Adam Green has done 15 Halloween shorts and he continues it this year. I've featured these before and they are always fuckin awesome.
And you know what, I'll watch anything with the lovely Brea Grant.
Here's the synopis:
A quick Skype call between a husband and wife on Halloween night takes a disturbingly dark turn in Adam Green (HATCHET, FROZEN) and ArieScope Pictures' 16th annual Halloween short film starring Shawn Ashmore (X-MEN, THE FOLLOWING, FROZEN) and Brea Grant (HEROES, DEXTER). Lock up your dog and stock up on full-size candy bars for the Trick or Treaters coming to your door this year as you watch and enjoy.
There was a time when shocking horror movies were cloaked with an avante garde artsy feel. Clearly it could be taken as a mish mash of shock and awe. Either you were disgusted and repulsed or could find the inner meaning and theme of this short by Nacho Cerda.
All in all, it was a must see for it's content that few dared to take on. The early 90s indie horror scene went beyond depravity, it was a measure of undiluted filmmaking with creating something raw. Can a viewer from 2013 know that a short like this was one of the Holy Grails of underground horror?
Probably not.
These days, it's easily accessible, point and click. But can it still strike emotion? Disgust? Pure horror?
That's for you to decide. Go ahead and watch Nacho Cerda's infamous short. Are you jaded or are you shocked?
When you start working at a new job, you have no idea who your new coworkers are. They could be vigilante's at night for all you know or weekend serial killers. But the more I learned about my new coworker, the more things start being revealed. So one day during an early morning case of slacking he revealed he was an actor in a short film while in college. Having directed me to the YouTube link, I got to watch this entire short while eating a delicious salad. In what may have been the best lunch time viewing since I started this job, I witnessed a short film that had me on the fuckin floor.
Yes fellow jaded viewers, it's called "A Fall from Grace". And it's so horribly bad that it's fuckin awesome. It makes The Room look like Citizen Kane. It makes Birdemic look like The Birds. This short has elements of all that is perfect in this millennial age. It's vintage 90s (or it maybe circa early 2000s I actually have no idea so I'm gonna say late 90s), its made my college film students and it utilizes the now archaic Internet communication of the time (it's AOL Instant Messenger!).
Now you to can witness this masterpiece of cinema and get those warm nostalgia fuzzies of 90s filmmaking. I too participated in a few college produced horror shorts when I was at school and I have no idea what's happened to the footage. But my coworker has his live on YouTube, where I will help to make it go viral and establish it as the next found footage brilliance. Is this the next Tommy Wiseau Room-ish cult phenomenon?
You decide. Check out my analysis while you watch. Enjoy.
Here is a running log of my thoughts.
0:01: Cue 90s soundtrack
1:30: It's the establishing shot footage. Vintage Kevin Smith filmmaking!
1:55: It's random slo mo effects!
2:05: Note to self. Be careful of random guy asking to sit next to you in a room full of empty seats.
2:20: Dan and Ned are going to be BFFs 4 life......
2:28: Ummm that's some weird shit to say 5 seconds into meeting his new friend.
2:45: The dialogue here is absolutely brilliant. What kind of man are you? Huh Ned? Fuckin pussy Ned.
2:52: Screename!
2:59: Look at that face. Would you trust that guy?
3:43: Beware of screenames that start with "Cute". They be "spam bots".
3:45: Cue Green Day....
3:50: IM-ing was the Facebook of the 90s. I remember I would have warn wars with my friends back in the dot com days. Ring!
4:08: There is nothing that compares to the action scenes of somebody typing on screen and IM-ing somebody. Fuckin exciting!
4:28: That laptop had 128 MB of RAM and a a Pentium II processor. It's like it's from the future.
4:45: Random Kinkos product placement!
5:00: Best line of the short: "Don't fuck this up" God bless Dan and is overall douchebaginess.
5:22: Oh damn did somebody just fuck up?
5:25: There is nothing wrong with one dude giving another dude a card. Remember this was the 90s.
6:28: 90s sped up date montage! You can smell the awkwardness!
6:45: You know what's fun for a first date? Sliding on ice and almost cracking your skull.
7:37: In the 90s, you didn't go eat when you went on a date.
7:47: A kiss on the cheek was like 3rd base in the 90s.
8:13: OH SHIT!!! MOTHERFUCKIN TWIST!
8:40: Ominous note footage equals you got played Ned.
9:15: Oh here we go again. Damn you Dan/Mike!
So what did you think? My coworker tells me he was in more shorts so the search continues to find them.
This is the funniest "it's so bad, it's good" shorts I've seen in a while. It must be enjoyed by all.
In this edition of The Shortround, we go all sci fi. JG Barnes, director of Thieves sent me his short to check out. I figured, let's break the monotony and check out a sci-fi short. Here be the nuts and bolts.
One scene. One Room. A nice long chat simmers between a cold and precise Agent (Kelly Kirstein) and a brilliant yet fanatical terrorist (Sheldon Simmons). This man harbors the key to saving lives or the tool of ultimate vanity. But what exactly is it? As the veil slowly burns, the truth unfolds.
the jaded viewer says: Well to call Thieves a short would be a stretch. It's more of an excerpt from a proposed feature movie. Barnes short, done on a $300 budget is to be admired as the set, the surveillancePOV and the acting is all solid. But thrown into the mix of an interrogation between a replicant? and a revolutionary is intentional dialogue of ideas of what it means to be human and how we can easily lose our identity with our tech. Cyberpunk is ever evident but one can get easily lost in the spewing of back and forth questions and answers. Sure budget limitations aside, one can forgo action or CGI, but if the conversation is confusing, it's headed towards disaster.
It's hard to gauge Thieves. We haven't had a decent cyberpunk film in such a long time (Johnny Pneumonic anyone?). I love the ideas of data transfer, a dystopian universe and a revolution against an evil corporation/government entity but I'm not sure where Thieves will go if made into a feature. Lots of interesting parallels to our modern world can be explored, one you hope may be touched on at some point.
Look out for Thieves as it makes a run on the festival circuit.
Lots of new Shortround posts this week. Here's another one where you can actually watch for yourself. From Mark Blitch comes The Code, a horror comedy short that part Buffy part Shaun of the Dead.
The tagline says it all: Put it on your Google Calendar
the jaded viewer says: At 6 minutes, The Code cleverly polishes it's Buffy dialogue and Shaun of the Dead references while throwing in cameos chock full of horror icons. It's funny and knows the stereotypical horror cliches it parodies. I like the cliched opening of a douchebag alpha male with the supposed dumb blonde though I was 100% sure she was a Buffy in disguise.
The vampire, chainsaw slasher and Bigfoot were solid surprises but Taylor Brandt as zombie Shaun steals the show with his loyalty for Google Calendar. Obvious reference aside, it made me LOL and the makeup and FX won ton of awards at the Splatterfest Festival in Houston.
Good job by all those involved and I'm happy you all were able to see it as well.
The Shortround returns with another Fatal Pictures short film by producer Zach Green and director Richard Powell. I previously reviewed their short Worm which was dastardly disturbing. In Familiar, we get what made Worm mesmerizing and also a bucket of splatter.
Here be the plot.
Through a series of tragic events a middle aged man grows to suspect the negative impulses plaguing his mind may not be his own.
the jaded viewer says: In Familiar, we follow John Dodd, twin brother to Geoffrey Dodd who we saw in Worm. He has a American Beauty like life, with a wife and daughter living the suburban dream (or nightmare). Like his brother, we get to hear his inner most thoughts and he's longing for escape from his mid life hell. Dinners are eaten, sleep is dreadful and all John wants is to escape after his daughter goes on to college.
But John believes his wife is the cartoon ball and chain and is plotting to keep him locked to this living hell. Soon a big development has him taking drastic measures to ensure his escape but that nagging voice in his head is more than what it seems. As Familiar concludes into some self inflicted open surgery, John must battle the inner demon living inside of him.
Familiar is the type of short that packs an emotional punch in it's 20 minute run time then most Hollywood dramas. The lack of dialogue other than an inner monologue by Robert Nolan is paced to a point where it slowly grows over time. It clearly is American Beauty meets Cronenberg madness. Powell works the inner monologue with methodical timing and inserts conversational emotions with each scene between the characters.
I would say it lacks in the fact that an eerie conclusion is used as an ending where possibly a reunion between John and his wife might have been more fitting. Clearly the WTF-ness of it all makes it 10 times more terrifying. Nolan's performance is top notch and shows he can drive a short with just his face.
Green and Powell are a hell of an exciting duo in indie film and there is no doubt a feature is on it's way. If Familiar is the type of work we can look forward to, I can't wait.
Erik L Wilson is a filmmaker from Chicago and recently dropped me a line on his new short House Call. It's headed to film festivals soon so be on the lookout. House Call is a supernatural short filled with creepy creeps, betrayal and revenge. Here be the plot.
Synopsis: Janice does the unthinkable in order to start a new life with her new boyfriend. However, strange things begin to happen on the night of their one year anniversary.
the jaded viewer says: With any supernatural or ghost story, you've gotta go all slow burn to get the desired effect of jump scares and BOOs! House Call does just that in creating an atmosphere of slow burn eerie that will eventually lead to vengeance. Pacing, suspense are built up nicely and Wilson takes his time to develop the characters and the story. A few wrinkles of CGI are even added as a voodoo mom exacts her dish best served cold.
My problem with this short are the characters. None are remotely empathetic and you pretty much want all of them to die because all their actions are pretty much evil. Who should I root for? The evil people or the more evil people? It's this that had me not caring about Janice, her boyfriend or the ex.
Some nice touches are thrown in like a neighbor's call and some rad gore and makeup effects. But it's an uneven balance and all in all House Call is effective but average supernatural macabre tale.
From director Rani Naamani and starring Nelson Brown, the short Too Late has been making the horror sites and blog rounds. Pretty creative with a WTF ending. It's nicely paced at 2 minutes and it's better than watching 90 minute straight to DVD zombie crapfests.
[NOTE: I reviewed this short a while back but director, Robert de Almeida III is giving us all a special treat as Kill Devil Hill will stream for free in October. You can watch the entire short below and then read my review after!]
Rarely does a short pack a punch in it's 12 minutes to leave me with my mouth wide open. But there's a first time for everything I guess. Ace Jordan's Kill Devil Hill I thought was a slow burn horror flick with Satanic overtones. But that slow burn fired up and by the end I was completely shocked by the intensity of it all.
Let's get the plot out of the way first. See below.
On a day trip with his family to Kill Devil Hill, Jesse Reed (Taylor Graham) chases after his son Joey (Aiden Miranda) who has mischievously run off into the woods nearby. Joey discovers the remnants of some demonic pagan ritual. The skull of a bull head, made entirely out of gold, hangs from a large oak tree. Joey touches the inverted pentagram on the skull only to find that it has been drawn in blood. Frightened, Joey slowly backs away.
Suddenly, the skull begins to 'come to life' inside an epic orb of light. Joey's eyes glow as it appears that something supernatural is trying to enter his body. He faints and the golden skull vanishes into thin air. Moments later, Jesse finds his son laying on the ground. He picks him up and carries him out of the woods. Late that night, Jesse wakes to use the bathroom. While washing his hands, he looks in the mirror and sees that his eyes are glowing with the same supernatural force that has invaded his son just hours before...
the jaded viewer says: Kill Devil Hill is a slick reenactment of past crime in small town America. Many of these horrific crimes never get told but they should and Kill Devil Hill is a step in the right direction to tell the tale.
As I said before, it's a slow burn for a short but the final 4-6 minutes is a helluva a jolt. The set up is clearly intentional with a relaxed atmosphere of sleepy time as we meet our Americana family. But it seems not all is what it seems and through a flashback we see how the morning's events are going lead to a long night. The Satanic overtones are clearly visible. Devil stars and makeshift sacrifice altar are in the woods Joey visits. We see something is haunting both father and son and when we get to the end, all hell is unleashed.
The performances are solid with some nice funny ha ha's all around. The final minutes are brutally vicious in their rawness. I thought they'd go all PG-13 but nothing is quite impactful than seeing a crime photo slaughter of innocents.
My only gripes would be the special effects. There are quick shots of a bullhead acting a little supernaturally floaty as well as a quick scare bullhead attack. Somehow I felt this wasn't necessary. It bordered on cheesy and little over the top. Having it grounded in some sort of "what we don't see is a little more scarier" would have made this film perfect.
But that doesn't diminish a real world crime translated into a fictional what if scenario. The short clearly screams "Why? Why? Why?!" but all is left unanswered. Kill Devil Hill is a fantastic slice of pseudo True Crime cinema. Here's hoping it can be extended to a full length film one day.
Halloween is just around the corner and with only a few horror movies to get your BOO! on, there have been a few shorts I've seen that may replace that empty shivering feeling you so want to enjoy. Dropping me a line is Peter Podgursky, who sent me and all of you, a little 7 minute short called "The Night Caller" that had me hearing old time ringtones that gave me the chills. It premiered at Screamfest yesterday.
Peter gives a bit of info on his latest project which he co-directed/wrote with Donna Thorland.
Peter’s other short, Cheerbleeders (see review here), screened at festivals around the world and is currently available on iTunes. He is also the producer of Night of the Little Dead, and Dracula’s Daughters versus the Spacebrains.
Donna is a former ABC/Disney Television Writing Fellow, worked as a staff writer on the primetime drama, Cupid, and most recently penned several episodes for Disney’s new animated series, Tron: Uprising.
The Night Caller is adapted from a short story by horror writer Gary Raisor who was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel for Less Than Human in 1992.
Synopsis: A father's promise to read his daughter a bedtime story begins a night time descent into terror and madness for his young wife.
Check out the short and then read my review!
the jaded viewer says: Remaking that "old spooky phone call in the house" genre (is that a genre?) The Night Caller introduces us to a typical American family from a time where landlines, tacky wallpaper and family dinners were all the rage. At 7 minutes, the short gets us acquainted with our mom and "princess" and gets the cute and fuzzies just as dad arrives. Acting here by all (Laurel Vail, Angela Ryan, and Mike Horton) are all solid. But as dad is called away, the mysterious phone calls start up and Mom gets the willies.
I keep thinking I already know this genre (maybe it's somebody in the house!) or maybe it's a prank caller or the daughter play a mean old trick. But it does keep you guessing and the mild twist is predictable but still effective.
Podgursky and Thorland play a bit of nostalgia and if you can remember those old timey landline phones and that echoing deafening ring, you'll get a kick out of The Night Caller. It has a bit of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits creepiness and takes you into Drew Daywalt like spookiness.
It's a nice Halloween short while you're eating your suspiciously opened candy.
I just wanted to drop these two Halloween shorts as they are both excellently awesome. It just gets you in the mood for cute and cuddly slaughter. First up, Michael Dougherty brings back Sam from Trick R Treat for his short "Making Friends".
Also, here is ArieScope's Adam Green's annual Halloween short entry "Downloading and You". Commence the gore, slaughter and hilarity.
Know of anymore Halloween shorts? Drop me the link in the comments!
Well we haven't had The Shortround in a while. But thanks to Noah Tilsen, director of the short Grinning Faces we've solved that problem. It's not often I get a short soaked in blood, sex and is a total mind fuck. But Grinning Faces is a jolt of all that in a packed 30 minutes.
So what's this about?
Enter Hero’s world. Is he living his life, or is someone writing it for him? Dreams and reality bleed into debauched sex, Sadomasochism, violence and murder.
Once you view GRINNING FACES you will be changed. You will want to bathe yourself, but it will only be in vain. The grime herein cannot simply be washed off in a shower, for it permeates underneath the skin, into the psyche and the soul.
the jaded viewer says: Echoing the self awareness of Wes Craven's Scream but more so New Nightmare, Grinning Faces takes a trip into the horror writer's bizarre psyche. The short is introduced like a Herschell Gordon Lewis tale of the macabre. Our boy named Hero is kinda crazy. As he wrestles with violent thoughts he converses with a writer who seemingly is writing the story we are now witnessing. He tells Hero details of his story which Hero acts out.
Later he meets a suicidal girl just as crazy as he is and they begin a relationship filled with sex, violence and overall twisted graphic insanity. A hobo gets thrown in and the viewer is left with an impression that not all is what it seems.
Lots of shorts I get are filled with your standard template of beginning, middle and bloody end. I've never witnessed a short that actually questions the order of those 3. Grinning Faces has moments of WTF with imagery and silly acting intertwined. Clearly this would work well as a black comedy than a straightforward extreme horror-core. But it's not dull and has plenty of gratuitous nudity to keep your eyes wide open.
I kind of saw the short as The Writer conversing with one of his characters. What would that be like? As a writer myself, I'd like to think it would be most enjoyable. Who has the moral compass when evil is done? The man behind the curtain or his soldier on the ground?
The ending goes all ambiguous but Grinning Faces is a sleek tale of the macabre. An indie short that realizes the audience loves to see twisted shit but also likes to question what they've seen.
It's another edition of The Shortround. Up this week a zombie rom com from Australia courtesy of Cameron McCulloch called Home. I wouldn't exactly call it a ha ha rom com more like a sad rom zom. Here be the basic plot.
Tells the story of a lone surviving woman, stuck in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the undead, trying to hold on to the last of her humanity.
the jaded viewer says: This 11 minute short is without any dialogue. Starring an unnamed woman who lives deep in the woods, we see her life consists of repelling zombie attacks and a nostalgic longing of the man she's lost. It's a pure vignette of zombie lore, probably a lost story in the great zombie uprising. As she checks the perimeter, it seems the zombies are getting closer on her home and all hope seems to be lost.
With one final night approaching, she pretties up her face, puts on a wedding gown and makes her now wedding night memorable with her man...her dead husband. It's quite an end to an interesting short.
Home is clearly an exercise in the zombie genre for Cameron McCulloch. We've all seen every zombie story variation so really nothing new is that shocking or surprising. It's an interesting concept in Home by taking hopelessness and amplifying it to the max. The silence is clearly sad as it is creepy. What really is there to say when your surrounded by the undead who are rapidly closing in? What do you do in your final moments when you actually have time to prepare?
I like how the short closed, I just didn't like anything else. At times it resembles a fan made film complete with friends and families playing zombie. With such a minimal budget, there is not much in gore or splatter and with any zombie movie, this is pretty much the money shot.
Home is an interesting take within the zombie subgenre of rom zom. I've seen better (Alice Jacobs is Dead comes to mind) and I've seen worse. When somebody can tell a zombie story I've never seen before, I'll make sure you all know. Until then I'm going home (pun intended!).
Thanks to all who participated in this Jaded Viewer giveaway. We'll have plenty of other giveaways soon so keep checking back here. I'd also like to thank Charlie Ruckus for providing the DVDs for this giveaway. Say thanks by following him on Twitter @ruckusprod and checking out the official site.
The lucky winners are C.C. Sardonicus and Mike Little. Congrats to both of you!
The Deadneks - Trilogy of Blood features the psychobilly music of The Deadneks as it mixes a music video and mini exploitation homage as 3 city girls wind up in Bumfuck Hillbilly USA.
Here be the plot:
When a trio of sexy city gals picks up a broken-down hillbilly in the backwoods of Virginia – the three kittens get A LOT more than they bargained for when they accept the drifter’s invitation to a down-home barbecue. What these lovely ladies don’t know just may hurt ‘em – when they find that the menu of this hayseed hoe-down isn’t the standard ‘burgers and dogs’…
Check out the trailer below to see what the film is all about.
From the jaded viewer inbox comes a another edition of The Shortround. The latest entry is Hike, from writer and director Jennifer Campbell. It's a shorty short, at about 7 minutes and is simple in its simplicity. Here be a synopsis.
Hike is a horror short about what can happen when you go into the woods. A man and woman embark on a day trip, hiking to a remote area in the woods. No one is around, and they are alone. After awhile they stop to rest and relax. Things seem okay but something is not quite right. A gruesome discovery is made and grisly circumstances unfold as a result.
the jaded viewer says: With all the horror shorts I get, in order to break through the clutter you really need to go all 360 on me. Either you tell a story I've never seen before, end with a super duper clever twist (ala Daywalt Fear Factory) or set up something that will end with a WTF. Hike is a film that represents the latter of the 3.
Simply, it's a man and woman going hiking in the woods. But of course when you watch a horror short, you know a twist is coming. The visuals are nicely done and the music adds some tension. But most of the first 5 or so minutes are a few hiking and camping cliches that build up to a pseudo twist. I'd had hoped we'd get something new added to the mix but we get your standard scene set up. At one point we get a peeing in the woods scene when they've hiked for like 1 minute. Honestly, I'd have appreciated some other set up before our poor victim makes a shocking discovery.
After a frenetic chase scene, it's pretty much the end that had me going WTF. And it's indeed crazy sick and twisted. Solid splattery slice and pull.
Campbell's Hike is like a first take of a movie scene. I don't want to classify it as a work in progress but it feels like it. It's got a solid premise and a POW! ending but it feels like a first draft. Campbell has solid techniques but sometimes even the best filmmakers need a few tries to get things right.
She has a feature called Final Weekend in development and Hike seems to fit into a testing ground for it. I'm looking forward seeing what's to come for Jennifer Campbell, she's got the talent to make something shocking and new and that's what I look for in every movie I review.
With The Shortround, sometimes I review shorts you guys never get to see as they are usually sent via screeners or are touring various film festivals. Well, that's not going to happen with this one because YOU can watch the full short below and read my review after. I'm kind of excited to see what you all thing about Ruairi Robinson's Blinky TM (aka Bad Robot). A sci-fi horror blend of Asimov wickedness.
Robinson is an Irish filmmaker who has made a couple of sci-fi shorts his last being The Silent City. He was attached to direct the live action version of Akira but dropped out. Starring Max Records from Where the Wild Things Are, Blinky will make you cry, laugh and cringe. The tagline says it all.
Soon every home will have a robot helper. Don't worry. It's perfectly safe.
the jaded viewer says: Blinky tm does so much in its 12 min runtime that it's almost a perfect short. Like a segment out of Issac Assimov's I, Robot, you get a feel for this future world that even Speilberg would be impressed. From the fake newscast to the Blinky commercial (I loved the quick warnings the commercial gives), you feel as if this world is only years away.
Max Records gives a great performance as Alex Neville whose parents are arguing constantly which leads him to want a Blinky, a R2D2 like droid that is part housekeeper, part playmate. The montage of happy times is hilariously LOL (they like to play Hide and Seek and throw Frisbees) and it's this contrast to the later half of the short where things fall apart that is so subtle it has a feel of a feature film ready to take off.
The twist of Blinky is that you feel the "The Three Laws of Robotics" is going to be twisted and bent here and it is. The roller coaster you go through is particularly brilliant. We the viewer feel for Alex who is seeing his parent's marriage crumble. Then we empathize with Blinky who sees Alex turn into his parents, becoming angry, confused and uncaring. It's so clearly intentional that it makes for a hell of an emotional game.
Robinson knows how to pull your strings and with Blinky's final minutes, he totally yanks the chair from underneath you. That is an impressive feat for a short. The special effects are awesome, top notch and stellar. Blinky moves and acts as a real character and ILM should hire this guy immediately!
When Skynet takes over, you better treat your robot slave well or you'll be looking for some spare parts of your own.
I got a quick short via the jaded viewer indie mailbox from director Rafael Deleon called Waffle. It's only a 5 minute short but it packs a punch in it's short running time. So what's this about?
Disfigured science fair champion Wendy seems to have found a new, trustworthy friend in schoolmate Dana. Wendy even takes the step of inviting the girl to her house for dinner, despite being embarrassed by her proud mother. However, when Dana shows her ugly side, Wendy's natural reaction is to do the same. Petty jealousy and competitiveness are not welcome in her household.
the jaded viewer says: I'm not going to rehash the plot as it's really all above. The short is quite effective at getting you uncomfortable as you feel like you're the 4th participant at this dinner which includes Wendy's mom, Dana, the blonde haired pseudo friend and Wendy, our awesome science fair champ whose face we don't see for the first 3 or so minutes.
When a short is this well this short, it's pretty good that it amps up the suspense really fast. The conversation gets going when Wendy details a incident in 5th grade about one of her competitors which ends up with him being bloodied. But Dana seems to have her own motives for this dinner which Wendy overhears and we get to see her violent side and it's pretty intense. By the end we get to see full frontal Wendy face over some waffle desert it's pretty much what you'd expect....kinda ick and WTF.
I gotta say I liked Waffle. It reminded me of a Drew Daywalt or Fewdio short and it's got some good suspense and some solid makeup effects. My only gripes are I wish it was longer and oddly there was not one likable character in it. Also the ending was a little predictable and kind of didn't have the POW! factor I was looking for.
I've seen a lot of shorts of late but this one actually left a rectangular imprinted shape impact in my mind. That's a tough thing to do to the jaded viewer.
If you have an indie short, our motto at the jaded viewer is we'll review it. So our latest edition of The Shortround is a grindhouse short via Ruckus Productions called The Deadneks - Trilogy of Blood. Featuring the psychobilly sickos The Deadneks, we get a full blown exploitation homage as 3 city girls wind up in Bumfuck Hillbilly USA.
Here be the plot:
When a trio of sexy city gals picks up a broken-down hillbilly in the backwoods of Virginia – the three kittens get A LOT more than they bargained for when they accept the drifter’s invitation to a down-home barbecue. What these lovely ladies don’t know just may hurt ‘em – when they find that the menu of this hayseed hoe-down isn’t the standard ‘burgers and dogs’…
the jaded viewer says: Shot on a claimed budget of $62, Trilogy of Blood is a 27 minute long Deadneks music video with a Herschel Gordon Lewis grindhouse homage blended in. Ruckus Productions spared no expense (well maybe expenses for beer, Spencer Gifts decaped arms and blood and more beer) to give us a look and feel of an exploitation film circa the 70s. The tagline says it all:
SEE the BLOOD! FEEL the TERROR! HEAR the PSYCHOBILLY SICKNESS!!!! Experience the sensory TRIPLE-SKULL-FUCK that is…TRILOGY OF BLOOD!!!!!!!!
Damn that's alot of exclamation points.
Add in the grainy staticky footage and some Gordon Lewis homages from 2000 Maniacs to Blood Feast and you got a nice decent short with 3 performances by The Deadneks whose punk rock style is a blend of The Misfits, The Cramps and Reverend Horton Heat. I haven't heard psychobilly punk in a while since my early punk rock days and it was nice to hear some good tunes while seeing ocular trauma, smashed heads and cannibal rednecks. We even get a horrific chubby fuck, incest makeout session and a boink-o-thon on a tractor trailer.
I've never seen that before.
Trilogy of Terror is grindhouse schlock with a killer soundtrack that horror and punk rock fans should check it out. I'm not saying it's the best the grindhouse has to offer but it's got all the basics and cliches and offers nothing more, nothing less.
Boobs, blood, beer and rock and roll. If that's your poison, check it out.
The Vitals
Fun Fact: Brenna Roth (daughter of David Lee Roth) stars as one of the girls
Picked to be part of the Underground Horror Fest II taking place in March of 2011
2010 Horrorfind Weekend and Fright Night Filmfest selection
With all the hoopla in Wisconsin about unions and teachers unions being underfunded and teachers jobs being cut, it's kinda ironic that I watched Richard Powell's 20 minute short Worm. It's produced by Zach Green and on the surface it's about a teacher with a serious darkside. On the inside, it's like watching the mind of a volcano about to explode.
Here be the plot.
A day in the mind of Geoffrey Dodd, a seemingly kind, gentle and sane High School teacher. As we follow Geoffrey through the course of a typical school day we gain an eerie insight into the darkest corners of his soul and beyond. Beneath the carefully constructed veneer of Geoffrey Dodd lies something wretched, insidious and foul rotting him from the inside out.
the jaded viewer says: Geoffrey has the shittiest job other than being a guidance counselor, being a teacher. Can you really educate the youth of America today in a world filled with distractions from Facebook and Twitter to Lady Gaga and Eminem? What do our teachers really think of the students they teach?
I really think it's not to far from what our disturbed teacher Geoffrey thinks. As we follow him along on a typical school day, we the audience get to hear what he's thinking like a twisted version of What Women Want. The narration is odd the first time you hear it but his ramblings are clearly what drives this short.
From mocking the dumb students to raging jealousy of the smart students, we hear his insults and his anger. After a few breaks in the teachers conference room, Geof blasts his fellow staff with a running commentary of the hot well dressed teacher's smarts to the fat teacher who he wants to have another heart attack. It also seems he's writing a love story in his spare time but is interrupted by another fellow teacher with a dying mom. Geof lacks compassion and his thoughts echo that same view. Oh he says all the right things in reality and in face to face conversations, but we see his 2 face and slowly we begin to hate his guts.
At the tale end of the film, we begin to see he is enamored by one of his female students. A Lifetime movie of the week with kidanpping and To Catch a Predator overtones starts to seep into his narration. By the end we feel a reverse Columbine about to happen. What do you think happens?
Worm is clearly a play on the apple on a teacher's desk. It's a wonderful experimental short that blends noir-ish cliches into a modern day horror film. It sometimes strays into repetitiveness and hearing a man's thoughts like we were telepathic gets kinda irritating after a while. If somehow Worm was balanced with some suspense or another POV, it might have given it a counterpoint. Instead we get one man's drawl on his shitty life.
I liked it and if I had to pick a grade like our teacher Geoffrey does I'd give it 6/10. What he writes on one of his know it all students papers kinda holds true: YOU CAN DO BETTER :-)
We've got another edition of The Shortround. I had a chance to check out Gregory Kurczynski's Risen, a 23 minute short that blends 2 genres that take Dexter into Romero territory. It's a fun little experiment in intertwining these two horror genres and the results are in. But before we get to that here be the plot.
A chance meeting between two lonely people leads to terror as a serial murderer chooses a new victim on a night when the dead rise to feast upon the flesh of the living.
the jaded viewer says: Risen is a film that plays on fears from all angles and does it adequately enough. We get to meet two lonely people Henry (Al Mauro) and Jen (Jennifer Ward) who chance encounter at bar. Jen's drowning her sorrows after a breakup and Henry seems preoccupied. This leads to some banter between the two and our first inclination Henry was more dangerous than we realized.
Overlapping their conversation is a TV broadcast informing the public of random acts of violence which seem kinda like the dead rising from the well....dead. It's spinkled in as background and if you didn't pay attention, you'd miss it.
Soon Henry has drugged and incapacitated Jen and goes all serial killer monologuey. You know it's the same old story. Women scorns man, man goes crazy, man starts crazy killing. The first act is all set up , the second bleeds serial killer motif and the final act blends the two together with a twist you can kinda see coming.
Risen makes its case to bridge the two genres and it decent enough. I was intrigued by Henry and his instability and I wanted to see how the zombies would get into the story. At one point Henry watches a count/counterpoint mock news program as they debate on whether or not the zombies are dead or just sick. It's a mockery that's works.
What I felt was lacking was the long filler scenes of Henry doing nothing but contemplating. He also spoke in such a whisper I couldn't hear what he was saying. A slice and dice pending torture went fade to black. WTF? C'mon now. We're all grown ups here. In order to see Henry as evil and despicable we gotta see him butcher and unfortunately we don't. A a viewer, we need to see the evil first hand so when our bad bad man gets his comeuppance, it's more rewarding. I felt kinda indifferent.
Risen has creativity and that's what makes it interesting to watch. Kurczynski clearly has a good idea and he fully developed a short that will make horror fans smile.
Risen is an experiment on being different and that's what independent horror is all about.
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