“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.
A woman and a man wake up in what seems to be a hospital and in the care of someone who seems to be a doctor. That is until things take a turn for the odd and frightening and they are faced with their true identities and who this man really is.
“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.
“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.
“Midnight Movies” Shorts Block
Director Natasha Pascetta’s short horror film has a lot going for it, particularly the narration by the one and only Heather Langenkamp. Beyond that there isn’t a lot of substance behind the plot for “Road Trash” and it’s more of a word of caution about good intentions and how they can lead to our demise, but it’s all so abrupt and quickly paced, that the main character’s fate feels kind of mean spirited.
“A Real Scream” Shorts Block
Eileen O’Meara’s “Panic Attack” is a very short but sweet look at the chaos that is the panic attack and how horrific it can be. Animated and painted by Eileen O’Meara herself, “Panic Attack” is centered on a young woman waiting at a stop light while driving. When she ponders if she shut off her coffee machine, suddenly her imagination begins to take on a life of its own and a mole hill is transformed in to a gigantic mountain before our very eyes.
“A Real Scream” Shorts Block
At nine minutes Kate Beacom’s “All Men Must Die!” is a complete swing and miss. I get what she’s going for, here, but all sense of the horror element is lost in favor of this odd indie flourish, and a climax that makes no actual point. While director Beacom does enter in to a turn of events that universal to the intended audience, “All Men Must Die” takes forever to get to the literal splash in the climax, and I was left thinking “That’s it?” Continue reading