“Grammy” (2015): A Little Girl Learns the Hard Way That Grandmother Knows Best

Jill Gevargizian’s micro short film Grammy is a fun, quick slice of horror with humor. Although it runs only about a minute and a half, including credits, it shows off a great deal of filmmaking expertise and a very nice makeup effect.

A young girl (Hala Finley) has spent the night at her grandmother’s home, and as the short opens, she has woken up a bit hungry and is calling for her Grammy (Marilyn Hall). Grammy asks her to wait, but curiosity about what her grandmother is up to gets to the little girl, which leads to a big fright to her little heart.

Jill Gevargizian, who cowrote the screenplay with Jill Towerman, shows off the helming talent she first displayed in Call Girl (reviewed here at Gruesome Magazine) in a more compact form. She keeps things running tight, lean, and mean, which is exactly what shorts of this running time and type call for. Hala Finley is adorable in her role as the granddaughter, and Marilyn Hall obviously has a good time as the title character. Director of photography Christopher Commons captures the proceedings impressively, and Nicholas Elert’s score sets the aural mood quite nicely. Grammy’s big reveal relies heavily on Colleen May’s special effects makeup, and she delivers in a huge way.

With Grammy, Jill Gevargizian (http://jillsixx.blogspot.com/) adds an amusing entry into the vaunted tradition of brief horror shorts that work toward a punchline or scary payoff. I won’t spoil that payoff here; you can see the short for yourself online thanks to Crypt TV’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CryptTV/videos/1694705007436709/.

Grammy: (4 / 5)

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry fell in love with horror films as a preschooler when he first saw the Gill-Man swim across the TV screen in "The Creature from The Black Lagoon" and Mothra battle Godzilla in "Godzilla Vs. The Thing.” His education in fright fare continued with TV series such as "The Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits," along with legendary northern California horror host Bob Wilkins’ "Creature Features." His love for silver age and golden age comic books, including horror titles from Gold Key, Dell, and Marvel started around age 5.

He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Horror Fuel, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right.

A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.