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.

GENESIS

Genesis
Written & Directed by Nacho Cerda
1998, Spain

Director/screenwriter Cerda followed his gruesome, uncompromising and controversial short film Aftermath (1994) with another striking piece of work highlighted by the performance of Aftermath lead actor Pep Tosar and the visual style of the great Spanish cinematographer Xavi Gimenez.

Genesis, a story of shattering loss influenced by the Pygmalion story in Greek mythology, was nominated for a Spanish Goya award in 1999.

Cerda went on to co-write and direct the disappointing horror feature The Abandoned in 2006 and is currently in development on a film adaptation of the World War II-set horror graphic novel I Am Legion.

Genesis is available on DVD from Unearthed Films, packaged with Aftermath.

EL CICLO

El Ciclo
Written & Directed by Victor Garcia
2003, Spain

Accomplished special effects technician turned director/screenwriter Garcia makes a very strong debut with this award-winning, mind-bending short film.

Chilean director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s 2012 ABCs of Death segment “C is for Cycle” and Dutch director Maarten Groen’s 2014 horror short film Rotor both tackle a narrative similar to Garcia’s but if you want to see the concept done right, look no further than El Ciclo.

The film industry attention Garcia received for this short film led to largely thankless jobs directing Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007), Mirrors 2 (2010), the Syfy Channel movie Frost Giant (2010) and Hellraiser: Revelations (2011).  His most recent feature is the 2013 supernatural horror film The Damned.

Garcia made another excellent short film T is for Tiles for the ABCs of Death competition in 2011.

DRAG

DRAG
Written & Directed by Mark Pavia
1993, USA

Much has been written about how Stephen King was very impressed by Pavia’s zombie short film which led to Pavia co-screenwriting and directing the film adaptation of King’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker-influenced short story The Night Flier (1997).

The talented Pavia has since had difficulty launching another feature film but that is not for lack of effort as the screenwriter/director has made it into various stages of development on horror projects including Slice, an adaptation of the acclaimed zombie comic book series Deadworld and a 1980s-style killer Santa Claus film Sick Nick to name a few.

Pavia has recently announced he’s working on an anthology film based on four Stephen King short stories called The Reaper’s Image and is currently in production on a new horror film called Fender Bender.