2019 Wash

• Directed by: Kristofer Kiggs Carlsson
• Written by: Kristofer Kiggs Carlsson, Amelia Clay
• Stars:  Amelia Clay, Ida Ljungqvist
• Run Time: 7 Minutes
• Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJtXQSYNFWQ

What Happens

The camera zooms in on children’s drawings of the child with a rabbit friend, then a mess in the kitchen, and then screams of: “Mom, stop!” Then the screams stop, and we focus on Mom running the washing machine. Sitting and watching it intently. 

We soon see someone is in the washing machine, but it’s not what it looks like…

Commentary

I don’t enjoy doing laundry either, but this might be taking it to extremes. It’s very suspenseful, ominous, and atmospheric, as well as being very well shot. We don’t really know what’s going on here until the end, which is fun. Even then, we don’t know the real situation. 

Very cool!

2024 Playing God

• Directed by: Matteo Burani
• Written by: Matteo Burani, Gianmarco Valentino
• Stars:  Animated by Arianna Gheller
• Run Time: 9 Minutes
• Watch it: Nope– still playing at the festivals

What Happens

An animator creates miniatures for a stop-motion film. He tries hard to bring his characters to life, but he’s not gentle. What happens to old stop-motion models? We soon find out… 

Commentary

Well, that was really something! 

It’s animated via stop-motion, and it’s really well done. There’s no dialogue, just a bunch of clay figures doing what clay figures do– live in fear. 

It looks great, it’s well paced, and it’s got a very interesting concept. It’s very disturbing– what happens when your god abandons you?

2025 Dad Doll

• Directed by: Kyle Kenyon
• Written by: Kyle Kenyon
• Stars:  Lyndsey Frank, Nina Concepcion, Jesse Bush, Geoff Ross
• Run Time: 10 Minutes
• Watch it: Not yet, still on the festival circuit. 

What Happens

We watch a commercial about what to do if your father abandons you. You could buy a “Dad doll.” It’s like your dad never left! It also works for dead Dads! We watch old videotape footage of family fights. Aren’t dads great?

We pull out and see a man calling to order a dad. It looks nothing like the one in the commercial, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy.  

Commentary

People actually watched the Transporter movies? Who knew?

The initial commercial is a bit much, but once we get to the man and his father doll, it gets much more interesting. We get the commercial, the story with the young man, and then it all gets a little meta as we continue on with the filmmaker. 

It’s very weird. Nice!

2025 Channelvue

• Directed by: Brandon Tauszik
• Written by: Joe Veix
• Stars:  Lauren Servideo, Kacy Anne, Faith Barrett
• Run Time: 8 Minutes
• Watch it: Still on the festival circuit. 

What Happens

We watch videotape footage from 1998. There are various strange commercials on the “TV Guide” channel with program descriptions appearing underneath. If you know, you know. There’s a news story about “The Tooth Fairies,” a strange gang that steals teeth. The weather report comes up next. 

Suddenly, we are told that hackers have attacked the station, and may be listing things that are wrong and probably offensive. 

Commentary

I want to see some of those shows on the menu. “Emeril’s in Jail,” “The Great Onion Threat,” “Music to my Beers,” “El Bano del Amor,” and dozens of others. 

If you don’t want to see this, go watch some more Burger Barn commercials - one of the strange ads here.

It’s not terribly horrific (more of a dark comedy), unless you’re a studio exec, but it’s still weird and pretty fun. 

2025 The Bride’s Curse

• Directed by: Alex Kavutskiy, J. Rose
• Written by: Alex Kavutskiy, J. Rose
• Stars:  A. Karpocsky, T. Newton, B. Dias, A. Seregina, O-Lan Jones
• Run Time: 20:08
• Watch it: Not yet– Still on the festival circuit

What Happens

The newlywed bride asks Sasha if he’ll always be honest with her. After they have sex, she has to tell him something. She tells him about an old Russian curse from hundreds of years ago. 

The curse is that the women in the family are doomed to marry liars, and if the man lies to the woman three times, they will die. 

He wants to test it. What could go wrong?

Commentary

Surprisingly, the old Russian curse is real. Maybe she could have said something before they got married? A normal, honest marriage doesn’t sound that hard, does it? Does it?

It’s very nicely paced, well-acted, and very funny. 

2025 Plague Season

• AKA “Época de Plagas”
• Directed by: Gabriela Calvache
• Written by: Gabriela Calvache, Daniela Granja Nunez
• Stars:  Christian Soria Cabrere, Samantha Villareal, Lema Mercy G
• Run Time: 18:52
• Watch it: Not yet– still on the festival circuit

What Happens

A girl wakes up and wanders around the house. There’s plastic over all the windows and doors, and she puts on an odd filter mask before knocking on her mother’s door. Her father makes her stop, he’s told her not to go in there. “It’s for your own good.”

We heard about problems with radioactive waste on the radio. He needs to go out for a while to get food, and he wears one of those same strange masks. The little girl, Emily, misses her mother, but her father will not let her open the door to be with her. 

Suddenly, a flying insect comes through the room, and Emily’s father squashes it. When he finds out that Emily has opened the window, he’s very angry. 

What’s going on here?

Commentary

Those masks are pretty cool, sort of a modern-day take on the old plague doctor masks. 

It’s pretty obvious that Emily’s going to get in through that door eventually, but the suspense is wondering what she’s going to find on the other side. I was expecting zombies. 

It was not zombies. This is very claustrophobic, all taking place within the apartment, but we see a plague-ravaged world outside with no real explanation of what happened. 

Very entertaining!

2025 Don’t Try This in the Woods

• Directed by: Emma Doxiadi
• Written by: Stergios Dinopoulos, Emma Doxiadi
• Stars:  Mary Mina, Niki Papandreou
• Run Time: 15:40
• Watch it: Still on the Festival Circuit

What Happens

Two people are in the woods. “Is it human?” asks one. “No,” answers the other. “Is it an animal?” “Sometimes.” Daphne, the guide, talks about learning to respect the forest and its ancient guardians. 

Some people simply don’t respect the forest or heed the experts' advice. Some people are gonna pay…

Commentary

If the guide says the berries aren’t edible, then don’t try one!

We didn’t know where this was going, as it was a little slow and meandering for a bit. This is beautifully filmed in the woods, and the sound is well done as well, not easy to do outside. It’s not hard to guess what the outcome is going to be, but it’s well done.

2025 Interloper

• Directed by: Kerry O’Neill
• Written by: Kerry O’Neill
• Stars:  Ryan Simpkins, Chloe East, Whitney Rice
• Run Time: 16:28 
• Watch it: Not yet– still on the festival circuit!

What Happens

Ruby hides in her room. She has done something that has angered the other people in the house. “They’re gonna have to find you another placement.” Ruby’s in the foster care system and goes to a new home, and meets a new family. 

The new family seems normal enough. The daughter, Genevieve, gets $40 from the father to go out. Ruby looks at the things in Genevieve’s room while she’s away. 

Time passes, and Ruby seems to like the new family. What could go wrong?

Commentary

It’s rough trying to fit in with a new group, even worse with a whole new family. The coach compared the basketball team to a bunch of wolves, and there can be only one alpha in the pack. Ruby’s not especially subtle, either. 

Calling it “horror” might be a stretch, but it’s very good. 

2025 The Beguiling

• Directed by: ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby
• Written by: ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby
• Stars:  Benairen Kane, Kim Savarino
• Run Time: 15 Minutes
• Watch it: [Not yet, still on the festival circuit!]

What Happens

Two young people are out on a date; she never gets to hang out with other natives, and really likes it. She invites him inside “for coffee,” and they talk about colonization and genocide. He’s from the Anishinaabe, and she’s fascinated by his culture. 

She seems very political, but he doesn’t say much; he’s got other things on his mind. Still, she eventually manages to get him to open up about his family…

Commentary

It’s interesting to hear about the native boarding schools in a horror film. Some real stories are worse than fiction. Then again, if they’re stolen stories, that might be worse still. 

I figured one or the other of these two would not be what we thought, but this one took a turn about halfway through that I was not expecting. 

That song at the end is something else, too. 

2025 Whitch

• Directed by: Hoku Uchiyama
• Written by: Hoku Uchiyama
• Stars:  Rosemary Hochschild, Alicia Blasingame, Nora Harriet
• Run Time: 5 Minutes
• Watch it: [Still on the festival circuit!]

What Happens

A mother reads a bedtime story to her daughter and then goes out to find a strange old woman in her living room. She apologizes for being late, “but clearly, I’m ahead of some. Where’s your animal?” The old woman strips naked and then kills a rabbit with a knife.

What is going on here?

Commentary

This one goes from zero to a hundred fast. That ending though… wow. How embarrassing!  “Again, Gladys?”

This is really fantastic. It’s always clear what exactly is going on, the characters are relatable, and the situation is… magical. 

2024 Gaslit

• Directed by: Anna Maclean
• Written by: Anna Maclean
• Stars:  Kirstin Howell, Bob Mann, Peter Lund
• Run Time: 11 Minutes
• Watch it: [Not yet– on the festival circuit!]

What Happens

A woman is cooking in the kitchen, and she cuts the cheese as credits roll. 

The woman and Ed watch TV, and she texts him something by mistake. She manages to cover up what she really meant, but only barely. She goes to get another drink, and Ed makes a face– she made a stinker; she “dusted him.” Yes, she cut the cheese again, the other kind. She denies it though. Better yet, she has a way to prove she didn’t fart…

Commentary

What lengths would you go to cover up letting one rip? 

These two obviously don’t much care for each other, but they still try to salvage the evening, over and over, at least until they don’t anymore. 

Wow– that was one bad date!

The acting is great, the pacing is good, but the last half of the film was almost too dark to really see what was going on. 

2024 Rata

• Directed by: Giselle Bonilla
• Written by: Giselle Bonilla
• Stars: Alani Waters, Emil DeRosa, Tina D’Marco
• Run Time: 16 Minutes
• Watch it: [Still on the festival circuit!]

What Happens

A woman comes home from work and hears a strange noise somewhere in the apartment. She searches around and finds a rat in a trap. This rat, however, is as big as she is, and it wants out of that trap. She lets it loose but then starts to find rat droppings all over the building. That’s only the beginning…

Commentary

The moral seems to be that if you let a rat out of the trap, don’t tell the landlady. No one wants to rent to a “rat activist!” 

That’s quite a costume, reminiscent of “Screamboat Willie.” Sometimes, a good pet is way better than a boyfriend anyway!

2024 Stomach Bug

• Directed by: Matty Crawford
• Written by: Matty Crawford
• Stars: Leslie Ching, Prasanna Sellathurai, Alice Thoma
• Run Time: 15 Minutes
• Watch it: [Still on the festival circuit]

What Happens

A man goes to the doctor with a stomach bug. The doctor says it’s nothing to worry about at all. He tries to call his daughter, but all he gets is a voicemail. He gets through to her later, and she’s out with friends. He’s just lonely and wants to talk, but she says they just spoke yesterday. She’s been offered a job that’ll take her away for the whole summer, but he’s not happy about that. Meanwhile, his stomach is growing larger and larger…

Commentary

I had an idea where this was going to go, and I was right on the (belly)button with that. When the children grow up, they need their space; sometimes the “empty nest” doesn’t stay that way long. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of how hard you want a thing, right?

It looks good, the acting is well done, and the story is just plain weird. I liked it a lot!

2024 /HAAW/

• Directed by: Joey Scoma
• Written by: Joey Scoma
• Stars: Ben Gigli, Joey Scoma, Kelsey Gunn
• Run Time: 12 Minutes
• Watch it: [Not Yet. On the festival circuit!]

What Happens

We open on an isolated ski-lift. Ray and Ax, the skiers, appear to be very serious about the trip. Halfway up the hill, the two men notice someone very strange in the cable car with them. All they say is, “Haaw!” Are they serious, or aren’t they?

Commentary

Just goes to show you how awkward some rideshares can be.

The masks are cheesy and kinda dumb-looking, but as the story progresses, it gets more and more tense, and we forget about that. It’s quite a ride!

Haaw!

2024 Blood Waters

• Directed by: Stephen Robinson

• Stars: Samuel Davis, Heather Kafka

• Run Time: 9 Minutes

• Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oa7AnUx2tI

What Happens

A man watches the news while cleaning his gun. He hears the bell; his sick mother is calling. She looks at his gun, and she wants to use it. 

The man pulls a box of chains out from under the bed as her skin starts to bubble and change. He gets her all chained up, and she tells him not to be scared…

Commentary

That’s quite some family tree they’ve got. 

Early on, I was thinking she was a werewolf, but that’s not it. I don’t know what that thing was, but it was really cool-looking, and the surprises just kept on coming.

2023 Trial 22

• Directed by: John Ferrer
• Written by: John Ferrer, Harry Metcalfe
• Stars:  Corinna Brown, Graham O’Connor, Isabella Lake
• Run Time: 9 Minutes
• Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i0S_0S7Sak

What Happens

Two women fight, and they’re not pulling their punches. The winner runs to the next room, where there are more people and a voice mentions “Next round.” They’re in room 22, so it’s almost at the end of the strange game. 

The lights come on, and the people in the room see a strange monster in an open cage. There’s a five-minute timer. What do they do? They take their shoes off because it seems to only react to sound. 

What is going on?

Commentary

The concept seems to be something like a cross between “Saw” and “Cube” with maybe a little “Hellraiser” thrown in.  Either way, there are rules to this game that the players don’t know. We don’t know why this is happening or who these people are, but we’ve all seen enough to know how this sort of thing goes.  

It’s fun!

2023 Callus

 

• Directed by: Ciaran Hickey
• Written by: Ciaran Hickey
• Stars:  Michael Patric, Grainne Good, Claire J. Loy
• Run Time: 18 Minutes
• Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3y6Oau21lY

What Happens

A baby is born, but there’s something wrong with it. The mother dies in childbirth, so now Fergus has to raise the child alone. 

Time passes, and little Íonait has grown up. Her face looks good, but we see something’s wrong with her arm– it crackles. It’s her eighteenth birthday. Neighbor Louisa wants Fergus to bring his daughter to the pub, but he really overprotects her. It’s just a funky arm, says Louisa. Her neighbor, Ardal, a farmer, has been having trouble keeping his herd alive. “This land seems poisoned somehow.”

Fergus remembers the midwife talking about a bad prophecy when Íonait was born. Still, he does take her to the pub for her birthday drink. Ardal’s dead wife was the midwife, and she was well steeped in the old ways. They all know that story in town, and they might just remember it…

Commentary

That is quite the birth defect. Nice that it comes in handy once in a while. 

“The clawed child. Sent to test out faith!” What is it with quaint little town and their prophecies of doom? On the other hand, sometimes they’re right.

This is really well done and couldn’t be more Irish if it tried.  Excellent!

2025 Over the River and Through the Woods

• Directed by: Graham Burrell
• Written by: Graham Burrell
• Stars: R.J. Pennington, Daphne Dennis, Camille Ladendorf
• Run Time: 15 Minutes
• Watch it: (Not Yet- Still on the festival circuit!)

What Happens

Young Dee wakes up and sees something nasty coming into her room one night. Credits roll. 

Cut to years later, and Dee is visiting again having dinner. Grandma drinks a toast to her grandfather and introduces grown-up Dee to her new boyfriend, Harold. He’s a lot younger than Dee’s grandfather, which weirds her out. Actually, he’s Dee’s age. 

He’s… weird. How weird is he?

Commentary

Do. Not. Grow. Old!!!

This is every awkward dinner with family; it’s easy to relate to Dee and her discomfort with Grandma’s sex life. This is well shot and really looks good; the acting is perfect for the situation as well. Is Harold a gold-digger, or is there something more going on here? You know, there is more to it than that. We both really liked this one.

2011 Spoiler

• Directed by: Daniel Thron

• Written by: Daniel Thron

• Stars:  Luke Albright, Margaret Bright-Ryan, David C. Bryant

• Run Time: 18 Minutes

• Watch it: https://youtu.be/7MgVcDu7ptc

What Happens

An alarm goes off, and the sirens go off. Everyone in the apartment building is on lockdown. Everyone is either annoyed or terrified. 

There are three “possibles” in containment as the experts walk to the holding area. They look at the death certificates, but they aren’t dead yet. The doctor refuses to sign them. He goes in to talk to one of “them.” He’s not just a doctor, he’s the coroner. Are we sure these people aren’t dead?

If they aren’t now, they soon will be…

Commentary

It’s a well-organized zombie apocalypse where everyone obeys the rules and doesn’t make any exceptions. It’s a short-lived zombie non-apocalypse. They’ve all seen this before, and they all know how it goes. 

It’s a tense situation shown from the coroner’s point of view, and he only knows what he sees, which is also only what we see. 

It’s really well done.

2023 Home

• Directed by: Jae-hee Jeong

• Written by: Jae-hee Jeong

• Stars:  Young-ji Jo, Yang Mal-bok

• Run Time: 13 Minutes

• Watch it: https://youtu.be/95md-wxGZQs

What Happens

A young woman watches as her mother dies on the floor and screams at her own inability to save her.  

Later, as she goes through her mother’s belongings, she starts to experience odd things; memories of her mother calling for help with a buzzer. That damned buzzer, over and over. “It will kill me someday,” she says in terror. Her mother had dementia or something and was always imagining a monster. “You will kill me,” she adds. 

What really happened here? Why does the mother’s buzzer keep going off long after the woman is dead?

Commentary

It’s a very weird ghost story that we don’t understand until the end. 

It’s very dark, even in rooms that are supposed to be lit. Actually, it was dark enough that I had trouble seeing what was going on, even when I was supposed to know what was happening. On a second viewing, I think I figured out what was going on, but it wasn’t super clear at first.

2022 Searchers

• Directed by: Isaac Ruth

• Written by: Isaac Ruth

• Stars: Michelle Lukiman, Christine Renaud, Ash Yap

• Run Time: 12:36

• Watch it: https://youtu.be/AK5zBBZI5XM

What Happens

A woman wakes up from a nightmare of bones. She’s asked to search for a missing six-year-old, and she tells her contact, “This is the last time.”

Liv drives out to Salton Sea, a mostly dead community in the desert. She goes to see the girl’s mother, who is evasive and paranoid about her kidnapped daughter. She tells the story about finding that her daughter was missing one night. 

It wasn’t the garden-variety kidnapper. It’s also not just one missing kid– it’s six, just this year…

Commentary

It’s one of those “what’s really going on here” type of stories, well acted and well shot. The locations and scenery here are really good. There’s no resolution to the story, and we’re left with a couple of mysteries. The director calls it a “Proof of concept” film, and I’m intrigued, but it’s not a story in itself. I’d totally watch a feature-length film expanding on this. 

2023 Eyestring

• Directed by: Javier Devitt

• Written by: Alena Chinault, Javier Devitt

• Stars:  Jeannie Bolet, Alena Chinault, Erin Grant

• Run Time: 8 Minutes

• Watch it: https://youtu.be/m72u42RB4M8

What Happens

Veronica talks on the phone, and the phone-in therapist on the other end talks about balance and her getting out more. As she talks, she starts to pull a little hair out of her eye. Except the hair pulls and pulls… Credits roll. 

She’s out driving now, and the eye-hair is hanging down the side of her face. She calls her “concierge” from earlier, but she can’t talk to the same guy from earlier– the “therapists” are all assigned randomly. 

She decides to go to the store and pick up some “eye care products,” including scissors… 

Commentary

Wait– people actually call those phone-therapy lines? 

Ew. Nothing’s worse than stuff in your eye. Except maybe something coming out of your eye. 

It’s well shot and well acted. None of this goes the way you’d expect, which is the best part!

2023 The Fisherman’s Wife

• Directed by: Jared Watson

• Written by: Jared Watson

• Stars:  Kelsey Carthew, Cairlin Riley, T. Ryder Smith

• Run Time: 8:11

• Watch it: https://youtu.be/QSkh4RcXh8U

What Happens

A fisherman wanders the deserted beach, scrounging for whatever he can find, which is mostly garbage. He continues on with his futile search until he sees a woman lying in the sand. No, not a woman– a mermaid caught in a net!

He carries her home, but she’s gasping and having difficulty breathing. He boils water in a pot and then pulls out the butcher’s knife… No, it’s not what it looks like. Is it?

Commentary

This is one messed-up family. 

It’s all very dark and depressing, lonely and filthy. It’s post-apocalyptic even, but it’s still hilarious in its weirdness. It’s very ponderous and slow-moving, and that just adds to the oddball charm here. 

It’s very cool!