The first film from Newfoundland selected in the history of Canada’s Blood in the Snow Film Festival, New Woman is a remarkable gothic horror short. It is absolutely drenched in atmosphere. The gorgeous exterior shots and wonderfully detailed interior shots belie the film’s modest budget, and the horror is of the classic, slow-reveal kind. In […]
Caper movie meets horror story in the Canadian short film The Remnant when a group of con artists try to pull one over on an elderly lady. Director Navin Ramaswaran serves up a thrilling supernatural tale that is an absolute blast to watch unfold. Sheila Hargrave (Jill Frappier) lives alone in a large, well-appointed home. […]
Horror shorts and feature films that hearken back to the 1980s heyday of theater releases and straight-to-video in the fright fare genre have been plentiful for the past few years, with the quality ranging from incredible to practically unwatchable, and the nods ranging from homage to pastiche to unoriginal aping. Writer/director Rich Ragsdale’s new short […]
Writer/director Brian Shephard delivers good old-fashioned creepiness in his debut short film, Terror Road. Recalling 1980s horror movies and such television favorites as Monsters and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, the short is both a fun throwback film for adults and a fine “introduction to horror” work for younger audiences. This two-hander sees wife […]
When I reviewed the gothic dark fantasy Kiss the Devil in the Dark for Gruesome Magazine‘s Super Scary Shorts Saturday last year during the film’s award-winning film festival run, I called it “an eye-popping visual feast that blends a dark Faustian fantasy with shades of classic Hammer Film Productions and Eurohorror vibes.” Now fright-fare fans […]
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 […]