Nocturnally Yours (2017) [Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2017]

After his untimely death on the night of his engagement, a man haunts his love until he finds a way to visit her in the “flesh”.

Nocturnally Yours is the sixth title on writer/director David Ferino’s IMDB resume.  Here he creates a darkly funny story of love that transcends death, of a man who is not ready to move on and a woman who is not ready to let go finding a way to reconnect that turns absolutely hilarious.  The story is wrong on quite a few levels, yet is so entertaining.  The film takes this crazy idea, runs with it, and succeeds in making something that should make people with a dark or twisted sense of humor laugh out loud.  The story is well told, the humor is on point, and the way it’s all delivered makes for a fun few minutes.

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Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle (2017) [Toronto International Film Festival 2017]

Julita’s lifelong dream was to have lots of kids, a monkey, and a castle. She achieved all of these. Now, her son, actor Gustavo Salmerón has made a documentary on her life showing how she got to getting her dream realized, how the castle became cluttered with all kinds of mementos and things, and how things changed once she had to move out of the castle.

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The Reunion (2016) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]

A man goes into the woods looking for a missing young man with his trusted gun and his will to find him.  What he finds turns out differently than planned.

In filmmaker Francisco Silva’s short film about a man looking for something in the woods and finding out much more than he expected, he explores what one may find on the other side of the darkness and that is may not always be what one expects.  The way the film is written brings horror elements to this story and creates an interesting mystery with a surprising ending.  The film is kept simple in story and dialog as well as setting and development.

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Survivor Type (2012)

So you saw “The Dark Tower” and were meh on it, but then you saw “IT” and were all over it.  As “Mr. Mercedes” is available for streaming and “Gerald’s Game” is coming soon, how else is a die hard Stephen King fan supposed to satiate their thirst, their need? Shorts, of course.  After watching tons of Stephen King short film adaptations, one of them stands out head and shoulders above the rest and every fan should make it a point to find it and see it.

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Alone (2017)

Although it’s only about three minutes in length, sometimes that’s all you need to really scare someone out of their seat. You need a good set up, a very relatable scenario, and a nice final scene to end the movie on. Reminiscent of the short “Lights Out,” director Tofiq Rzayev has a definite future in filmmaking and horror filmmaking, as “Alone” is a really good horror short that kind of spooked me a bit.

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