Short Movie Roundup 16 April 2023

Changeling

Director: Marie Clare Cushinan & Ryan O’Neill

A moody and disturbing dive into poverty, starvation and the loss of a child during potato blight in Ireland. A young couple struggle to survive during a famine but once their young child dies the mother goes into a psychosis believing her child will return as a changeling.

It feels a bit lengthy for the amount of story it tells, but it stays faithful to an overbearing melancholy atmosphere and incorporates some brilliant effects in terms of the changeling itself. Very interesting work overall.

Short Movie Roundup 24 July 2022

Short Movie Roundup 24 July 2022

The Artist

A delightful student project from Tyler Buss that hits on all the typical horror elements such as dramatic noises, a torture artist and creepy cellphone pictures.

An artist and his friend are awaiting the arrival of a patron, a notable collector of art who chooses a quiet hour to visit and view his commission. but are instead visited by an eternally creepy entity.

It’s not all horror and gore, there is a deep philosophical conversation about the artist separating themselves from the world and their art, unexpected but shows a level of flexibility and character for a young director.

Without a budget, traine actors and special effects this is still a superb effort, not exactly a master class in art but a perfect beginning for Tyler if he chooses to carry on making horror stories with sharp twisted endings.

Short Movie Roundup 13 February 2022

She Lives Alone

Lucy Rose’s traumatizing dark fantasy film is on par with Hagasuzza at times with tormented characters roaming around a hauntedly shifty world of spirits and repressed memories. Maud’s domineering mother has passed but faced with freedom the young woman is faced with a dark entity in her home, at first stealing her prayer beads, the encounters become more ferocious.

With an unsettling mic of music from Die Hexen and perfect costumes from Maddy Williamson, Rachel Teate is cast deep into a historic where the unknown comes knocking all too frequently. Rose uses a few surreal shots to highlight Mauds frightening experiences but otherwise her world is just one massive supernatural trip, at one point, after a prophetic dream, Maud attempts to end the matter with a bizarre bloody ritual which has devastating results.

Short Movie Roundup 30 January 2022

The House Abandon

This movie brought back a lot of nostalgia for me, a young boy is playing one of those retro option games on his computer, the computer flashes up a situation “you see an old creepy house” the boy types “I enter the home”.. If you’re as old as me you’ll want to plug in your commodore 64 and wait 3 hours for it to load a game. Unfortunately in this vaporwave tech bedroom his choices seem to have a bearing on his own real home and his safety is in question when someone enters his home. It’s an ingenious blend of reality and game clashing together, something that outdoes all of Tron, from pionering director Clint D’Souza.

Short Movie Roundup 23 January 2022

Short Movie Roundup 23 January 2022

The Ghost

Everything about Sueng-Hyeun Lim’s creepy short is aimed to really scare the audience. A young mortuary cosmetologist, Mi-young, who makes a few extra bucks by pulling gold teeth and robbing corpses, but when an unidentified body is brought in, he really starts paying out when Mi-young finds a diamond in his butt, after rifling around in his sphincter she ends up with a bag of diamonds, before she can celebrate it seems the dead want their belongings back. Sueng-Hyeun Lim seems to be influenced by the comedic side of Miike as he conjures a ghostly story that feels like a chapter of The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

Best Short Films 2021

It’s that time of the year again!! I have been a bit lazy with keeping the short roundups being posted on time as I had a lot of arting to do with an exhibition then with ill health and a few household “things” time got away with me.. BUT here’s the ultimate round up for the year.. Lets see what made the top list of movies i covers d in 2021!!

I am Become Death

I assume this is based on Oppenheimer and his famous speech after seeing the devastation of the Atom Bomb. but what Tom Potter does with this very short piece is to give a deeper insight into the blood thirsty post bomb 1950’s America, a world that lived in peace only due to utter fear. You can literally hear how broken Oppenheimer’s is for what has been created and how he fears it will be used this is a window into that dark thought.

Short Movie Roundup 09 January 2022

Theourgia

The story of creation, of the Garden of Eden and the fiery Hell of revelations are, as old as the hills, and while Jorge Jaramillo has used these themes in his disturbing horror, you can’t deny that he’s given them a new sickly edge in a twisted universe.

Short Movie Roundup 15 August 2021

So after a couple of weeks of neglect I’m back on board with the blog. The negative and vile feedback from Twitter has been processed and I’m dealing with that and moving on, so here’s a handful of interesting short movies and videos that I found interesting from the week.

Nightingale

Jasper de Bruin’s slow burning thriller follows the night shift of an enigmatic nurse who’s elderly patients are on critical care, and some aren’t expected to make it through the night, however her stalker has reason to believe the passing of the patients might not be that natural and will the overworked nurse be able to make it till dawn? heavy overtones of let the right one in along with an overbearing sense of doom in this chilling horror.

Short Movie Roundup 18 April 2021

Dead Packet

A jaded film actor challenges an ancient Chinese Demon in this comedic short film. Starring the legendary Richard Ng, the film was shot over 2 days in Hong Kong by Simon Yin.

Incorporating a lot of popular Asian folklore and pop culture the movie is quite brilliant in it’s delivery of a slightly obvious but well crafted story. There’s a lot of different filming styles combined together as the movie jumps into a found footage style from time to time as it follows a lively youngster who’s actively studying the ventran actor on his 444th dead scene. Luckily the aged actor is generally pissed off at the annoying kid following him and all the interruptions and begins to make a point that folklore is nonsense and begins to act up.

It’s a classic story of someone who challenges the unknown, and is surprised when it bites back. WIthout the laughs it does have a creepy edge but it’s hardly horror.

Short Movie Roundup 4 April 2021

The Stranger – Christmas Horror Short

A woman returning home to visit her mother for christmas after running out years ago discovers that she has a sister? She never had one before but alas there’s a blond bombshell living in her mothers home. Struggling to bond with her mother and work out where this stranger has come from the movie becomes bizarre and the poignant metaphors blend in. Is the stranger a crazy stranger who can hypnotise others and create fake memories within others or is she something else, life without the runaway daughter, a coping mechanism. AN entity created by the void of a missing daughter? You decide as you plunge into Katherine Postman’s intelligent well crafted short film.

Alone

A woman settling in for a night on her own finds herself hunted by a demonic force throughout her nighty intended for peace and relaxation. this well shot short movie from Kevin Harvey. has a lot of promise but for me not enough happens to keep the interest. It’s admirable that an almost silent movie can have this much character but, for me it just needed a little more oomph, maybe next time?