Month: November 2015

TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER

To My Mother and Father
Written & Directed by Can Evrenol
2010, UK

Turkish filmmaker Evrenol creates an unforgettable nightmare on film with To My Mother and Father.

Evernol is a director whose progress can be easily charted through his short films Screws, Sandik, My Grandmother and now To My Mother and Father as each one is a substantial improvement over the last.

Evrenol made an outstanding horror short called Baskin, which he made into a feature film of the same name that is currently in the midst of a very successful festival run.

Watch Baskin here on The Brief Macabre.

NO WAY OUT

No Way Out
Directed by Kristofer Aaron Morgan
Written by Kristofer Aaron Morgan & Eric Vespe
2011, USA

Morgan and Vespe previously collaborated on the action-oriented horror short film Blind (2004) and show leaps and bounds of growth with No Way Out, a nightmarish short that’s much better in every way than Blind.

Morgan and Vespe are currently working on their horror feature The Home.

T IS FOR TILES

T Is For Tiles
Written & Directed by Victor Garcia
2011, Spain

After years of toiling on feature film sequels and a Syfy Channel movie in the wake of his critically acclaimed short film El Ciclo, Garcia wrote and directed this excellent short film for the ABCs of Death competition that was created to find an entry for the “T” section of the film.

Lee Hardcastle’s claymation short T is for Tiolet won the competition and was included in the film but Garcia’s short is vastly superior to Hardcastle’s well-animated but ultimately juvenile piece.

INCUBATOR

Incubator
Written & Directed by Jimmy Weber
2011, USA

Director/screenwriter Weber delivers a huge improvement over his previous horror short The Gatekeeper (2010) in this take on the well-known “kidney donor” urban legend.

Incubator can be seen as the type of short film that plays like the first scene of a feature film as in the case of Deus Irae or a self-contained piece that would make a great double feature paired with David Alcalde’s El Ciclo.

Weber went on to make the horror feature Eat in 2014.

BURN

Burn
Written & Directed by Jerry Pyle
2011, USA

Director/screenwriter Pyle makes a very strong debut that channels the brutal essence of author Jack Ketchum’s best short story work.

Pyle wisely cast the criminally underrated and underutilized actor Tim Abell in the film.

Mostly known for the late 1990s TV series Soldier of Fortune, Inc. and a lengthy resume of direct-to-DVD films, it’s a true mystery why the talented Abell did not show up in a major recurring role on Sons of Anarchy, Justified or any number of other more high-profile projects.

Pyle also directed the psychopath horror short Service and the darkly comic short Trust.

NINJAS

Ninjas
Directed by Dennison Ramalho
Written by Dennison Ramalho & Marco de Castro & Marcelo Velloso
2010, Brazil

Brazilian director of the critically acclaimed short film Love From Mother Only (2003) and co-screenwriter of the Coffin Joe film Embodiment of Evil (2008), Ramalho delivers a brutal and disturbing tale of guilt and corruption.  Not for the squeamish, Ninjas is easily Ramalho’s most accomplished work to date.

Ramalho contributed a segment to The ABCs of Death 2 called “J is for Jesus”-a savage indictment of persecution in the name of religion.

The Hell Within–a Ramalho-helmed horror feature originally announced in late 2010-is currently in pre-production.

DEUS IRAE

Deus Irae
Written & Directed by Pedro Cristiani
2010, Argentina

Deus Irae is the type of short film that comes off as the opening scene of a feature film.  This classification happens to fit very well as director/screenwriter Cristiani intends to make a feature-length version of this ambitious, award-winning short.

Let’s hope he can make that happen because Deus Irae deserves to be a feature film.

While the concept for this particular supernatural short film cries out for a larger budget, Cristiani makes it work with the resources at hand despite leaving the audience a bit short-changed by the lack of a real ending.

Cristiani made another horror short film El Hombre De La Bosa (aka Man in a Bag) in 2010 that, despite being well-made, isn’t as memorable as his short debut Deus Irae.

OFF SEASON

Off Season
Written & Directed by Jonathan van Tulleken
2009, USA

Director/screenwriter van Tulleken delivers a highly atmospheric, suspenseful short film highlighted by the superb cinematography of Ming Kai Leung.

Van Tulleken has primarily focused on comedy since this great horror short but has had two feature films announced, including a feature version of Off Season.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

Happy Birthday To You
Written &  Directed by David Alcalde
2006, Spain

Screenwriter/director Alcalde followed up his ambitious apocalyptic black-and-white short film Dr. Curry (1997) with this superb short about a meeting of individuals with very dark secrets.

Despite his obvious talent and a very successful career directing commercials in Spain, a feature film has eluded Alcalde, who in the past has been connected to the horror films 27 Times (aka The Seeing) and In the Playground-a remake of the 1976 Spanish killer kids classic Who Can Kill a Child?.

Both of these projects fell apart-Who Can Kill a Child? was remade in 2012 as Come Out and Play by another director-but it’s been announced that Alcalde is set to helm an unnecessary remake of the 2006 French home invasion film Ils (aka Them).

DARA

Dara
Written & Directed by Kimo Stamboel & Timo Tjahjanto
2007, Indonesia

This directing/screenwriting duo known as “The Mo Brothers” delivers a demented piece of bloody goodness in their filmmaking debut.

The duo later made a feature film version of Dara called Macabre (2009) and the pair directed a disappointing serial murder horror/suspense thriller feature film called Killers in 2014.

Tjahjanto wrote and directed the incredibly twisted and highly memorable segment “L is for Libido“ for The ABCs of Death (2012) that is one of that anthology film’s true highlights despite a distracting and unnecessary turn toward black comedy.

Tjahtanto returned to the short form very memorably in 2013 with a fabulous segment called “Safe Haven” that he wrote and directed for V/H/S 2.