You Are Here (2023) [Dances with Films 2024]

Michael Friberg’s “You Are Here” doesn’t feel so much like a movie as it does a three part sketch or some kind of extended commercial. Friberg insists in staging a movie that has no huge stakes or interesting character depth. For that I have to respect it, but I also didn’t care much for it.

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Consumer (2023) [Chattanooga Film Festival 2024]

So Long and Thanks for All the Dangerous Visions Shorts Block

I wish we could have gotten a longer format version of “Consumer,” as Matthew Fisher’s horror tale is ripe for feature film potential. “Consumer” watches like a segment from “Creepshow” even packing in a wonderful synthesized score by Bethany Farnsworth, respectively. I loved the low tech, mid-eighties revenge tale that director Fisher creates, as it’s old fashioned enough, but never feels dated, or dull.

It works well within its short run time and offers some scary ambiguity in the end.

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Like Me (2024) [Chattanooga Film Festival 2024]

Watch These Films (WTF) Shorts Block

There are a growing number of short films surrounding the concept of social media and Ashley Thomas runs wild with the concept. “Like Me” doesn’t have a narrative or much of a whole structure behind it, but it at least makes up for it with a punch of a final scene emphasized with some excellent make up.

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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.

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Hi! You are Currently Being Recorded (2023) [Chattanooga Film Festival 2024]

Dangerous Visions Shorts Block

We traded our privacy for security. And when we lost the privacy and kept the security and realized it didn’t make much of a difference it was too late to get our privacy back. We live in a world where there are cameras everywhere, and everything is taking footage of something going on in the background and foreground. More than ever we’re being viewed through some kind of robotic lens.

And we’ve yet to really prepare ourselves to know how far that rabbit hole goes.

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Bedroom People (2022) [Film Maudit 2.0]

The new standard for horror entertainment has become the lo-fi, filmed on VCR fodder that had lent something of a realism to even the more outlandish premises. The aesthetic has been used in a lot of facets of horror in the last eight years, including horror movies. The classic ARG aesthetic just works and it works well for the short from skilled animator and concept artist Vivien Forsans entitled “Bedroom People.”

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no more room in hell (2023) [Film Maudit 2.0]

“no more room in hell” is a masterclass in how to make a horror documentary without skimming copyright and licensing fees. Rebecca Shapass directs a de-construction of the Romero movie series by taking a deeper more abstract look at how environmental and ecological elements contributes to the rush of the dead, and the downfall of society. Shapass includes snippets of dialogue from the various scripts and spends a lot of the documentary’s time peeking in to various industries including excavation, as well as the rule of capitalism.

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