Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #5

It's been long overdue, but here is #5 of "Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror". To refresh your memory - I do up a couple of my mini-reviews to some mini-movies; short films (horror, arthouse, generally oddball shit...) placed in no particular order or ranking. Some are good, some are total shit. Some old, some brand new. And nothing exceeding 15-minutes in length. There's ten this time, as opposed to last year's eight so ENJOY!

Slash-in-the-Box (2011)

Little generic but well shot short about a guy who scores a vintage jack-in-the-box toy that is haunted by something murderous that lures him and his chick out of bed that night...

Good atmosphere and lighting. Kudos to the crisp production values for an apparent budget of only 2,000 bucks. The premise consists of your basic horror conventions, but works well in this capacity as a 'spooky' short film with a nice gory jolt at the end.

Not bad.

Directed by: Nick Everhart
Runtime: 5 minutes

Forklift Driver Klaus - First Day on the Job (2000)

Was actually going to do this one last time, but somehow it managed to slip my mind. That's fine, cuz it gave me an excuse to watch it again. 

Pretty much everyone's familiar with this German splatter short - chronicling the disastrous first day of a warehouse employee in the 'style' of a corporate training video. A series of deadly accidents take place as a result of Klaus' safety violations, no matter how minor. By the end, limbs are flying, people are cut in half and so on.

Fun stuff. It actually looks like a legit workplace safety video despite the gore, which is cheezy as hell, but laughably entertaining and clever. If you're one of the few who hasn't seen this one, track it down!

Directed by: Jörg Wagner & Stefan Prehn

                                                          Runtime: 10 minutes

Jabberwocky (1971)

aka. Žvahlav aneb šatičky slaměného Huberta - This is definitely one of Jan Švankmajer's strongest, most impressive shorts I have seen. It's based on Lewis Carroll's 1871 poem having to do with the Alice in Wonderland saga and by that I mean it contains the poem read in voice-over at the beginning. The remainder of the film is a cavalcade of surreal stop-motion animation, involving dolls, clothes, knives, furniture, etc - in typically hypnotic Švankmajer fashion.

If 'trippy' animation is your thing, check this out out as well as all of the other Czech film-maker's shorts and features.

Directed by: Jan Švankmajer

Runtime: 14 minutes

Tom Thumb in the Land of the Giants (1999)

This Nick Zedd short plays out like a bizarre movie trailer - showing a kid running around a cemetery - being pursued by figures in gas masks, holding severed limbs. A fiendish voice-over impalpably explains the hellish scenario as it cuts to a one armed guy and ends with the kid crawling in a giant woman's vagina...

"Tom Thumb in the Land of Giants" is quite obviously played for laughs in its absurdity, which makes it a reasonably enjoyable, quick watch. 

Directed by: Nick Zedd

Runtime: 4 minutes

Night Pastor (1998)

This is easily Alex Chandon's least memorable short. It's done in the style of a grindhouse movie trailer for a fictional feature called "Night Pastor", about a gun-toting Las Vegas minister. He jerks off in confessional booths and savagely beats a homeless guy to death before pissing on him...

None of the imagination or creative gore FX of Chandon's other shorts. I got the feeling this one was pretty much slapped together on the fly. Check out "Bad Karma" or even "Chainsaw Scumfuck" for a better (and gorier...) example of his work.

Directed by: Alex Chandon

Runtime: 9 minutes

38/79: Sentimental Punk (1979)

Kren's films are either mildly interesting or downright stupid and "38/79: Sentimental Punk" would be placed in the category of the latter. I have absolutely no idea what this was supposed to be.

All it shows is choppy, fast-motion crowd footage, seemingly looped with no sound at all. I have no idea where it was or what was going on...

I guess some would find it "artistic". I find it to be a typically pretentious piece of 'experimental' shit, courtesy of Kren.

Directed by: Kurt Kren

Runtime: 5 minutes

Sittin' Pretty (1992)

Second part of a two-film animated series that may be the greatest fucking pair of animation shorts ever produced. Baby Elmo and Mr. Olaf first appeared in a fucked up lil' 1989 short, named "Quiet Please", and they return in this slightly more slickly animated toon, "Sittin' Pretty" (not even sure why it's called that...).

Mr. Olaf shows up at the door in drag - disguised as a babysitter - who is left with the adorable infant, Baby Elmo. Olaf immediately shoots the baby in the head and hangs it from a coat rack. He then exclaims, "I'm fuckin' starvin'!" and goes rummaging through the kitchen, only coming up with an endless supply of "fuckin' baby food!". He gets the brilliant idea to chop the dead Baby Elmo up with a machete, grind some of his limbs in a meat grinder and stick the rest in the blender to make his pulverized body into a pie and eat it. The mother comes back, Olaf flees and the mother eats the pie.

Awesome shit! Not as funny as "Quiet Please", but definitely more offensive. I wish Michael Grimshaw had done WAY more of these back in the day. Truly classic. Look for another animated short he did back in the early '90s called "Deep Sympathy", in which a priest fucks a corpse during a funeral. Fantastic!

Directed by: Michael Grimshaw

Runtime: 2 minutes

Honey, I'm Going to Ride My Bicycle (2008)

A guy tells his chick he's going on a bike ride and will be back before dinner. A while later, he comes crawling up the stairs to their apartment with the bicycle seat painfully wedged deep in his anus. His panic-stricken girl tries to pull it out by the bar, but only the bar and a length of his intestines is successfully extracted...

Funny little gross out short, clearly made on a nothing budget and just for a goof. Also, anything involving torn assholes gets my personal stamp of approval.

Directed by: Mirte Eggenkamp & Maarten Prins

Runtime: 5 minutes

Boo (1932)

The best way to describe "Boo" is basically as being the Rifftrax of 1932. 

Some silly-voiced tool does some voice-over narration for "Frankenstein" (1931) and "Nosferatu" (calling it "Dracula"...) that is suppose to be funny. It's not. Maybe for the time it was, but it's incredibly weak, cheesy humor and considerably hard to follow for the most part. The guy talks too fast and his wise cracks and puns rarely make any sense.

Pretty lame...

Directed by: Albert DeMond

Runtime: 9 minutes

Alexia (2013)

Yeah, horror flick about a haunted Facebook page - big whoop. Not my thang, but for 9 minutes of my time and a decent wrap-up I'll give "Alexia" it's dues.

This Spanish short is about a guy who broke up with a girl who ended up killing herself. He keeps tabs on her Facebook and her lovelorn ghost decides to haunt him on her birthday...

It's a well shot little movie and the googly-eyed ghost FX at the end were kinda cool. However, I wasn't too 'into' the - now outdated - "Grudge"-inspired imagery. Still, like I said, for the length and a fairly spooky vibe, it's worth checking out.

Directed by: Andrés Borghi

Runtime: 9 minutes

Thanks for reading. Until next time...

Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #4

 

It's been almost a year, but the Sewer of Short Horror is BACK, bitches! Eight short films (as opposed to the usual seven - I added a bonus), eight mini-reviews and nothing exceeding 15 minutes in length. Short and SA-WEET. Some good ones here. Some typical shit. Some old. Some new. And a few that were directed by Hollywood A-listers. So, skim through 'em and look for the good ones or whatever tickles your fancy.

The Easter Bunny is Eating My Candy (2013)

A little girl goes into her parents' room at night and tells her sleeping mother that the Easter bunny is eating her candy. Mother is sleepy and tells her to go back to bed. On her way back, she sees the sinister rabbit still eating candy at the end of the hall. And it turns out "candy" is the name of her little dog, based on the tags seen in the final shot...

Not much going on in these few minutes in which this short lasts. I feel it would've been a little better if the Easter bunny didn't just look like a guy in a costume, since they give him a demonic voice and some kind of weird, evil sounding language. Seeing his hair sticking out the back of the mask kinda killed the creepiness.

Directed by: Drew Daywalt, David Schneider
Runtime: 2 minutes


Maniac (2011)

Two serial killers run around with a camera crew following them and a goal to kill 8 people, each.

For me, personally, nothing about that premise sounds good. Faux snuff/mockumentaries are something I'm fed up with at this point, but "Maniac" is actually a pretty damn good short film, directed by Shia LaBeouf of all people. In terms of the premise, it's the same thing as "Man Bites Dog" (French language, B & W mock-doc about a murderer), but since "Maniac" is only 10 minutes long and is shot very well and has some well executed kills - such as a shotgun blast to the gut and a molotov cocktail through the open car window of two love-birds - I gotta say, I enjoyed it. Plus, it doesn't feel like a fake documentary, give or take a few moments when the crew is addressed. Any longer than it's runtime and I could've seen this flick getting tiresome, however. People driven to make movies like this should stick with short-film mode. That's the only way to make 'em work, as far as I'm concerned.

Directed by: Shia LaBeouf
Runtime: 10 minutes

Electrocuting an Elephant (1903)

This isn't a very popular one from the 'golden age' of cinema and I can see why.

What you have here is a minute long demonstration - conducted by Thomas Edison - to showcase some of his discoveries in action. So they took an elephant named Topsy that had killed some abusive shitbag trainers (one of which burned the end of her trunk with a cigar). Since killer elephants are not granted a fair trial in our society, Topsy had to be killed. Edison stepped in and figured they'd kill 2 birds with one stone and kill the problem elephant while showing the dangers of alternating current. The result was "Electrocuting an Elephant". They bring Topsy out with wires all over her face and body, smoke rises from her feet before she goes stiff and slumps to the ground.

It's just a very historic and disturbing moment from 100+ years ago captured on film.

Directed by: Thomas A. Edison (?)
Runtime: 1 minute


The House That Dripped Blood on Alex (2010)

This is a pretty funny short starring the guy from "The Room". He plays a guy who moves into a ghetto shithole house that inexplicably drips blood on him no matter where he is.

Unlike "The Room", this is an intentional comedy that is just playing off the guy's terrible acting and quirky on-screen presence. So in that way, I think the cult fan base for "The Room" probably won't get into this, but I found it moderately amusing. The "duck feather" dialog made me chuckle.

Directed by: Brock LaBorde, Jared Richard
Runtime: 13 minutes


I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her From a Meathook and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal with Disney (1993)

Well, this was some boring shit. Some lame Hollywood satire that Ben Affleck directed years ago. It's just about a film director who has his wife suspended from the ceiling by a meathook - although not "Texas Chainsaw"-style, but more of just hooking the rope that's tying her wrists together. He rambles at her for a bit while it keeps cutting awkwardly to a young actress who is gearing up to audition for his latest movie. The second half of this is the audition... Which goes nowhere...

This thing is just pointless and unfunny. Even Affleck has denounced this film as being shitty and has said that he regrets ever making it. I agree with him. It's a cool title, though.

Directed by: Ben Affleck
Runtime: 15 minutes

Game (2013)

This one was alright. I never knew what a 'weremaid' was prior to seeing this 8 and a half minute little movie. It kicks off with a bound and gagged woman running through the woods from a trio of redneck nutjobs. I won't spoil the big 'payoff', but it doesn't turn out to be your average hillbilly psychopath flick.

Pretty good makeup FX and well shot. If ya come across it, give it a look.

Directed by: Josh Macdonald
Runtime: 8 minutes

Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (2011)

This is one of the douchiest things I've ever seen. Comic books are fine, but trying to set up a 3-way brawl with a few of the most iconic horror characters of all time in under 15-minutes isn't going to work. Especially if you have little (to no) talent when it comes to film-making.

Some chick is having Freddy dreams. Then she's on a road trip with a couple of girl friends whose car breaks down. Jason shows up and kills one of this dumb bitches while the other two find a scroll in some kind of boneyard that brings Ash from the "Evil Dead" films through a portal which leads to a showdown between the three of them.

First, Freddy's face is a Halloween mask. It's cheap-ass rubber and the mouth doesn't even move. The guy who plays Ash does a Bruce Campbell impression that might slightly impress me at a party, but it's truly nauseating in this capacity. The fight choreography at the end is also a complete joke and makes for one of the weakest fights in film history. Perhaps I'm just a 'stick in the mud', but I hate these horror fan films. 

Directed by: Trent Duncan
Runtime: 14 minutes


Chainsaw Scumfuck (1988)

I've dug all the other early short stuff of Alex Chandon I have seen, but "Chainsaw Scumfuck" is definitely the worst. Ya gotta give it a pass, though, considering it was his first foray into indie-splatter film-making.

The 'plot' is as basic as you can get: three buddies are hanging out, chit-chatting, when a chainsaw wielding, hunchback psychopath barges in and annihilates them all.

The gore FX are cheezy as hell, of course. The camera is out of focus 99% of the time while the jerky movements make you dizzy. Also, the killer's pillow-stuffed hunchback was fucking hilariously bad! Check this out for a laugh and then go check out Chandon's later and "greater" stuff, like "Bad Karma" and "Drillbit".

Directed by: Alex Chandon
Runtime: 7 minutes

 

Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #3

Once again, a collection of 'mini reviews' for a selection of short horror films I have seen. Brief reviews for brief flicks that do not exceed 15 minutes cuz that's how I roll. There's some good shit here and some shitty shit. You can find most of - if not ALL of these online - so enjoy!

Fist of Jesus (2012)

If you've seen the short film "Brutal Relax", well "Fist of Jesus" is very much in the same vein. Top notch short zombie splatter comedy - coming in at 15 minutes and making each second count. The first few minutes is Christ talking to his disciples when Jacob runs up saying that his son Lazarus has died. Jesus isn't willing to accept this and wants to prove his godly powers by reviving the distraught man's son which kinda backfires and sparks a undead uprising. Zombie Romans, Pharisean zombies and... of course... zombie cowboys! And a big-ass bloodbath ensues, prompting Jesus and Judas to save the day by fighting back with... what else? Fish.

This thing is a well shot Spanish joint. The effects are an enjoyable combination of practical with moderate CGI gore and it's over-the-fuckin-top! Like, "Dead Alive"-esque. And it's goofy as all hell. Speaking as someone who has grown exhausted by the zombie genre over the past few years, "Fist of Jesus" is what I personally want in a zombie flick. Short, to-the-point, gory as fuck and just the right level of tongue-in-cheek. Recommended.

Directed by: Adrián Cardona, David Muñoz
Runtime: 15 minutes

Tufty (2009)

This was a peculiar blend of ridiculously silly and oddly harrowing. "Tufty" is an Irish short that answers the age-old question: where do teddy bears come from? Well, apparently there's a forest in which teddy bear families live peacefully until their dwelling is one day invaded by a hunter who chases them down, puts a bullet in 'em and takes 'em to a professional who removes their organs and replaces them with stuffing so they can be sent off to toy stores.

Yeah, it's a silly concept but the unexpectedly serious tone works well and makes "Tufty" all the more amusing. Also, the puppetry is pretty damn good.

Directed by: Brendan Butler, Jason Butler
Runtime: 8 minutes

The Big Shave (1967)

One of the earliest works from Martin Scorsese. It's an okay little flick showing a guy shaving his face until his face and torso is streaked in blood flow. By the end, he pretty much severes his jugular veins with the razor while a jazz number plays throughout all of the "action".

"The Big Shave" is fine. Clearly a little experiment from Scorsese from way back in the day. I guess there's some timely Vietnam War symbolism behind it, but I'm just basing my opinion on the film at total face value. True film snobs will probably adore this.

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Runtime: 6 minutes

Tub (2010)

Here's a strange one. Once again, another flick with a silly premise that doesn't play it for laughs to the degree that you would expect.

Plot here: A guy can't seem to get any from his old lady so he jerks off in the shower, thus... impregnating his bathtub.

The pacing is good, the effects are enjoyably nasty here and there and the concept had some promise. However, "Tub" was still pretty boring and it just felt too flat and conventional to me. It reminded me of the Alison Maclean short "The Kitchen Sink" - another short in which a drain births a surreal being. I dunno, "Tub" just didn't do much for me.

Directed by: Bobby Miller
Runtime: 12 minutes

Unlocking Charlie (2011)

Charlie is an agoraphobic shut-in who has a serious crush on the neighbor girl. She seems pretty 'into' him too - enough so that she wants to spend New Years with him, though he's too much of a panicky, awkward neurotic to put the moves on her. Unfortunately, his buddy seems determined to swoop in on Charlie's babe. Charlie ends up having a bad nightmare and some hallucinations before the film wraps up with a sweet and touching bit of romance.

"Unlocking Charlies" is a decent little short. Well shot, well acted and had a promising concept. The whole dream sequence didn't really work for me though. It just seemed a little out of place. Still, this one is worth checking out.

Directed by: Stephen Crilly
Runtime: 13 minutes

He Dies At the End (2010)

This is a good one to show your friends. It's really short, simple, tense and has a fun little pay off. A guy is alone at his desk at work with nobody else around. He starts taking an online quiz that will determine how he is going to die.

It's quiet, suspenseful and there's a laughably cheesy, yet satisfying surprise at the end. Look for this one.

Directed by: Damian McCarthy
Runtime: 4 minutes

Krueger: Another Tale From Elm Street (2013)

Well, this was pretty pointless. It's some fan-film prequel showing Freddy Krueger before he became the disfigured phantom dream killer of teenagers. It was directed by some guy who apparently has some predilection for making shitty fan films, such as "Escape from New Jersey". This one, however, pays no real respects or tribute to Wes Craven's iconic film OR the knife-clawed murderer - instead, it's just showing a young girl being abducted from a playground... Who gives a shit?! The guy who plays Krueger sucked and was SO douchily hammy I could barely keep from spitting at the screen.

This could've just as easily have been a short film about just some pedophile who snatches kids. Using Freddy Krueger's name and sweater was pointless.

Directed by: Chris R. Notarile
Runtime: 7 minutes   
   
 

Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #2

New batch of 'mini-reviews' of short horror, 'arthouse' and various oddball indie films. Same setup as before: Nothing over 15 minutes. Lot of good ones here...

 

 

Callous Sentiment (2002)

Cool little horror short about a teenage boy who begins seeing mortifying, ghostly spectacles going down in an abandoned, fenced in playground. Things like, a guy butchering his cheating girlfriend with an axe, a chick hanging herself from the monkey bars, a gang-type beating and a body being buried. Ultimately, the kid's sanity begins to curtail as he develops a sinister addiction to the atrocities on display in the empty playground...

Pretty well made short with a simple, yet kind of creative and neat concept and a little bit of violence. Recommended.

Directed by: Vincent Grashaw
Runtime: 13 minutes

Adoration (1987)

A dude invites a chick over to his place for a date. She kind of looks like Elaine from Seinfeld. Anyways, they have dinner, he makes her read some poetry into a really huge, old reel-to-reel tape recorder. While she does this, he shoots her in the back with a rifle, then proceeds to fondle her corpse and dismember her...

Pretty morbid little short. It's shot kind of like a faux-snuff film, showing the guy setting up the camera and often moving it around while you hear the constant whirring of the film. The effects of the dismemberment aftermath are pretty realistic as well. Well done.

Directed by: Olivier Smolders
Runtime: 15 minutes


Cottonmouth (2009)

"Cottonmouth" is quite a nightmarish little flick, based off the graphic novel by Steve Bissette that I have never read or heard of until seeing this short recently...

A gang of corpsey, demonic-looking women stitch shut the mouth of a man responsible for the distribution of toxic tampons that lead to the death of a young girl on her first period.

While it was alright on a visual basis - with good make-up effects and interesting lighting and colors - "Cottonmouth" was still much too vague to really interest me all that much. I kinda needed a little more than what the 7-ish minute run-time gave me. Maybe I'll have to check out the comic at some point.

Directed by: Christopher P. Garetano
Runtime: 6 minutes

10/65: Selbstverstümmelung (1965)

Pretty decent short from Austrian 'arthouse' film-maker Kurt Kren. Much like his other work, this one has no plot - just relying on it's visual merit and nightmarish weirdness.

A guy is laying in a room and writhes around in paint or some kind of slime. He eventually gets a bunch of razor blades stuck to his face and then starts clamping his eyelids with an eyelash curler and slicing them off with scissors...

It's not bad. The imagery is kinda cool and grotesque and the editing isn't as rapid and confusing as many of Kren's other shorts.

Directed by: Kurt Kren
Runtime: 5 minutes


Harvey (2002)

"Harvey" is just a cool fucking short horror film, starring Nicholas Hope from "Bad Boy Bubby". You got a guy peeping through the mail-slot of his front door at the chick living in the apartment across the hall. He breaks in while she's in the shower and it's revealed that the entire left side of his body is completely missing, right down the middle. After abducting her - and a bit of a time-lapse - we see that he has removed the right side of HER body and attached it to his. They try having dinner and co-existing, but she's adamant about removing herself from him...

For such a brief little film, the effects are surprisingly GREAT. For 2002, the CGI is pretty top-notch and it looks fucking SICK. If you're looking for crazy horror shorts, than check out "Harvey".

Directed by: Peter McDonald
Runtime: 11 minutes

At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World (2007)

This very short little flick had me smiling just cuz it is SO fucking accurate! Or, at least, it WILL be very soon. David Cronenberg plays a guy who is despairingly preparing to commit suicide in the men's room of the very last movie-house in the world. As he slips that single bullet into the clip, two presumed TV reporters are narrating the live coverage of the man's eventual self-inflicted demise in a gleeful, media-vulture-type fashion...

The more time that goes by, the more relevant this 3 minute short will become, I believe. The idiotic news anchors in the film say at one point that, basically, it's a GOOD thing that the theater is soon to be demolished because there is no need for cinemas anymore and that it's currently full of garbage, hence Cronenberg has to kill himself in the restroom since it's the only place with enough space. Check out this cynical little piece of truth.

Directed by: David Cronenberg
Runtime: 3 minutes

Mama (2008)

This is the short film that the 2013 Guillermo del Toro-produced feature was based off of. It's about 3 minutes long and doesn't really have a conclusive story - it's more of just a 'scene'.

Two young girls are rushing to escape their house because "Mama is back". Mama is a staggering, ghoulish, scraggly-haired broad who comes running at them from behind a corner...

If you've seen the full-length movie, you'll surely recognize this portion since it was remade for that. However, I actually found it much more effective here than in the feature. The CGI is kept to more of a minimum and Mama doesn't roar like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The sound effects are much more subtle here, yet her movements are pretty fucking creepy. Still, part of me is wondering if there was actually a little more to this, since no plot is established and it really DOES seem like a fragment of something a bit longer. Anyway, you can find it online. Check it out.

Directed by: Andrés Muschietti
Runtime: 3 minutes

Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #1

 

Figured I'd spotlight a few short horror films I've seen over time in 'mini-review' form. I'll probably end up doing a few of these. It's basically brief thoughts for a range of brief horror works of different budget scopes, countries, decades and sources (DVD, online, screeners, etc.). The only "catch" is that none of them surpass 15 minutes...


Cold Blood (2010)

Well, "Cold Blood" is the kind of thing you commonly expect when watching short horror films online. A woman wakes up in a warehouse and a masked killer walks in. He's wearing - what looks like - a hairless Michael Myers mask and prowls around searching for the hiding woman. While he lurks, a man attacks the masked lunatic from behind and, in turn, has his throat slashed with a box cutter. Not a bad looking effect, to be honest. The killer then bashes the fearful broad from behind and begins to stroke her neck, lovingly. She gains the upper hand and beats him repeatedly before sitting next to him and weeping... Stupid bitch. Why? He gets up and she fires a nailgun into his neck. Follow that up with boat propeller finale... Since you're launched right in, the suspense element doesn't quite work. It's the same as watching a random scene from a slasher film. Well shot, but totally standard stuff.

Directed by: Steve Looker
Runtime: 10 minutes

Kitchen Sink (1989)

 

Quite an aberrant short about a woman who curiously pulls on a strand protruding from her kitchen sink. As the strand gets thicker, a small, lanky creature emerges. It sort of looks like a fetal monkey with polio. The woman drops the seemingly dead thing in the garbage, but regretfully submerges it in running bath water. From there, it grows into a hairy man-beast and shit gets even stranger...

"Kitchen Sink" is a cool David Lynch-inspired film that is pretty dark and creepy. Definitely worth a look.

Directed by: Alison Maclean
Runtime: 14 minutes

 

Zombie Movie (2005)

 

"Zombie Movie" is one of the finest post-apocalyptic zombie comedies I have seen in recent years. It begins with and focuses solely on a group of three New Zealand buddies who are trapped in their car during an undead uprising. Out of food, smokes, and stimulating metal band conversation, the trio start getting nutty before the one noble retard of the gang offers up his body as a last food resort... I could've dealt with a bit of an extended runtime on this one. Seems like a flick that may have held up a bit longer had it maintained some clever dialog. Check this one out.

Directed by: Ben Stenbeck
Runtime: 15 minutes



Blinky™ (2011)

This 12-minute short is fairly amusing. It's set in some futuristic society where seemingly upper-class families are able to purchase robots to help them with household chores. A young boy's constantly bickering parents buy him Blinky, an egg shaped android who likes to play - that is, until the kid gets sick of his new "toy" and fucks with it's artificial intelligence so much that Blinky malfunctions and turns homicidal...

"Blinky™" looks pretty much like a Hollywood movie, in terms of visual quality. The CGI effects are good - kind of Pixar-ish, I would say. The only problem was that the 'payoff' was a bit of a letdown (... though still pretty funny, but mostly implied). You can pull this one up on Youtube and check it out...


Directed by: Ruairi Robinson
Runtime: 12 minutes

The Babysitting (2009)

 

Oh, another fucking babysitter horror flick! Jesus, send more babysitter themed horror films because we clearly don't have enough! Pour 'em on, motherfuckers! Okay, now that I'm through with the sarcasm, I can proceed. "The Babysitting" is SHIT. And yes, it is actually called "The Babysitting". Oooooooooo!! What a spooky title! And original, too! The fucking babysitting! Scary shit!

This Dutch short, directed by Jan Nanne, is about a young broad who goes to babysit a little girl and is chased and apparently killed (in typical "Blair Witch" fashion) by some crazed pint-size in the attic...

Well shot, for the most part, just intent on showing absolutely nothing new. Very cliche build-up and highly predictable ending. It's what shitty short horror tends to be, more so than not...

Directed by: Jan Nanne
Runtime: 10 minutes

The Cat with Hands (2001)

 

"The Cat with Hands" is as cool as you'd expect. A fucking stop-motion animated cat with functioning human hands that is methodically stealing other body parts in order to become human!

It's a really short one which was kind of a shame since it did have a unique ambience, sedulous production value, and very creepy images. The little kid with the death mask looking face was pretty 'tweak' worthy!

Directed by: Robert Morgan
Runtime: 4 minutes




Rubber Johnny (2005)

At this point, I think everyone has seen this one around the web. "Rubber Johnny" is an immensely bugged out short, directed by Chris Cunningham - previously known for his two off-the-wall Aphex Twin music videos "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker". Cunningham's work is predominantly notable for his tremendously nightmarish imagery, made effective by considerably mind-blowing practical effects work...

This experimental head-trip begins with a disfigured face, shown through a night-vision viewpoint, muttering inane gibberish while clearly being interviewed. The title "Rubber Johnny" is then seen written on a condom that is shown being pulled off a dick. Florescent lights flicker on and a nude, crippled mutant sits, breathing hard against a wall. Thus begins a wild laser show with a Techno music video format and psychedelic distortion that is both awesome and oddly disturbing...

Cunningham's talent as a visually tentative auteur leaves me wanting more, like, perhaps, feature films as opposed to 5 minute music videos that brand such lucid and interesting images into the viewer's mind. I would love to see what he could do with some kind of involved story to go along with his unique eye for visceral illusions of incredibly macabre nightmares.

Directed by: Chris Cunningham
Runtime: 6 minutes

More to come...