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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
After androgynous high school student Cassie (Bianca Sanchez) is bullied by a quartet of mean-girl classmates in a campus bathroom, her mother (Melissa Connell) calls upon satanic forces to seek revenge in writer/director Aaron Immediato’s Bathroom Troll. This short film pays homage to Brian De Palma’s 1976 screen version of Stephen King’s Carrie while giving […]
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 […]
Nocturne, the latest short film from writer/director Michael Trainotti, is a superb effort that takes the “Don’t open the door to strangers” motif to terrifying extremes. Erin (Sabrina Howells, who has appeared in previous Trainotti short films Beneath the Surface [2017] and One Dark Night [2018]) has just had a rough night arguing on a […]
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, […]