This is a side of director Shane Ryan that I’ve never seen before. Intended to be in competition for the winning slot in the highly publicized 2013 horror film “The ABCs of Death,” Shane Ryan gives us “T for Tag.” Now known as “Tag,” Ryan’s short film is a spooky, unnerving, and gruesome bit of revenge cinema that channels the likes of Takashi Shimizu for a short that’s based heavily on violence, murders, and the ever merciless demon of guilt that plagues our young protagonist.
Tag Archives: Short Film
2 Hours (2012)
There was something particularly haunting about director Michael Ballif’s short film “Two Hours” when I was finished. I have seen short zombie films over and over in the course of three years, but “2 Hours” manages to achieve a certain morbid and disturbing nature to it that will stick with viewers long after the credits have rolled. Shot on an apparently small budget that’s defined as “no budget” over the course of two years, director Michael Ballif manages to paint an interesting post-apocalyptic world based around the walking dead.
Alma (2009)
Director Rodrigo Blaas’s short film “Alma” presents the illusion of whimsy and magic at first sight, but deep down “Alma” is one of the spookiest short films made in years. Its entire premise seems to be a metaphor for child endangerment and how easily children could get sucked in to the darkness of the world and disappear forever. The sentient store in the story could very well double for a stranger offering a child a treat, while the young girl in the movie is the child submitting to the temptation and paying a deadly price.
A Date with An Angel (2012)
Director Mark Millicent’s “A Date with an Angel” feels almost like a condensed episode of “The Twilight Zone” like “The Hitch-hiker ” or “Time Enough, At Least” where the audience gets a word of warning in the end and really is asked to heed the advice. The short film itself is a very compelling and often spooky short about a young man on the path to destruction and the mysterious little girl trying to keep him from becoming yet another lost individual.
Rain Dog (2013)
With “Rain Dog,” director Jordan Wippell really refines a great style of neo-noir storytelling for his audience. He does so by providing some interesting flashbacks set to black and white shades set to the slow motion that really do help tell the story. While I’m not always a big fan of slow motion, “Rain Dog” has exception due to its neo-noir callbacks and it works wonders in producing mood and urgency.
it's a love thing. (2012)
The only problem I had with director Andy Dodd’s romantic dramedy is that it wasn’t a little longer. With another fifteen to twenty minutes added, “It’s a Love Thing” could have really become an excellent feature. But that’s a mere nitpick, because “It’s a Love Thing” could have been four hours and I’d still be complaining that it wasn’t long enough. “It’s a Love Thing” is a beautiful and engaging drama about two children in a big world that find one another in the midst of the randomness and find out that love is better than anything around them. Including Star Wars.
Astron-6 (DVD)
So Astron-6 is the indie film group who directed one of the worst movies I saw in 2012, “Father’s Day.” My feelings for that film in particular have been made, so in the interest of being more constructive than mean spirited, I’ll simply judge “Astron-6” on their own merits. Drawing interest from Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment, Astron-6 were able to release a compilation of their short films on DVD in obvious celebration of their highly touted limited theatrical film “Father’s Day.” As a compilation it’s a mixed bag, and one from an obvious group of guys that want to entertain. They love the eighties so much that every single short in the film is either a grindhouse throwback or an eighties throwback. There’s not a lot of variety to their short comedy films, except for their willingness to show themselves bare chested most of the time, and their inability to deliver simple one liners most times.