{"id":21047,"date":"2016-06-16T15:55:55","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T19:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=21047"},"modified":"2016-08-21T07:08:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T11:08:24","slug":"tony-masiello-short-films-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/16\/tony-masiello-short-films-round-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Masiello Short Films Round-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MortyandChester\"<\/a>Shorts can be fun tidbits of film, no matter the genre.\u00a0 Some genres can lend themselves to this format better than others, horror being one of them.\u00a0 So horror shorts with a grindhouse flare should be at the very least interesting.\u00a0 Here are four mini reviews of shorts by Tony Masiello that fall in that sub-genre.\u00a0 All of these shorts are part of anthologies that are out or about to come out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Morty & Chester\u2019s Grim Return (will be in Frames of Fear Anthology, 2016)
\n<\/strong>Three college friends meet up at one of the girls\u2019 dead grandpa\u2019s house to party and take it easy for Halloween weekend.\u00a0 Soon after they tell scary stories and play with an Ouiji board, things start going weird, beginning with grandpa\u2019s ventriloquist dummy coming to life.\u00a0 Written by Tim Ritter and directed by Tony Masiello, this short stars Amy Woo, Sheena Irwin, Alice Rosenberg, and David S. Hart.\u00a0 The writing here is basic grindhouse while attempting to fit in some 80s slang for dialogue and honestly, this leads to some lines that are just grating to this 80s cinema fan.<\/p>\n

The direction is decent and works with the material.\u00a0 The acting in this, on the other hand, is just horrendous, overacting and hamming it up does not make a performance grindhouse or SOV-style.\u00a0 This short has more than its fair share of nudity from ladies who are refreshingly regular, full-figured women.\u00a0 However, no amount of boobs and titillation could save Morty and Chester\u2019s Grim Return.\u00a0 The style and \u201cshocking\u201d factors of a puppet going after human women was much better executed by the Lewis brothers in Black Devil Doll, a film that has something to offend everyone.<\/p>\n

\"thetape\"<\/a>The Tape (featured in HI8 aka Horror Independent 8, 2013) (13min approx.)
\n<\/strong>When a video store closes, the owner hands a box of VHS tapes to his buddy who heads home with them and promptly starts watching them.\u00a0 He eventually finds one titled Bloodgasm and becomes obsessed with it, going to crazy lengths to see the missing ending.\u00a0 Written by Matt Hill, directed by Tony Masiello, and starring Andrea Adams, Bobbi Beach, Mike Burnell, David S. Hart, and Travis Hoecker, this one is better than Morty and Chester, the dialogue is not grating but not really great either which could be due to a delivery problem.\u00a0 The acting from the lead is ok while the killer is a bit too over the top.\u00a0 This short is meant to look and feel like old school shot-on-video fare and it achieves that with flying colors.\u00a0 Its acting is passable, the effects are good considering the budget, and it doesn\u2019t overstay its welcome.<\/p>\n

Cannibal Vampire Call-Girl Hookers From Outer Space 3 (featured in Grindsploitation anthology, 2016) (4min 47sec)
\n<\/strong>This short is a fake trailer for an inexistent film made for the fake trailer anthology Grindsploitation which includes a large collection of efforts from varied directors with a varied level of success.\u00a0 Cannibal Vampire Call-Girl Hookers From Outer Space 3 is about a group of female aliens on Earth killing as many men as they can, but also hellbent on fucking their brains out first.\u00a0 This one is a collection of scenes written and directed by Tony Masiello and starring some of his regulars (IMDB only has Masiello listed as a cast member for it).<\/p>\n

This \u201ctrailer\u201d does bring back memories of grindhouse and exploitation movies from the early 80s, with gritty images, plenty of nudity, and lots of violence.\u00a0 The short scenes thrown together make it hard to judge the writing, directing, and even the acting as none are long enough to give a good idea of these aspects.\u00a0 It\u00a0 all comes together to make a mish mash that seems made to showcase naked girls, and excuse to have boobs bouncing on the screen constantly, and to have few scenes that borderline on porn.\u00a0 Whether this is a good or a bad thing is left to each viewer to decide.<\/p>\n

\"LoveMe\"<\/a>Love Me In Pieces (featured in Sleepless Nights anthology, 20??) (14 minutes)
\n<\/strong>A man who meets woman after woman from dating sites and films his exploits thinks he\u2019s found the perfect girl for his evening.\u00a0 They go through the usual first date chit chat while having some wine and waiting for dinner to be ready at her place.\u00a0 He thinks he\u2019s found the perfect new victim, err woman, she also thinks he\u2019s the perfect man for her needs.\u00a0 Her goals are however very different from his.\u00a0 Love Me In Pieces was the last of Tony Masiello\u2019s shorts I\u2019ve watched and possibly his best one.<\/p>\n

This one boasts decent writing and directing and some good acting from lead actress Nikki Tamburro who shows restraint at first and then glee as her character has found the perfect man for her plans.\u00a0 Playing opposite Tamburro is Masiello regular Travis Hoecker who turns in a decent, creeper performance.\u00a0 This short is the more thought out one story of the bunch and it doesn\u2019t get as much in your face with sexuality and gore, the latter turning up in the end as the story develops slower than other works from this director.\u00a0 The story does owe a big debt to the Lucky McKee film May.\u00a0 Also, fans of Lou Rusconi need to pay attention and play spot the artwork.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shorts can be fun tidbits of film, no matter the genre.\u00a0 Some genres can lend themselves to this format better than others, horror being one of them.\u00a0 So horror shorts with a grindhouse flare should be at the very least interesting.\u00a0 Here are four mini reviews of shorts by Tony Masiello that fall in that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[477,501,938,1087,1151],"class_list":["post-21047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-list-junkies","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror","tag-indie-film","tag-short-film","tag-thriller","tag-vampires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21047"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22032,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047\/revisions\/22032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}