Month: November 2015

AUTUMN HARVEST

Autumn Harvest
Directed by Fredrik S. Hana
Written by Fredrik S. Hana & Marius Lunde
2014, Norway

A suicidal sailor finds a grim new reason to live in this very ambitious and superb black & white slice of Lovecraftian horror.

Hana previously made the serial killer short film Angst, Piss & Drid in 2013 and is currently on a very successful festival run with his latest horror short called Sister Hell.

Angst, Piss & Drid has its admirers, which I don’t count myself among, but Autumn Harvest instantly establishes Hana as a talent to watch very closely.

 

GOOD NIGHT

GOOD NIGHT
Written & Directed by Peter Czikrai
2013, Slovakia

A rented room and the pursuit of a mysterious black bag combine for hellish consequences in director Czikrai’s first horror short film.

Good Night adopts a much more slow-burn pace than his other two excellent apocalyptic horror shorts M is for Malnutrition and A….

As you’ll see in these three short films, Czikrai is a very talented filmmaker who deserves much more attention.

 

THE LAST HALLOWEEN

The Last Halloween
Directed by Marc Roussel
Written by Marc Roussel & Mark Thibodeau
2013, Canada

A group of costumed children go door to door in a ruined neighborhood carrying bags of candy and some dark secrets in The Last Halloween.

This excellent apocalyptic short film that had a very successful festival run shows both the external and internal devastation caused by the end of the world.

Filmmaker Roussel had previously made the award-winning 2010 horror short Remote but The Last Halloween is a more accomplished and effective piece of work that also happens to feature the welcome presence of Canadian character actor Julian Richings.

In the massive and ever-growing world of horror shorts, a film has to be unique to stand out and The Last Halloween is definitively unique.

THE STORM

The Storm
Written & Directed by Andre LeBlanc
2013, USA

It is not uncommon for a horror short film to play like the opening scene of a feature film.

This is the case with great horror shorts like Pedro Cristiani’s Deus Irae, Dante Vescio & Rodrigo Gasparini’s M is for Mailbox and Can Evrenol’s Baskin among others.

However, it is very unusual for a horror short to play like the first scene of the last third of a feature film like The Storm does.

Made by highly accomplished visual effects artist LeBlanc, this film is an ambitious take on the “Arctic horror” subgenre occupied by such feature films as all three versions of The Thing, Yim Pil-Sung’s Antarctic Journal (2005) and Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter (2006).

The filmmaker is currently in post-production on another science fiction-oriented horror short called They Watch.

PERISHED

Perished
Written & Directed by Aaron McCann & Stefan Androv Radanovich
2011, Australia

This accomplished piece of apocalyptic cinema is obviously not for any readers suffering from zombie burnout.

For those readers not afflicted with that particular cinematic condition, you are in for an intense and very well made look at one man’s struggle with the end of the world as he knows it.

Perished has shades of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and that is intended as a very strong compliment.

I’M DEAD

I’m Dead
Written & Directed by Francesco Picone
2012, Italy

Also know as Io Sono Morta, I’m Dead is a superb example of the “sleeping giant awakens” story you see in other acclaimed horror short films such as Mariano Baino’s Caruncula and Josh MacDonald’s Game but Picone does it better here.

In 2015, Picone completed a zombie feature film called Age of the Dead based on his short Anger of the Dead and also made the horror short Martyn in 2013 but I’m Dead remains his most accomplished short form work to date.

8

8
Written and Directed by Raul Cerezo
2011, Spain

In the world of dark magic, rituals must be performed according to strict rules. If those rules are not followed to the letter, the events of 8 might be the result.

A film that would have been very at home as an episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller or Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, this short would put a smile on the faces of the late, great horror writers Robert Bloch, Fredric Brown and Richard Matheson.

BEATING HEARTS

Beating Hearts
Written & Directed by Matthew Garrett
2010, USA

Garrett creates a disturbing take on the “killer kids” subgenre with Beating Hearts, a short film you are not likely to forget any time soon.

This film can also be seen as an outstanding entry in the world of the domestic horror film occupied by other great short films such as Douglas Buck’s Prologue and Brandon LaGanke’s Play House.

Garrett previously made the excellent short film Ellie which he later incorporated into his superb anthology feature film Morris County which is available from Unearthed Films.

The filmmaker is also the curator of the Vivisections Horror Short Films program at the Mausoleum of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.