A documentary about movie memorabilia and the people connected by it.
Synopsis: An avid movie collector journeys the globe to turn the conventional art world on its head, set to prove to historians and critics alike that movie props are as important an art form as the greatest paintings and sculptures in history.
Fronted by collector Tom Biolchini, Mad Props is a light-touch but thoroughly engaging delve into the world of those who collect movie memorabilia and those on-screen performers and creatives who have helped bring meaning to sought-after artefacts.
We first meet Biolchini at home with his family, discussing an upcoming auction. Immediately the surroundings and the budget chat clue us into movie memorabilia collecting being an expensive hobby. It would be easy at this stage to tune out but Biolchini immediately positions himself as someone interested in the past time and getting to know other people’s reasons for collecting. He is a warm conversationalist and throughout the film his interest in both the collections and the people behind them is apparent.
The film does, to some degree, centre the idea of these props as art and from the detailed construction and the meaning that many pieces have to the collectors it is an argument that easily finds footing. Of course, the film doesn’t really present any opposition to this idea so the questioning ultimately feels a little hollow. That’s not intended as so much of a critique however, the tone is clearly geared to a celebration rather than an interrogation.
As the host visits collectors and events he also comes face to face with some of the performers who have made their names interacting with these props. It is interesting to see their view of them and also allows for some fun anecdotes.
Ultimately, Mad Props won’t convince anyone who isn’t already on board with the reasons why people spend so much time, effort and money sourcing the genuine articles but for those with an interest it is a fun, light hearted exploration.
A riveting short film that demonstrates the emergence of new and interesting young voices in horror.
Opening with a quote from Leonardo Donofrio about identity and the necessity of shedding ones skin, The Shedding immediately sets out its intention to explore identity. In contrast to many films exploring identity where the characters explain their positions, histories and experiences, The Shedding abandons dialogue for a deliberately jarring isolation from the characters within the film.
We first see Ayida (Jasmine Rachelle) as she wanders a seemingly abandoned school building. As she makes her way through the corridors and classrooms, she starts to feel an unease. Her coworker (Kosh Vohra) seems alternatively unaware of and terrified of her presence. All is very much not well.
Directors Lakkaya Palmer and Will Dupere interrogate the most interesting angles of the building instantly. Finding those odd angles sets out an unsettling geography in which spaces feel either too vast or too oppressive, either towering over Ayida or trapping her. That exploration of the space also allows for the choreography to find its footing.
As Ayida navigates the dark building, the soundtrack maintains an eerie, rhythmic tempo, driving the momentum of the film in the absence of any exposition. The narrative makes itself clear enough as it heads towards a rattling conclusion featuring a body horror set piece that utilises low budget effects in a way that enhances the uncanny nature of the entire film for a satisfying, visually striking conclusion.
Overall, The Shedding is an exciting and energetic short, driven by an effective, well-rounded idea.
Unfortunately, the last few months of last year got away from me slightly. Work and personal pressures meant I wasn’t able to keep up with the publishing schedule I would normally adhere to. As a result, I’ve got a backlog of reviews to put out from what I was able to see and take notes for. As these may be shorter than my usual reviews, they’ve been compiled here in one place.
Fishmonger
Synopsis: In this supernatural dark comedy, a pathetic Irish fishmonger must survive a sex pact with an ancient sea creature in order to save his mother’s soul from burning in hell.
Neil Ferron’s sea creature short film is heavy on gross-out humour, great effects and strange characters. It impresses with an ability to build a full world within a short time frame, the monochrome colour scheme doing little to detract from the vast amounts of splatter on show. While the style of humour won’t be to everyone’s taste the outright absurdity and immense creativity marks Ferron as a director to look out for.
So Unreal
Synopsis: Explores film as a conduit for the anxiety, fear, exhilarating joy and obsession from humanity over emerging technology at the end of the millennium, all through the cyberspace cinema from 1981-2001 like The Matrix, Tron, Tetsuo.
Amanda Kramer directs a clip-heavy documentary on how film has embraced, critiqued and featured technology. Setting the scene with the paranoid cinema of the 1970s, the film posits that the 1980s began to delve further into the threat and potential of technology. Debbie Harry delivers an intoxicating voiceover, covering the ‘bewildering and bewitching’ world of technology in film. The clips chosen are illustrative and vast, covering that journey from 1981-2001 with depth. The questions around if technology in film is about fantasy or prophecy weigh heavily, as does a closing section around the ways that film has to confront modern technology (a topic that has only increased in relevance since the surge of AI use at different levels of film production).
Visitors (Complete Edition)
Synopsis: Evil meets comedy: creatures, flying eyes, chainsaws, musical heads, Lloyd Kaufman, mystical apparitions, sci-fi horror comedy and a host of other gleeful shenanigans that can’t be revealed for fear of ruining the surprise.
I first saw Ken’ichi Ugana’s short film version of Visitors as part of a Final Girls Berlin Midnight shorts block in 2022. The creepy setting that swiftly veers into a gorefest had great energy and excellent effects made for an impactful and memorable short film. The short film’s initial set up is repeated here, providing incredible set design – a messy, neglected space that instantly evokes the feeling of something being very wrong and provides the ideal setting for throwing around the gore. From this familiar setup, the film launches into chronological sequence that follows characters three months and one year later as the events of the opening come to light. This broad film that is heavy on physical comedy and light on dialogue provides that midnight movie experience, if a little unevenly split between scenes of intense action and longer, more drawn out scenes. Though lacking much of Troma’s more caustic, controversial elements, their DIY spirit, oozing effects and irreverence is felt throughout.
The Coffee Table
The buzz around Caye Casa’s agonising dark comic farce, The Coffee Table is easily justified. The opening tension between new parents Jesús (David Pareja) and Maria (EstefanÃa de los Santos) surrounding their new coffee table starts the film and that tension does not let up for the entire run time. There is a queasy inevitability to the film’s events and Casa’s direction forces the viewer to repeatedly confront and process them. Peppering deadpan comedy moments like a pause over a ‘smile at life’ doormat throughout only adds to rather than detracts from the horror. Never anything less than utterly gripping, even when you’d really prefer to look away.
Information about the next edition of Fantastic Fest is available at their website.
Cellphone wastes no time in showcasing the scares it has to offer, serving up an intriguing pre-credits sequence in which a mobile phone camera lens offers a very different perspective to a terrified inhabitant of the remote house soon to be occupied by Wynne (Whitney Rose Pynn) as she recovers from a recent accident.
As Wynne settles into the house, reckoning with her PTSD, she begins to notice strange occurrences in the property. She turns to Bob (Malcolm McDowell – appearing via voice performance for the most part) for reassurance but finds his responses cryptic at best. Eventually striking up a strange friendship with Chris (Justin Malik Jackson), she continues to become lost in the secrets of the house and her own mind.
Cellphone is a curious mix of pulpy horror that takes its serious subject matter and places it into a strange, near-hammy presentation. A middle section where Justin Malik Jackson’s already off-kilter performance as Chris leaps up a few levels is a genuine joy, even if there is the sense that it doesn’t always quite belong within this film. In sending up the tropes it is employing it at least feels knowing, rather than simply embedding those references without any recognition about their predictability.
Of course, the high-energy, tropey sections don’t always align comfortably with the more serious subject matter which creates a jarring clash between them. It is difficult to fully embrace Wynne’s crisis when there feels like there is a more fun, arguably more interesting film just under the surface. Pynn’s performance is good, but gets lost in increasingly chaotic cycles as it tries to balance the jolts, feeling and irreverence the film tries to build.
Overall, Cellphone is promising, if confused and hints at a promising future for first-time feature director Luke Sommer and writer Rachel Sommer if those excesses are able to work in greater harmony.
Ghouls contributor and connoisseur of the nastier side of 2000s horror cinema, Ariel Powers-Schaub will release Millennial Nasties on September 17th. Seeking to explore horror of the time that was often disregarded as torture porn with little else to offer, Ariel’s work is to probe and reappraise these films, finding enlightenment in the extreme.
From the press release: Millennial Nasties dissects the English-language horror films of the 2000s and the cultural events they were responding to. Processing tragedy and war throughout the world, keeping pace with films from other countries, and swinging wildly away from the safe horror of the 1990s, the 2000s brought grisly kills and shocking gore to cinema audiences and home viewers. Films once dismissed as torture porn, their nasty slasher friends, and the remakes of this era have found a new home, and that home is a subgenre called Millennial Nasties.
Millennial Nasties can be pre-ordered directly from Encyclopocalypse in eBook and Print at www.encyclopocalypse.com (BuyHorrorBooks.com)
On September 17th, 2024 it will also be available from your favorite bookseller. The audiobook version will be available exclusively from Audible or Apple Books.
A meditative science fiction inch through grief, ethics and communication in the afterlife.
Synopsis: A scientist tries to speak with dead people with a machine he invented.
Adapted from director Patrick Biesemans’ 2022 short film of the same name, Creep Box is a strong addition to lower-budget, high-concept science fiction films. The short film version provides an introduction to the film’s device and an emotive demonstration of the application. This is recreated within the feature version but is allowed the time and space to further explore this, mainly through the lens of the device’s creator, Caul (Geoffrey Cantor).
A few technical issues let the production down, with some sound mixing allowing the dialogue to dip below understandable levels. In a film that is so focused on dialogue and performance, this does present a barrier at times, forcing you to strain to hear important elements. Thankfully, this doesn’t extend to one of the film’s most compelling hooks: a multi-layered initial response from the device that gradually gives way to a coherent conversation. That element is really strong and well realised.
Caul’s work is lonely and spurred by his own sense of tragedy and so the push-pull from his own personal mission and the wider interests from the justice system that see the device as a powerful tool for communication with the dead and what insight their input can bring to investigations. However, the film is deeply invested in Caul’s interpretation of the device as a ‘simulated consciousness’ – drawing attention to the subjectivity that can be applied to the communication.
The direction is methodical and introspective, with long, often static shots confined to dimly lit rooms, all contributing to how all-consuming this project is to Caul. Off-screen phone calls from his daughter offer outside intrusions to disrupt his obsession and these serve to further the sense of isolation the film gives him. Almost always centre of frame, Cantor achieves a lonely figure, utterly surrounded by his dark passion project.
As this review suggests, this is not an action-packed sci-fi by any means, but a deeply contemplative piece of work with pacing to match. Some will undoubtedly find the simmering to be flat in the absence of many moments where that tension boils over. This keeps the energy even, controlled and deeply focused throughout.
The great thing about the Final Girls Berlin short film blocks is they so often programme films that reflect the current horror landscape. With the ubiquitous nature of technology in all of our lives, it is no surprise that horror creatives are using it to find new ways to terrify us. The following films turn the lens onto influencer culture and the creeping threat of AI.
Influence Fen (Alectra Griffis) is an influencer – constantly viewed in front of her carefully curated background, but people are starting to notice that all of her videos take place in front of that backdrop and she is never seen to create content anywhere else. When Ander (Jeff Willy) visits to discuss how this may end up making her videos stale and uninteresting, Fen’s unusual arrangement comes to the surface. The small cast are excellent, with Peyton Nicole Morton as Laurel really standing out for the way she is able to embody her role. Moments of quiet tension dominate and it is to the cast’s credit and clever writing that this feels perfectly paced, picking up speed only when it absolutely needs to.
Iris Lex Benedict brings us tech and Christmas horror combined as Laney tries to navigate a night home alone with a virtual assistant that will not go quietly. Starting with a Steve Wozniak quote that asserts ‘never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window’, this comedy horror deals with both aspects equally well with scares and jokes landing. Christmas lighting creates a film that is beautiful to look at but also adds to a sinister atmosphere.
The Influencer A stylised take on the cult of influencer culture, The Influencer begins with a bright ring light – almost as a beacon to followers. A strongly delivered voiceover starts to cycle through the videos of three influencers as the camera stays focused on the light. What follows is a pleasingly heady montage of parties and fleeting glimpses of extravagant, filtered lifestyles. The frenetic pacing is near an intensity overload before arriving at an unexpected, arresting conclusion.
CarlyThe InfluenceriRISMaraiNFLUENCE
Carly Another short which focuses on the way in which internet and influencer culture has changed how people interact with it, but this time on a considerably larger scale. Carly showcases a dystopian future in which citizens are forced to compete, rated on their ‘likeability’ to protect their loved ones. Under the banner of ‘change, not charity’, Carly introduces the neon-soaked kitchen of The Cupcake Factory in which a cheerful host boasts about the success of their world, regarding working or buying as a betrayal of their utopic vision. The contrast between the high-tech cityscape and the dire straits that citizens find themselves make this an obvious, but entirely successful satire.
Mara Arguably my favourite of this block, Mara takes aim at the hypocrisy of various sites, especially around the activities of sex workers. Bored and frustrated cam girl Erin (Erin Carroll) tries to spark viewership with new fetish-focused content, but soon finds her account flagged for breaking draconian rules. Carroll’s energy throughout is compelling and she is fascinating to spend time with as she tries to navigate her situation. The film is razor sharp in its commentary, complete with a last-minute rug-pull that leaves you to meditate on what you have just watched. An incredibly powerful piece of work.
The 9th edition of the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival kicks off today. For 9 events, the team behind the festival have brought a wide variety of high-quality shorts, features and events that celebrate women and non-binary creators. The space they have carved out is so important and has become one of my favourite showcases of established and new talent alike. Coverage will continue throughout the week.
If the daily grind of your 9 to 5 is getting you down, you may find some kinship with the characters in the Workplace Horror short film block. Alternatively, after seeing what some of them have to go through, you might feel better about your own circumstances. Either way, this short block has everything from hard-hitting horror to dark comedy.
Thread Tension Set in a British factory where female workers have recently started having dramatic fainting and seizing episodes, Thread Tension uses a handheld camera to put the viewer in the same space as the workers, especially as they do their best to conceal issues from managers. There is an excellent building of the paranoia surrounding the women with excellent set design and a dedication to the period setting. The closeness of the camera adds to a gritty believability and an escalating sense of tension as the short progresses.
Hope Chest Sophia Scheel delivers an excellent monologue in this dreamy film set around Eve’s class assignment around her hopes and dreams. Eve’s assignment unfolds in alarming fashion as she projects her future impact on the FBI agent who will find her body. Scheel’s performance is a real strength here, but so too are the visuals that seek to merge Eve’s past, present and future self within the narrative. The content is disturbing yet magnetic with expertly timed cuts back to the classroom to punctuate Eve’s speech.
Overnights The impact of the night shift on workers is well-documented and the issues that night workers, especially in veterinary care face are foregrounded. Anatasha Blakely plays Mira, a tech struggling with late nights, low wages and the strain of care as she faces another night shift at the desk. As the night progresses she begins to hear strange noises within the building. Overnights maintains a quirky tone throughout, focusing greatly on the rapport between Mira and colleague Liz (Maddy Wager). Their easy chemistry allows the film to quickly build a relationship with the audience and also inject moments of humour. Reaching a quirky and somewhat surprising conclusion, Overnights has plenty of energy to offer.
Chispa Luz (Muffie Delgado Connelly) is an electrician, called in to fix an issue with some lights. Faced with an unhelpful, dismissive security guard, she continues with her work but something is stirring in those long corridors. The simple but effective use of black and white centres the short’s most compelling action, allowing you to follow it. Flashing lights further underscore the strange atmosphere, casting large shadows that the film expertly utilises for scares.
Ride Baby Ride Celina Bernstein’s mechanic buys her dream car, but the previous owners are lecherous and obnoxious. Glad to be free of them, she settles into working on the car, but has the car learned anything from the previous keepers? Ride Baby Ride pulls off its central concept with a good sense of escalating peril and some great, body horror effects.
Sweet ToothAsk For HelpThe ScoreTen of Swords
The Score It is apt that The Score adopts a Twilight Zone-style host introduction because the short feels very much like it would make an excellent addition to that show if further fleshed out. However, that isn’t to say that the short feels unfinished, rather than it has space to grow. Ultimately, this is a satisfying short, full of creeping dread, mostly through the development of a radio host’s show and listener observations. That focus on audio, however, doesn’t mean the look of the film is neglected, with bright neons and dark spaces for skillful contrasts.
Ask For Help Some people really love their jobs and this certainly seems to be the case for needy shopkeeper Mark repeatedly insists that Heather ask him for help within the shop. Heather is, understandably, put off by him following her around but is there something more sinister in the shop that means she should really heed his warnings? The performances are the focus here, allowing the characters to draw ever more spiky with one another as the film progresses to a darkly surprising finale.
Ten of Swords In 2020, I was struck by the brilliance of Faye Jackson’s Snowflakes – a Windrush detention drama that used horror to really drive home the cruelty of government policy. Ten of Swords continues Jackson’s ability to provide social commentary with inventive set pieces and charming performances. The wry satire on monotonous workplaces finds a footing in those natural performances within a very unnatural situation. Theo Solomon is such a presence as Jay that you’re on board from the outset, but the film also peppers in excellent supporting performances. The jokes are funny, the world it creates is engaging and the critique is also solid – a really compelling short film.
Sweet Tooth Creepy children are a must in horror and even in a workplace horror block, they’ve found their way in. When Madeleine (Lou Deleuze) accompanies her beautician mother to an affluent house she’s drawn into a sinister board game with the client’s children. Featuring a performance from the excellent Katell Varvat (Transylvanie), this film takes its time to dial up the tension and discomfort. All the child performers are pitch-perfect, delivering quiet, involved and nuanced performances.
An interesting addition to the tech-thriller subgenre.
Synopsis: After a botched robbery, two men take refuge in a remote and lifeless scientific facility, inadvertently awakening a monster within.
The threat of technology surpassing the intelligence and capability of their human inventors is a concept that has always found a footing in horror and sci-fi. These narratives often come with big casts, big locations and big budgets to sell the idea of an all-encompassing, increasingly dangerous result of human experimentation. Project Dorothy tries to emulate the concept with limited means to varying success.
Effectively using a music video, complete with apocalypse-themed song, Project Dorothy starts by showing the dramatic events of a warehouse full of scientists meeting their demise via the overpowering AI at the heart of their research. From those scenes of panic, we are brought (via a vague ‘many years later’ caption) to two men on the run. James (Tim DeZarn) and Blake (Adam Budron) are fleeing a botched robbery and as James’ injury worsens they are forced to take refuge in the abandoned warehouse.
It is clear that Project Dorothy does not have the budget of bigger productions but what it does with the resources it has is to be celebrated. Mostly using the geography of the abandoned warehouse, this is a single-location thriller with the ability to split up characters effectively and explore different areas of the building. In doing so, it can add some tension to what is otherwise a slow-moving film.
There are also interesting visual queues, with a cut from the uniformity of warehouse structures to the more fluid uniformity of a cornfield. Whereas the threat may come from nature and the outside world, Project Dorothy works to establish technology as the ultimate threat. Evil Dead-style fast-paced tracking shots break up the otherwise dialogue-heavy scenes although this technique is overused to add motion among the static. A late sequence manages to be genuinely unsettling and hints at an ability to achieve that elsewhere.
Even at only one hour and twenty minutes, this feels overly long, relying on too much time without any forward momentum and repetition of successfully jolting sequences. The space of the warehouse is well-utilised and the performances are solid – it’s just a shame the pacing struggles to make the most of these elements.
Project Dorothy is interesting in terms of a science-fiction thriller cleverly using resources, but it lacks enough dynamic energy to stay engaging.
A curious, mostly successful film centred on the internal lives of five women.
Synopsis: Five eclectic women journey into the vortexes of Sedona where they are forced to confront the resurgence of their traumatic memories through shadow work.
Reflect introduces its characters in advance via the medium of tarot cards, a particularly economic way of bringing viewers into the world and also offering up their character flaws and ‘shadows’. The five women featured are about to embark upon a ‘spiritual obstacle course’ that will confront them with past trauma and personality differences. That initial style choice sets out the film’s desire to immerse the viewer and in that sense, is very successful.
Summer (Dana Kippel) is keen to take on a challenge by taking her four friends into Sedona. She is unaware that the retreat will lead them all to confront their past traumas, faults and memories in an increasingly metaphysical landscape.
The film switches up its audio and visual techniques to reflect the two distinct narrative threads. The Game of Life to-camera pieces are documentary style for the most part, playing on the awkwardness of reluctant host Beale (Ryan Jack Connell) while the scenes in Sedona play with less grounded set pieces that throw you right into the women’s hallucinatory experiences. There is a real texture to the locations used and it is wonderful to see those merge with the more involved visuals.
Undoubtedly, Reflect is an ambitious work and Dana Kippel’s abilities in directing, writing and acting are on full display. One of the most frequent things I think about when discussing film is that I would much prefer to watch something that takes some big swings and doesn’t quite land than something which takes no chances and presents a more generic work. Reflect is very much one of the former with the links between the women’s heavily emotional journeys and some elements of deadpan humour not quite gelling for me. Some of the extended sequences with other inhabitants of the space run a little long, drawing focus away from the core five.
It is a testament to the performances within the film that you do find yourself taken along with them. Grace Patterson is a standout as Katie, someone originally introduced as a rich comedian who comes to show much further depth as the film progresses. The film is frequently heavy on a lot of New Age, wordy dialogue and that sometimes stalls momentum but thanks to those committed performances is always able to draw you back in.
Overall, Reflect marks Dana Kippel as an accomplished creative, brimming with ideas and the power to make intensely personal films.
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