Body (2023) [Chattanooga Film Festival 2024]

Watch These Films (WTF) Shorts Block

Director and Writer Ronald Short’s horror comedy is a great little Halloween treat just a few months before the festivities begin, and I loved the spirit behind it. Short’s horror comedy leans more heavily in to comedy as a small Frankenstein monster Halloween decoration causes chaos in the house of a normal married couple one night.

Jake and his girlfriend Dawn have no idea where that dancing Frankenstein’s Monster decoration has come from. But Jake definitely saw it move and stare at him.

 

Leila Annastasia Scott and Aaron G. Hale really are the highlights in an otherwise great short film, offering a pair of performances that are downright funny, and fun. They’re seemingly normal people whose life is thrown in to disarray by the introduction of a small item like the Halloween decoration. The more they investigate the darker the movie gets, and director Short is able to derive some good tension from this inexplicable force of evil. I wish we could have gotten more of a reason for why Jake felt so unnerved by the decoration, but that doesn’t hinder the intended effect. Short successfully takes a small mundane incident and turns it in to a bonafide concept for an interesting comedic horror narrative.

 

This year, The Chattanooga Film Festival runs from June 21st through 28th (June 21st – 23rd In-Person, and June 21st-28th Virtually).