By BRYAN CHRISTOPHER
Welcome back to another installment of Short Cuts! Before we get to the shorts for this month, our friends over at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival have announced that they are partnering with Super Channel to produce a virtual festival highlighting Canadian horror features and shorts through Super’s Fuse channel from October 28th-November 7th.
“This will be a great chance to turn Super Channel into an old-style horror show during the Halloween season!”, says Kelly Michael Stewart, Festival Director and Founder of Blood in the Snow. “We are going to do everything we can to bring the spooky spirit you would experience in person at BITS to fans watching from home.” In addition to exclusive Canadian film premieres, the virtual film festival experience will include pre-recorded film intros, Q&A’s with filmmakers and a post-festival awards show. For more information, and to submit your film for consideration, check out Blood in the Snow’s website.
Now on to the shorts! As always, if you or anyone you know have a short film you’d like me to consider or if you’ve got some news you’d like to share in the short horror world, please contact me via Twitter or email me at remedialhorror@gmail.com!
Kisses (2017)
Length: 4 minutes Director: Sean U’Ren Starring: Talen Farland, Cole Russo, Deanna Mustard, Ana Corbi
Toxic masculinity so heartbreaking to watch in action, especially when you consider it’s learned at a very young age. Sean U’Ren’s short about an adolescent boy with a very skewed perspective on sex packs something of a one-two punch. You’re aggravated to see him spew some really vile opinions about women while he’s talking to a friend early in the short, but then you catch just enough of a glimpse of how young and vulnerable he is just before shit hits the fan by way of a mysterious mannequin head he finds in an alley near his house. It makes what happens next all the more tragic, even if he does kind of have it coming.
Where you can find it: Making the festival rounds. Watch the trailer here
Make a Wish (2020)
Length: 8 minutes Director: Dinh Thai Starring: Edward Hong, Josephine Chang, Roman Moretti
I’ll admit, I was a little apprehensive in the first half of Dinh Thai’s horror comedy about a man who comes home to find his girlfriend has a “special” birthday present waiting for him. I was fully expecting the short to commit to the “women be crazy” trope that filmmakers usually leverage for an easy laugh, but as the proceedings built to their climax I was thrilled by the way Thai pivoted into something unexpected and disturbing, but also kind of fun and empowering. It’s got that perfect blend of dark and sweet that reminds me of Tragedy Girls in the best possible way.
Where you can find it: Making the festival rounds. Watch the trailer here
Sins of the Father (2020)
Length: 10 minutes Director: Peter Mckeirnon Starring: Neil Gallagher
Last year I sang the praises of director Peter Mckeirnon’s short The Dog Walker, both for the film’s creativity and the fact that they made it for the equivalent of about sixty bucks. Sins of the Father looks be a great addition to their upcoming anthology, The Micro Killers, as Mckeirnon takes things in a different direction to eschew dark comedy for more straightforward eeriness. In this case, a man of the cloth wakes up in a cemetery, seemingly with no idea how he got there and no way to escape as every time he reaches the cemetery’s gate he wakes up back in the same spot where he started. It’s a freaky little film that makes me more excited to see the range the full anthology will have once it’s released.
Where you can find it: Planned to be part of the anthology The Micro Killers. Watch the trailer here
