (Langston) wants to be a stand-up comic, so to hide from his boss Captain Lewis (Billy Barty!), he becomes The Unknown Comic. At the very same time, a man with a paper bag over his head — and here I am assuming anyone in 2019 knows who The Unknown Comic is or what he looks like — is committing crimes.

Linda Blair comes in as Officer Sue Perman, who operates the switchboard for the police. Then there’s comedian and perennial Presidential candidate Pat Paulsen as Melvin’s partner, Officer Kent Lane. Pat Morita also shows up as a sexual assault victim and there’s an ongoing joke with Sydney Lassick (Charlie from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) as a peeping tom.

Jack Riley, who played Bob Newhart’s patient Elliot Carlin has graduated from patient to doctor, here playing Murray’s therapist Dr. Zieglar. Throw in comedians Johnny Dark, Bill Kirchenbauer and Vic Dunlop, as well as Jaye P. Morgan, disc jockey Machine Gun Kelly (who is also in Roller Boogie and Voyage of the Rock Aliens) and an incredibly young Andrew Dice Clay.

There really isn’t any story here, but you do get Billy Barty farting throughout the film and the heroes donning blackface to solve a crime. There’s also a gay copy team, so this movie goes out of its way to offend nearly everyone. That said, it does have Linda punching a really obnoxious rich girl, which makes the movie.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Cool World (1992)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Cool World aired on USA Up All Night on February 14, 1998.

“History is written by winners, baby. So let’s make a little of our own tonight. If you’re thinkin’ my idea of fun is a drag, then you’ve never been to paradise. Do my kisses burn? Do they take your breath? You’ve got a lesson to learn, now. I’m the kiss of death.”

There was a time in the mid-90s when My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult was showing up in movies all over the place. Hey look — that’s them playing “After the Flesh” in The Crow! Oh wow, they’re on the soundtrack of Showgirls! That’s “Hit & Run Holiday” in The Flintstones! Heck, they’re even on the soundtrack of BASEketball! And they’re all over Cool World, too.

Between “The Devil Does Drugs”, “Holli’s Groove”, “Sex on Wheelz”, “Her Sassy Kiss” and “Sedusa,” TKK makes up a good chunk of this film, which is kinda like the band we’re talking about — a mix of the past, the imagined future, sex, violence, drugs and danger.

Cool World is the first movie Ralph Bakshi made after Fire and Ice. He’d been developing plenty of films, including an adaption of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer and an animal version of Sherlock Holmes. He also turned down directing Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which he passed on to Ridley Scott who turned it into Blade Runner. After an attempt to film J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, he actually got the opportunity to speak to the mysterious author, who told him that the novel was unfilmable. This led to Bakshi’s brief retirement (he still ended up working with Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi on the Rolling Stone’s “Harlem Shuffle” video and TV’s Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures) before getting excited about Cool World.

In its original pitch, a cartoon and human give birth to a hybrid child who visits the real world to find and kill the father who abandoned him. Bakshi had longed to create a film that looked like a living, breathing painting that people could physically walk through. Designer Barry Jackson helped bring these worlds to life, which were created as gigantic paintings and the animation was to look like a mix of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons.

Yet even as the expensive sets were being built, Paramount producer Frank Mancuso Jr. secretly had a new screenplay written and demanded that Bakshi direct the film, under threat of lawsuit (Bakshi punching him in the face may have had something to do with that). Even casting was changed, with Holli Would’s role switching from Drew Barrymore to Kim Basinger.

It got to the point that even Basinger was rewriting the script, because she wanted to show it to sick kids in hospitals. As for Bakshi, he just told his animators to do whatever they thought was funny.

So what ended up on screen?

Las Vegas, 1945. World War II vet Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) takes his mother on a motorcycle ride that ends in tragedy when a drunk driver hits them. He retreats to an animated alternate dimension called “Cool World” to deal with the loss.

Cut to 1992. Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) might have killed his wife after catching her in bed with her lover, but he’s also created a comic book called Cool World. In truth, he’s really just tapping into the other world. And inside that world, Holli Would (Kim Basinger) has kept trying to visit the real world but is continually denied by Frank, who is now a detective who keeps people from crossing over between dimensions.

Once he gets out of jail, Jack finds his way back to Cool World and meets up with Holli and Frank. Frank warns him that this world has existed way before he was even alive and that for years, noids from the human world have tried to have sex with doodles, or Cool World inhabitants. It’s never really stated, but something horrible will happen if this occurs.

Holli, of course, seduces Jack and becomes a human. This is in direct contrast to Frank, who has a rough relationship with a doodle named Lonette. His partner, Nails, doesn’t tell him about Holli’s crime so that Frank can try and patch up his latest fight with his girl. Unfortunately, Holli murders him and crosses over to our world.

Holli goes wild in the real world, performing onstage with Frank Sinatra Jr. and consuming every vice she can get her hands on. Yet she and Jack are now stuck between worlds unless they find the Spike of Power, a magic object that a doodle in the real world has left behind. She unleashes Cool World on our world, but Jack succeeds in stopping her. Holli kills Frank, but because she was a doodle in our world — who decides on these laws? — he can now be reborn as a doodle in Cool World, to the delight of his girlfriend. Plus, Holli and Jack end up as a toon couple.

Cool World feels like it wants to be an adult Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which was how it was sold. They don’t explain much, but I feel like Cool World is where the imagination of our world ends up living (as symbolized by the sketches that show up out of nowhere). It feels like there is plenty of potential, but knowing what we know today, studio interference took the heart and soul out of the film.

Interestingly, Paramount Pictures created a publicity uproar by placing a huge cut-out of Holli Would on the D of the Hollywood sign. All they had to do was make a donation of $27,000 to the sign’s maintenance fund, another $27,000 to the Rebuild L.A. fund and the salary for two park rangers to guard the sign. Local residents were enraged, however, and demanded that the ad be taken down.

Back to My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. Even if you don’t enjoy the film, you’ll probably love the soundtrack. It also boasts songs by David Bowie, Thompson Twins, Electronic, The Future Sound of London, Ministry, The Cult, Moby, Brian Eno and others. It’s totally a time capsule of 1992 and worth listening to.

What’s On Shudder: September 2023

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Here’s what’s playing on Shudder this month. Click on any title with a hyperlink to see our review.

September 1: Perpetrator, seasons 1 and 2 of Fear the Walking Dead

September 4: The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Relic

September 8: Blood Follow and The Last Drive-In: Live from the Jamboree

September 11: Come True and The Harrow

September 13: The Ones You Didn’t Burn

September 15: The Last Drive-In: Daryl Dixon special

September 18: Kill List and The Crescent

September 20: The Devil’s Rain!

September 22: The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster

September 25: The Terror season 1, The Djinn and The Vigil

September 29: Nightmare

There are some good movies coming this month, but it’s kind of sad that there are mostly AMC series showing up and about a fourth of the new movies of the past. There’s also no Sixty Days of Halloween or The Home for Halloween like in the past, as so much of what is on this network is starting to feel like an afterthought for AMC. At least Joe Bob is back.

Don’t have Shudder? Plans start at under $5 a month and you can get the first week free when you visit Shudder.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Amazons (1986)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Amazons aired on USA Up All Night on May 25 and 26 and November 10, 1990; June 14, 1991; January 18 and September 19, 1992; April 2, 1993 and February 26, 1994.

Sword and sorcery was a big part of the films that Roger Corman released in the 1980’s. To be fair, different sword and sorcery cycles — peblum to Conan ripoff — have always been part of Corman’s films.

Amazons is from Argentina and is based on the Charles R. Saunders story Agbewe’s Sword. Saunders was born in Elizabeth, PA, about fifteen minutes from where we live. He settled in Nova Scotia where he worked for a local newspaper and wrote several well-received short stories about the African-American community there. He also, in his spare time, created the world of Imaro and became one of the first writers to create African-American-centric sword and sorcery stories*.

Based on the real-life female warriors of the West African Kingdom of Dahomey, Amazons tells the story of several female warriors, like Dyala (Mindi Miller, Caged Fury), Tashi (Penelope Reed), Tashinge (Danitza Kingsley, Blackout) and Vishiti (Maria Fournery, Deathstalker).

What is not based on reality is that there’s a woman in this movie who can transform into a lion. So know that going in. Neither is the Sword of Azundati, which the trailer seems to think is Excalibur. But hey, who cares about reality? There are Amazon fights galore, including one battle between one of the women and a giant snake. That’s really why I watch movies.

You can watch this on Tubi.

*He also wrote Stormquest, another movie that was made with Sessa directing. It’s all about a female-dominated society coming to realize that they may be wrong by excluding men. It’s one of the last of ten Argentinan barbarian movies that Corman would produce.

MVD BLU RAY RELEASE: Ghoulies II (1987)

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Directed and written by Albert Band, this was the last Ghoulies movie to have any involvement from Charles Band, who sold the rights to Vestron Pictures to save Empire Pictures.

The ghoulies hit the road in this one, hiding in a truck that’s carrying a dark ride for a carnival. If Satan’s Den doesn’t start bringing in some cash, the carnival is going to close. So Larry (Damon Martin), his drunken Uncle Ned (Royal Dano) and a Shakespeare quoting smaller man named Sig Nigel (Phil Fondacaro) are going to give it all they’ve got. What they don’t know is that the scares are being created by actual demons. Or ghoulies. You know what I mean.

Shot on a soundstage in Rome’s Empire Studios, this was the only Ghoulies movie to play in theaters. I kind of love that W.A.S.P. has “Scream Until You Like It” on the soundtrack. What was it with W.A.S.P. and Empire Pictures movies? Their song “Tormentor” is also in The Dungeonmaster (and Ghost Warrior, which is not an Empire film).

This movie believes in viewer feedback. After many people complained that no one was killed on a toilet in the first Ghoulies, this was fixed here.

Also: This movie got me to make a Letterboxd list of 80s horror and science fiction movies where Royal Dano plays a drunk. And a list of movies where W.A.S.P. shows up, too.

The MVD blu ray release of this movie has a 2K scan of the interpositive overseen by MG and has an introduction by and an interview with screenwriter Dennis Paoli, a making of featurette, deleted scenes, a photo gallery and a theatrical trailer. You can get it from MVD.

MVD BLU RAY RELEASE: Ghoulies (1985)

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I remember seeing the cover to Ghoulies at Prime Time Video and like some kind of snobbery moron, I never rented it. What was I thinking? Did I think it was a ripoff of Gremlins and not worth watching? I was half right, because it is, but it’s way better than it has any right to be.

I mean, does this movie know me? It starts with a Satanic ceremony in which Malcolm Graves (Michael Des Barres, once of the band Detective) tries to sacrifice a child. Instead, he kills his mother Anastasia (Victoria Catlin, Maniac Cop) and sends him away with an assistant named Wolfgang (Jack Nance). Twenty-five years later, the child grows up to be Jonathan (Peter Liapis) and he inherits his father’s estate.

He decides to invite his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan, Jennifer) and friends to explore the mansion. They find an entire basement of occult books and supplies, so they decide to perform a ritual. You know, as you do. They leave when nothing happens but as soon as they walk away, a small creature shows up and before you know it, the ghost of Malcolm has taken over Jonathan and he’s unleashing several ghoulies and the dwarves Grizzel and Greedigut (Tamara De Treaux, who played one of the creatures in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and was one of several actors who played E.T.).

As Malcolm begins to grow in power, all of their friends — Mike (Scott Thompson, Fast Times At Ridgemont High), Donna (Mariska Hargitay), Toad Boy (Ralph Seymour), Dick (Keith Joe Dick) and Eddie (David Dayan) — are all toast. Luckily, the man who saved him once before, Wolfgang, comes back and battles the evil sorcerer, everyone gets revived and they drive into the sunset with a ghoulie in the backseat.

Directed by Luca Bercovici (who also made Rockula for Cannon) and written by Jefery Levy, this was produced by Charles Band. It was actually started before Gremlins but there was a time when the production ran out of money, which is why it came out after. It was shot at the Wattles Mansion, near the park where Jim Wynorski shot The Lost Empire.

The real stars are the ghoulies, which were created by John Carl Buechler, who did effects for some of the coolest looking 80s and 90s horror films, including Prison, Dolls, The Eliminators and more. The ones that show up in this movie are fish ghoulie, cat ghoulie, rat ghoulie, flying ghoulie and clown doll ghoulie.

The MVD blu ray release of Ghoulies has the 2023 HD Restoration of the film presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio along with archival 2015 audio commentary with director Luca Bercovici, a second archival 2016 audio commentary by Bercovici moderated by Jason Andreasen of Terror Transmission, an introduction by Bercovici, interviews with Bercovici, Ted Nicolau and Scott Thomson, a making of feature, a photo gallery, a trailer, 4 TV ads and a collectible poster. You can get it from MVD, who also has a 4K UHD version.

Here’s hoping they make all four films!

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Crypto Shadows (2023)

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I don’t understand cryptocurrency, but perhaps this movie — which also reflects Gamergate — proves to me that it’s so frightening that maybe I’m better off this way. In an attempt to remove herself from the sexual harassment at her game development job in the city, coder Cara Hammond (Mikayla Iverson) has gone into the woods, so to speak, and found a new home in the rural California countryside.

There, she’s working as an aspiring cryptominer generating new coins in cryptocurrencies with an algorithm of her own invention, she discovers mysterious code embedded deep inside the mining data. Her discovery turns into an investigation for the truth, which quickly turns into a fight for her life. When you’ve spent this much time and energy burying a secret and have this much power, one lone person in the middle of nowhere is expendable, right?

Directed by James Fox, who co-wrote the script with Amy Kay DuBoff, this gets deep into Faraday cages that control voltage and machine code yet never goes above your head. Iverson is also often the only person on screen and is able to keep the story moving all by herself. An interesting movie that does way more than you’d expect from its budget, this will keep you thinking.

Crypto Shadows was 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: Forever Home (2023)

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Directed by Sean Oliver, who co-wrote Forever Home with Drew Leatham, this is the tale of Ryan (Leatham) and Jules (Sammie Lideen), a young couple who have moved across the country and somehow unwittingly spent all of their money on a new home. To top it all off, they soon learn that it’s haunted.

Before that, they’re surprised by Alice the realtor (Colleen Hartnett). They have to go through all the paperwork, which is always way too much and caused me flashbacks. Then they go around and introduce themselves to the neighbors. And then their first night alone in the house is interrupted by Max (Cody Hunt), who seemingly moves right in.

And soon enough, they learn they don’t just have one ghost in the house — Peggy (Shelly Boucher), who they thought was a neighbor! — but actually three ghosts if you count the kids, Esley and Gavin (Maddox and Xander Simmons).  To try and get some peace, they hire a professional. They hire a medium named Megan Marjorie Markle IV (Alison Campbell) who ends up getting killed in the house and haunting Ryan, Jules and Max.

Maybe when a medium comes in and has packages to sell you, you should know that you’re in trouble.

That’s when they also learn that if you die in the house, you’re stuck there forever. And if they aren’t careful, they’re going to join him. Forever Home is an interesting film because it’s just as much about relationships and real life as it is the world of ghosts. The effects might not be the fanciest you’ve seen, but it’s definitely a movie with heart and soul.

Forever Home was 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 2

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

Biters and Bleeders: Tad (Christopher Malcolm) and Penelope (Raven Angeline Whisnant) have fallen on hard times. At once he acts like a child and yet dominates her. When his mother (Joyce Wood) dies, he inherits the family home and thinks that it will solve all of their problems.

The problem becomes the house, filled with bedbugs that constantly bite and eat at her skin in the same way that her husband eats away at her psyche. The constant heat of the house beats her down, just as her husband’s abuse and odd behaviors make her start to unravel.

Director Charlie Carson Monroe, who co-wrote the script with Whisnant, this is an uncomfortable watch and I mean that in a good way. The film gets across just how trapped Penelope feels and just how strange her life has become. It felt oppressively hot, sticky and itchy; I felt like I had to check my skin repeatedly for bugs. This might be too much for some, but for those willing to take the ride, it’s a rewarding film.

The Wyrm of Bwlch Pen Barras: In this folk horror film shot in Rhuthun by debut director, writer and Rhuthun native Craig Williams, three men are called upon once again to carry out a terrible assignment in the quiet town of Rhuthun, North Wales.

Gwyn (Bryn Fôn), Emlyn (Morgan Hopkins) and Dai (Sean Carlsen) meet up and drive to the farm of Dafydd (Morgan Llewelyn-Jones), who they abduct against his will and throw in the trunk for the drive and hike up the hills of Bwlch Pen Barras. This has the feel of 70s British horror and while short, it delivers plenty of promise for what Williams and his crew, which includes cinematographer Sean Price Williams, have to offer in the future. There are some small moments in this that make it so deep and rich. And I loved the title card at the end, which places this even more in the look and feel of another decade.

You can learn more at the official site.

Nosepicker: Directed and written by Ian Mantgani, Nosepicker achieved the impossible and had moments that made me physically sick, even after all these years of watching the absolute roughest and grossest cinema possible. Well done!

Georgie Freeman (Leo Adoyeye) is a school kid who is different than everyone else and therefore shunned and bullied. His biology teacher Miss Poppy Barun (Abi Corbett). and mother (Bridgette Amofah) are both worried about him. As for Georgie, all he seems to care about is picking his nose and leaving the messy slime under his desk, a habit that gets him screamed at by all the little boys and girls.

You could see this as Georgie being neither black nor white and lost in a world that wants him to conform to whiteness. Or perhaps he’s compelled by the creature that he has created, a sickening mass of boogers and snot that comes to life while he sleeps and gets the horrible revenge that he can never achieve while awake. Either way, this is an uncomfortable yet great short.

Ride Baby Ride: Director and writer Sofie Somoroff has created a strange one here, as Celina Bernstein plays a mechanic who purchases the Camaro of her dreams from two creeps played by Anthony Richard Pagliaro and Sam H. Clauder II.

The problem? The car itself is a death trap and not because it’s a lemon. No, I mean that literally the car is out to kill her and in ways that are very painful and upsetting, even for the viewer. There are some moments of hand and fingertip violence that upset me as a writer greatly. The camera work, effects and sound design are all quite creative here, setting up just how trapped the mechanic is by a car that seemingly is alive.

I do love killer car movies, so I really loved that this one was horrifying without even leaving the garage.

PicMe: Alice (Arielle Beth Klein) is pressured into downloading a new social media app by a friend and she promises to herself that she won’t leave for lunch tomorrow unless she gets 5,000 likes. Soon, the app controls her every thought, causing her to start lying — it starts small with posed images, then has her ordering food and pretending she cooked it before every single thing she does is livestreamed — and then her body itself begins to warp and change based on people liking or trolling her. Will she ever catch up to Marie (Briana Sky Riley) who effortlessly looks gorgeous no matter what she’s doing? Or will it all be too much for her?

Director and writer Molly Tomecek has created a cute film here, filled with some fun effects and even some moments of animation as characters, emojis and chat windows interact with Alice. Klein does a great job of carrying nearly the entire short and has a gift for physical comedy.

High Stakes: Writer and director Zac Eglinton’s film is a quick and quirky tale of what happens when you don’t wait for the doctor to call you back and end up telling your friend that you have no interest in life as a vampire.

Eglinton must have a fear of allergy, as he already made 2019’s Allergic Overreaction, a movie in which cookies served at an annual Freddy vs. Jason fest cause the horror of, yes, an allergic reaction. His 2021 film Gastral Projection is about a supernatural stomach ache caused by a bad pizza. I’d be worried at this point if we ever went to dinner together.

Moonlight Sonata, With Scissors: Zee (Hailey Swartwout) is awoken by a loud bang and Corey (Troy Halverson) panicking outside her house. He has a dead body in the back of his truck, which ends up being her old parole officer Charles Grandy (Jeff Strand). He’s killed the man and now has no idea what to do with the body, but Zee wonders if this is all a dream. And when it is, she easily deals with it and then reads up on how to get even more out of lucid dreaming.

The next night, however, things are not what they seem when the dream comes back a second time.

Directed by Chris Ethridge (Haven’s End and a segment sponsor of Fat Fleshy Fingers), who co-wrote this with Darrell Z. Grizzle, this is a quick trip through dream logic. The script is quick and to the point but works so well that you won’t even notice how quick the time flies by.

The Heritage: Part of Hulu’s Bite-Sized Horrors, The Heritage shows what happens when Dylan (Matt McClure) meets his father (Bruce Jones) for the first time. Directed by Andrew Rutter, who co-wrote the script with Chris Butler, this has some of the grossest effects that I’ve seen in some time, as Dylan’s father is a gigantic creature that quite literally looks like a human-sized piece of feces.

Pimples will pop, bodies will sweat, vomit may rise up in your mouth as you watch this, but just as horrifying as the visage of the father is, the way that he has conducted himself throughout his life may be even worse. Dylan tries to stand up for himself and make an account of his life, but all father and his wife, servant, trall or all of the above wants is for son to gift dear old dad with just one little kiss.

By all means, do not eat while watching.

Shelter Half: I had no idea what a shelter half was. It’s A shelter-half is a partial tent designed to provide temporary shelter and concealment. It’s also the title of this short, in which a naturalist investigates the disappearance of a mother black bear while camping in a remote valley. Well, he sure does find something.

Directed by the Barber Brothers, written by and starring Nathaniel Barber and shot by Matthew Barber, this short film has a lot to say about the way man has treated nature and what they’ll deal with when a reckoning comes. Plus, it has some really great practical effects. This feels like the kind of idea that would lend itself quite well to a longer movie and I hope to see that happen.

Jeong-Dong (Affects): Directed by Choi Woo-gene, this is the tale of Yoo-bin, who is having a nervous breakdown after seeing something strange in his new home which is, for some reason, filled with objects from a cult religion that its last owner believed in. He tries to get his childhood friends So-dam and Ha-seung to help, but whatever is inside has unlocked the traumas and emotional wounds that they have all buried and no one is safe.

Each of these fears — an abusive smiling uncle in only his underwear, an overindulgent mother who seeks to feed her child until they are sick, a blood-spattered schoolgirl — must be faced but only one of the three will be able to emerge. I really loved the scene with the ghost mother hanging herself, as the rope appears literally out of nowhere and it’s quite shocking. Even with me telling you, you won’t be ready for it.

The Warmest Color Is Blue: Directed and written by Kevin Ralston, this is about two people coming together under adverse circumstances, seemingly a home invasion where a TV has been stolen. It has nothing to do with the Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos-starring romantic film La Vie d’Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2, which is also known as Blue Is the Warmest Color.

Shan Fahey plays Rebecca and Ian Faria as Detective J.W. Bond, the man who tries to find the missing TV and perhaps finds her heart.

Sempre Avanti: Two U.S. soldiers — known as tunnel rats — plunge into a suspected enemy combatant tunnel system during the Vietnam War only to awaken unparalleled horrors. Like Shelter Half, this was directed by the Barber Brothers, written by Nathaniel Barber and shot by Matthew Barber. Both brothers appear in the story, unlike the above mentioned short.

This is appropriately claustrophobic and has a monster in it that looks like it was a lot like the one in Shelter Half, which if that’s true, props to these guys for extending their budget. It’s less a story than a framework to get said monster up against some soldiers, but it looks great and would probably make a great extended film.

The Watcher: Danielle is the last member (Sandrine Morin) of The Children of Enoch and awaits the resurrection of her recently departed sisters and their leader Father Enoch on the next day, the day that she believes that he will bring forth the Day of Judgment in his divinely resurrected body.

Directed by Nathan Sellers, this has a gorgeous look and a really ominous tone. According to the film’s Indiegogo, it was shot in 36 hours in Bakersfield, VT and was made by a skilled skeleton crew of six artists. The tone of Enoch’s voice (Rohit Dave) as he commands Danielle is so unsettling and this film sticks with you down to the last gorgeous post-credits shot. What a beautiful work of art.

That’s Our Time: 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 all year. I can’t wait to see what Backes does next.

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.