First, let’s set aside that old movie fan trope about the novel being better than the book, or vice versa, that gets dusted off every time the “Based on a Novel by Stephen King” card gets flashed in the opening credits. It may be a fun way to pass the time waiting for the next […]
Director Zoe Dobson’s U.K. horror short The Cunning Man is an eerie folk horror outing. Though animal cadavers are part of the story, which may potentially disturb some viewers, they are ultimaely used for a positive reason and toward charming effect. Afran Harries (Simon Armstrong) collects dead animals in the Welsh countryside. A knackerman (Ali […]
The idea, at least on paper, is terrifying. A woman, Marla Mae (Lisa van Dam-Bates), who has always wanted an IUD (intrauterine device) but for some reason has never gone to a clinic or seen a doctor, decides to let an old friend whose nickname is “Doc.” but who seems to have no other credentials, […]
Few things in horror films beat that cathartic moment of a good comeuppance to a villain, and few are more disturbing than an innocent person falling into a dangerous situation when they merely tried to help someone. The latter of these cases is the situation for the protagonist in director Ryan Gaff’s short film Black […]
Right in time for Halloween, writer/director/editor Heidi Lee Douglas’ Australian gothic thriller short Little Lamb has just been launched via Omeleto, the home of award winning shorts. You can watch it here! I reviewed Little Lamb for Gruesome Magazine‘s Super Scary Shorts Saturday during the film’s festival run, giving it the highest possible rating of five […]
It must have sounded great in the pitch meeting: It’s about an app you download to your phone that tells you how long you have to live. For most people it’s good news — “I’m gonna live to be 98!” – but one girl finds out she’s going to die in 2 days and so […]
Writer/director Ryan Oksenberg balances the macabre and the meditative, the ghoulish and the gorgeous, and the pensive and the putrid in his beautifully shot horror short Together. Characters suffering from damaged souls and physical sickness find themselves in close quarters with one another, and the result is an intriguing, contemplative work. Arielle Hader (of Recovery […]
Oregon-based indepenedent filmmaker Ross Williams has announced that his latest short, Luna, will have its online premiere on October 25 after an award-winning festival run. “Luna is a unique twist on the ghost girl genre; you know, the films about creepy girls, with white faces, long dark hair, and old dresses,” said Williams. “I’ve taken […]
It’s easy to see why a horror movie maker might want to set his story in a carnival haunted house: The jump scares come virtually prepackaged. If it’s a gag in the house designed to scare visitors in the film then it can also be used to scare the movie audience. As experience will tell […]
Directed by Jeff Broadstreet, as Roy G. Biv., Devil’s Junction: Handy Dandy’s Revenge is the latest killer puppet flick to hit the horror-scene. The director listed under a pseudonym should have been a red flag for what I was about to see, but I went in with bloody-colored glasses. Watching low-budget horror movies you expect […]
Sequels can be such a crapshoot. The good ones take a story you already love and advance it in new and interesting ways. The bad ones simply rehash the original in unoriginal ways, leaving the audience cheated of both their money and their memories of what made the first movie so good. Although there are […]
Seclusion in snowy climes is often a fine springboard for horror movies, with The Abominable Snowman (1957), The Shining (1980), and this year’s The Lodge springing to mind. Writer/director Can Türedi places the protagonist of his new short film Glass Cabin in just such an environment, and the result is a fine slice of psychological […]
Directed by Maria Lee Metheringham, Pumpkins is a fun little movie. It’s not very scary, mind you, but there’s something special about it, something in the DIY ethics you feel in every frame, that makes you want to root for it despite its shortcomings. Set in the pasturelands of the north of England, Pumpkins tells […]
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 […]
Maybe if it had a different title such as “Smile” or “The Tears of a Clown” and the main character that wasn’t tied in, however clumsily, with the DC Universe then director Todd Phillips and actor Joaquin Phoenix might have made something special with their tale of a troubled soul’s descent into madness. Because Joker […]