Lunch Ladies (2017) [Women in Horror Month 2019]

Two lunch ladies lose it a bit and feed their high school students something a touch different while day-dreaming of cooking for their beloved Johnny Depp.

Written by Clarissa Jacobson and directed by J.M. Logan, Lunch Ladies is a horror-comedy short that packs a punch. It’s one of those that is easily watched and for which is humor works and so does the gross-out factor. Together, these two create a fun short that more than worth its runtime and that allows the viewer a bit of a break from the usual when they fully give in to what Seretta and LouAnne have to offer. The film is kept tight and moving with just the right amount of everything, creating the perfect balance between everything going on in the film.

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Blood Runs Down (2017) [Final Girls Berlin Film Festival]

“Flesh and Blood” Shorts Block

Director Zandashé Brown’s Southern Gothic horror short is a beautifully directed narrative that explores the complex and sometimes darker relationships of mothers and daughters and the stresses of raising a child on one’s own. “Blood Runs Down” has some wonderful imagery and genuinely unsettling moments of terror it’s just mired by ambiguity that makes the overall film somewhat confusing.

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Supine (2018) [Final Girls Berlin Film Festival]

“Tainted Love” Shorts Block

I could kind of see where “Supine” was headed thanks to the opening shots, but Nicole Goode’s short horror drama still managed to register as a demented peek inside of a complete and utter monster. Eva Larvoire does a bang up job playing Sylvie, a taxidermist living in France, who spends most of her time looking for dead animals on the road.

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¿Quieres Que Hoy Te Bese? (Do You Want Me to Kiss You This Time?) (2018) [Final Girls Berlin Film Festival]

“Growing Pains” Shorts Block

Directors Iker Arce and Miriam Ortega Dominguez’s “¿Quieres Que Hoy Te Bese?” is a nearly half hour short film that resonated deeply with me when it was all over. What we assume is a short horror drama about a teenage girl coming in to adulthood in the most sinister fashion, we soon discover is a very brilliantly constructed, disturbing non-linear horror tale.

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Devil Woman (2018) [Final Girls Berlin Film Festival]

“Social Horror” Shorts Block

Director Heidi Lee Douglas’s “Devil Woman” is kind of a jumbled mess of a horror movie that has a ton of potential. On one side of the coin it tries to be a horror movie about feral monsters spreading their virus through a bite. On the other side of the coin it tries to an environmentally conscious tale about Tasmanian Devils suffering from hideous cancer destroying the population. It’s tough to get sucked in to a horror movie about feral monsters when the movie bookends the tale with an actual picture of a disfigured Tasmanian Devil suffering from cancer.

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The Body Corporate (2018) [Final Girls Berlin Film Festival]

“Midnight Movies” Shorts Block

I can’t say that I would recommend Stepanka Cervinkova’s dystopian horror film per se, but I appreciated the message behind it, and I liked its energy. I also loved the special effects as they garnered the right amount of yuck factor. The big problem with “The Body Corporate” is its sheer confused tone, but otherwise director Cervinkova is at least a good director with a neat concept.

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Nose Nose Nose EYES! (2017) [Final Girls Berlin Film Festival]

“Flesh and Blood” Shorts Block

This South Korean horror film by Jiwoon Moon is not a movie about ghosts or goblins, but about the absolute perverse horrors of greed and the evil money can foster. Director-writer Moon tells the tale of a small family living in a sheltered home. After Ji-hyo has a horrible nightmare with her father scaring her without any eyes, her mother Hyeon-woo half heartedly assures her that it was all a nightmare.

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