Blood in the Snow (BITS) film festival, the biggest celebration of Canadian horror, is back with a fresh slate of northern chills! BITS 2019 takes placefrom November 21 to 26 at the Royal Cinema in Toronto. With six nights of the best horror fare in the nation — including feature films, shorts, webseries, and the […]
Director Freddy Chávez Olmos’ new Canadian fear-fare short film Duérmete Niño makes its online debut this week, just in time for Halloween. I have had the pleasure to watch it in advance, and can recommend it as a bizarre, beautifully shot chiller with skin-crawling moments. Read more from the official press release following, watch the […]
If you subscribe to the notion that full moons can affect human behavior, just wait until you see what happens when the titular phenomenon occurs in eerie Canadian short film Red Moon (2019). The film, which won the Best Short award at this month’s H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, stretches beyond what are usually considered common […]
The Mexican horror short 9:40 plays like a classic episode of The Twilight Zone with a climax on steroids. The story may feel a bit familiar, and many genre film fans might well guess where it is headed, but writer/director Jorge Morrell and his cast and crew make the ride an intriguing one, nevertheless. Kristyan […]
Writer/director Mia Kate Russell explores the potential terrors of inaction in her Australian short film Maggie May, which offers up some of the most disturbing horrific images in recent memory, both onscreen and offscreen. Something is dreadfully wrong with Maggie (Lulu McClatchy of the 2012 features Crawlspace and 6 Plots), and though her relatives and […]
Canadian director Kyle Martellacci is a prolific director of terrific horror shorts that tackle myriad subgenres and nail each one. He turns in what I feel is some of his finest work in his latest effort from Red Razor Pictures, supernatural shocker She Must Vanish. Martellaci wrote, directed, edited, shot, and produced She Must Vanish, […]
The Dutch short film The Burden (Het Juk) proves that the classic set-ups of a creepy backstory and a flashlight beam slowly moving around a dark attic are still effective horror cinema elements. Writer/director Nico van den Brink’s 15-minute chiller offers up a superb terror tale that keeps viewers guessing. Ciska (Hanna van Vliet) is […]
Director Ian Hunt Duffy, working from a screenplay by Darach McGarrigle, examines the mysterious, dark relationship between a father and his young son during a rite-of-passage boat excursion in the Irish horror short Low Tide. The result is an eerie, enigmatic effort that offers both visceral sequences as well as a sense of dread. Dad […]
With Residual, French writer/director Damien Kazan has crafted a taut 14-minute chiller that combines a classic slasher film chase sequence with a bit of the supernatural. The result is a nifty short chock full of striking images and nail-biting moments. Sam Cavalier stars as Jay, a young woman preparing for an evening out on Halloween […]
A lone office worker finds himself dealing with mysterious machines in the U.K. horror short The Third Hand. Prolific actor Tom Bonington, who fright fare fans may recognize from such films as The ABCs of Death 2 (2014) and A Haunting at the Rectory (2015), plays the worker, who watches snowy television and buys a […]
An abused little boy retreats to a fantasy world in writer/director Davide Melini’s U.K. short horror film Lion, but his violent, drunkard father and intimidated mother (Tania Mercader as Amanda) come face to face with a harsh reality. Lion is still on its film festival run, and has claimed more than 263 awards so far, […]
When a film kicks off with a cold open of an injured man (Day, played by Theeradej Wongpuapen) groggily waking up in an empty swimming pool — six meters deep, with no ladder — being attacked by a huge crocodile, it has my attention. Thai survival horror/thriller The Pool is heavy on the suspense, if […]
Arrow Video FrightFest Glasgow featured three films highlighted by powerful, mysterious female characters for its March 2nd screenings. These films ranged from subtle and understated to violent and gory. The Rusalka (AKA The Siren) Writer/director Perry Blackshear’s The Rusalka (retitled The Siren for its U.K. release), his follow-up to his terrific debut They Look Like […]
Arrow Video FrightFest Glasgow offered up horror, comedy, and deadly serious dystopian drama with its Friday, March 1st screenings. Besides the world premiere of the terrific British indie shocker Here Comes Hell, this reviewer also had the opportunity to watch the American metalheads vs. giant ants movie Dead Ant (retitled Giant Killer Ants for its […]
Black-and-white independent U.K. feature Here Comes Hell starts off as a British comedy of manners mashed up with classic old dark house elements before suddenly rocketing into full-on horror territory. First-time director Jack McHenry and his cast and crew serve up a fun, frenetic helping of supernatural chaos. George Walker, Jr., (Tom Bailey), son of […]