Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Noa Altman (Maayan Weinstock) is an actress who has been forgotten due to her age. Every day is a new argument with her husband, martial arts master Uri (Nir Barak), as the money isn’t there anymore and his business is failing. Yet when he kills a Palestinian terrorist, he’s suddenly a big celebrity himself and all of their problems are solved.
Their problems are solved, right?
Director and writer Nadav Aronowicz then asks us, “What if it was all a lie?”
How can Noa stay in love with Uri? Can she feel comfortable as they become successful? And what does this say about the never-ending conflicts between Israel and Palestine?
Fighting terrorists in an action movie is easy.
Real life is where it gets hard to figure out who the bad guys are.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Maria (Estefanía de los Santos) and Jesús (David Pareja) have just had a baby. He’s tired of her being the only one to make decisions, so he buys a coffee table without asking her. It is the most horrible piece of furniture ever. He pays for it for the rest of the movie.
This is being sold as “an uncomfortable, politically incorrect film with extremely black humor and a brutal tragedy.” That’s truth in advertising.
Directed by Caye Casas, who wrote the script with Caye Casas, this isn’t for everyone. But if you’re ready, I’ll give you a spoiler.
I mean, it’s going to ruin this, because the surprise is what the movie is all about.
So…
The table is missing a screw and it’s not stable. While Jesús is playing with his newborn son, he drops him onto the table and it slices the baby’s head clean off. Now, he has to hide the corpse from his wife, his brother, his brother’s wife and everyone else that comes to see the child, whose head is somewhere under one of the chairs.
If that’s the kind of thing you find amusing, you’re going to love this, one of the tensest times you’ll spend watching a movie. Not for expectant fathers. Or mothers. Maybe not for anyone.
I swear, I do watch movies that were made in the last twenty years or so. Actually, I just watched a whole bunch of them and figured that I should just get all my thoughts out at once.
Here we go:
Cobweb (2023): If Cobweb was 20 minutes long and was mostly about the opening, where Peter (Woody Norman) is afraid of his strange parents — Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr) — and then hears a voice that claims to be his sister (Debra Wilson from Mad TV) in the walls, it’d be great. But the problem with so much modern horror is that when it has to figure out what the reveal is and get to the end, it often has trouble sticking the landing.
That said, I enjoyed a lot of this, including Cleopatra Coleman as the concerned substitute teacher and the production design of the house itself. The ending is pretty solid as well, embracing darkness that I didn’t think that I’d see in a Hollywood movie, finishing on a very open and quite frightening concept for its survivor.
This was directed by Samuel Bodin and written by Chris Thomas Devlin. It’s a big leap from Devlin’s abysmal Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so that’s positive! I liked all the bully parts, as it built well, until the bullies became Purge-masked and then it turned into just another home invasion movie. Also: cinnamon is now triggering for me after that final dinner, so well done all.
Talk to Me (2022): I had someone literally barrage me in text form about this movie, telling me how it’s the most perfect film, how it has kept them up late at night and that they can’t shake it. I feel badly because I hate that I knew that I’d instantly judge this movie as a result and that I didn’t see the version of this movie that they did.
What I did see was fine — and let me make fun of myself, if it were shot on video in 1983 or was made by an Italian special effects artist in 1985 then distributed by Filmirage, I would have probably loved it a lot more, such is my madness — but at no moment did I lose a moment’s rest. That said, it does have some wild eye-related destruction and no small amount of gore. But it owes so much of itself to a computer-guided camera move that will seem as quaint as morphing in a few years. Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou (Danny also wrote the script with Daley Pearson and Bill Hinzman and no, that isn’t the maker of Flesheater no matter how much I want it to be), it revolves around a severed hand that allows people to see visions. The kids think it’s like drugs; as you can imagine, none of them have watched as many possession and occult movies as you or I, so they open the door to something horrible, as you do.
Mia (Sophie Wilde) is struggling with the death of her mother after an overdose and her father Max doesn’t help because he’s never been there and he’s since grown more distant. One night, she and her friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s little brother Riley (Joe Bird) sneak out to a party hosted by Hayley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio). There, Mia holds the hand — ninety seconds only is the rule — and is shocked by the way that it makes her feel. Yeah, it’s like drugs. And you want more once you taste it.
The next night, they are joined by even more people and Jade refuses to allow the younger James and her brother Riley to try the hand. Mia, however, lets them use it when Jade leaves and Riley is possessed by Mia’s mother, trying to apologize to her. She disregards the time limit, which causes Riley to become overtaken and repeatedly slams his face into everything around himself, becoming so suicidal that he becomes a burden on his family, only able to survive in a coma.
Mia has taken the hand and keeps using it, discovering that Riley is in limbo being tortured, but she still needs to talk to her mother, even if the spirits begin to destroy her grasp on reality. Twist ending to wrap it all up and there you go.
Samantha Jennings, one of the co-founders of production company Causeway Films, produced this. She also was behind The Babadook, another movie that people tell me that I’d love. They were worse than right. Oh baby, they were wrong (sorry, I tried the hand and got possessed by the demonic form of Robert Evans).
There’s also a sequel — Talk 2 Me — and a prequel that is all on social media and screens coming out. Like all modern horror, this feels like a way of dealing with grief and that’s fine. I’m sure for some this really worked and like I said, I wish I could enjoy it without realizing everything several beats ahead. But hey, more movies like this and maybe I’ll finally see something like Hereditary as a good film.
The Boogeyman (2023): Based on a story of U of M grad Steve King, this was directed by Rob Savage, who made one of the worst movies I’ve seen in perhaps ever, Dashcam. He’s redeemed himself here, perhaps because it’s not a found footage or screenlife movie, two things I wish that I never had to watch again. The team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place, Haunt) wrote it with Mark Heyman and hey — it works. For the first part, as usual. The set-up — a disturbed man named Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian) kills himself in the office of grieving therapist Will Harper (Chris Messina), who is just dealing with the death of his wife and raising daughters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer ( Vivien Lyra Blair) — is really well crafted and the scares that move along the way are good.
At least Steve King, U of M grad, liked it. The director said, “When the movie tested so well, we decided it was time to get his input, so we rented out his favorite cinema in Maine. He knows what he doesn’t like and if we’d have f***ed up his story, he’d have told us. But he sent a lovely almost-essay about how much he enjoyed the movie. And then the next day I wake up and there’s an email in my inbox from Stephen King and he said he’s still thinking about the movie. He said a few more nice things and the nicest thing that he said was, “They’d be f***ing stupid to release this on streaming and not in cinemas.””
I mean, he also made Maximum Overdrive so consider the source. I kid!
Anyways, the culprit in this is a creature called The Boogeyman that feeds on fear, can sound like others and shows up when you ignore your children. At least everyone goes to therapy at the end, as one assumes this will all take some time to deal with.
It’s fine. But you know, I am looking for more than fine.
The problem with modern horror remains that they spend so much time and energy building the expectation and the tension, sometimes months earlier through trailers. And then, after all that build-up, they often have no idea how to either blow off that tension or properly deliver on it.
I keep on going to the movies because I don’t want to give up on horror. I don’t want to be someone — but I am, I get it, I am — the kind of person that keeps saying, “Back in my day.”
I will not think about any of these movies a day, much less decades later.
In Shanhai Jing: Zaijian Gaoshou, which has been released in the U.S. as Goodbye Monster, a young doctor disobeys orders and uses an untested idea to defeat the Dark Spirit. The bad news? Well, he accidentally destroys the hospital and is banished from Kunlun Hospital, forbidden from ever practicing medicine again. But when a young boy comes to him for healing, he may have one more chance to redeem himself and somehow save his home.
Inspired by The Legend of the White Snake, Bai Ze has ruined his life. He believed that instead of keeping Dark Spirits simply at bay, they could be completely removed. Now a man without a home or a job, but still filled with way too much pride. He hasn’t learned his lesson yet.
Yet this movie is about healing, about getting over the past and trying to become a better person. Those are big ideas for a cartoon, but I found this effortlessly dealing with them. It may be better for older kids, but I think families will really like Goodbye Monster.
Goodbye Monster is now available from Well Go USA. You can learn more at the official site.
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’sFunny 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.
As they both attend the Mad Monster Party horror convention, they learn that a modern End Zone will be made and they can both audition. That movie will start one hour into End Zone2 before it retcons everything that happened after.
It’s pretty amazing that a This Is Spinal Tap documentary comedy could be made about slasher movies but that’s because we understand the genre’s conventions. And, well, conventions. If you’ve spent any time doing that awkward walk past near-empty stars of the past and the hangers-on who attempt to be important by being in their orbit, this movie will more than ring true.
Directors Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein, who also brought the world Blood of the Triblades, Magentic and Ten really know what they’re doing. This was a blast.
The Once and Future Smash 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.
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.
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.
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.
Kaiko City is plagued with poverty and crime. When a mass murder at a bathhouse occurs and yet local businessman Wataru Gojo (Lily Franky) is acquitted, the cops realize that traditional methods no longer apply.
Three members of the Violent Crimes Unit join a disgraced former police captain in jail for murder named Torada (Hitoshi Ozawa), to get evidence on Gojo, his dealings with the yakuza and even worse — his connection to South Korean organized crime and a yearning for a career in politics.
Hitoshi Ozawa is sixty years old but has made a career of playing roles just like this: hard men willing to do hard jobs no matter the cost. You may know him from Takeshi Miike’s Dead or Alive or may even go deep and know Japanese V-cinema. He’s the best part of this very good movie. And Tak Sakiguchi (Versus) is in this as a silent killer gunning for the police.
Directed by Kensuke Sonomura and written by Ozawa, this is a film filled with twists and turns but most importantly action. It also has so much of what works in Japanese crime cinema, that being the ever-twisted connection between cops and crime, with characters that have a foot in part of each world and yet pushed and pulled by concepts like duty and honor.
But this is all about the stunts and fights, too. Sonomura has made a career in stunts, from directing the action in movies like Baby Assassins, Black Ratand The Machine Girl as well as directing Hydra. He’s also lent his fight choreography to video games including Devil May Cry 3, Devil May Cry 4, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Resident Evil 3. He’s also choreographed the action scenes for some world-class directors including Mamoru Oshii, Yudai Yamaguchi, John Woo and Donnie Yen.
This movie is deliriously exciting. Make sure you catch it.
Directed by Michael Stevantoni and Strack Azar, The Banality is about a feral child who is adopted by a young couple. Known as “Feral Boy,” Father Moss (Sherman Augustus) introduces the child to the couple and for eleven years, all is well, before the once feral child is killed in a hit and run accident.
Can the religious man with faith issues find his way back to God after the senseless death? Why would God even bring “Feral Boy” into their lives if He was going to cruelly take him away? Are the dreams both asleep and waking that the priest is having direct him to the mystery of how the child was in the woods alone all these years and who killed him?
A full-length version of the 2019 short film, The Banality is also known as Death Letter Blues. This isn’t a horror film in the traditional sense but instead a more slice of Southern life told well. I’m looking forward to this getting a wider release because I think it’s going to knock people out.
The Banality is part of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival. You can get a virtual pass to watch the festival from August 10 to 20. To learn more, visit the official site. To keep track of what movies I’ve watched from this Popcorn Frights, check out this Letterboxd list.
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