This Halloween, the hunter will become the hunted. Prepare for a new frontier in feline fear.
Scaredy Cat is fun animated horror short, perfect for the Halloween season! If you make your cat watch this video, make sure you treat it with some Temptations snacks afterwards… 😉
Director: Temptations Cat Treats
Country & year: USA, 2020
Actors: Lucky the Cat
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt13140640/
One weekend while their parents are away, three sisters decide to build a box fort. As strange things start to happen around them, they wonder if someone or some-THING is living inside of it. Based on the Creepypasta and r/NoSleep story.
Box Fort is based on a Creepypasta by the same name. The suspense builds gradually, keeping us on the edge and wondering. The great atmosphere makes this quite a creepy horror short!
Director: Tyler Czajkowski
Country & year: USA, 2020
Actors: Christy Czajkowski, Ally Ibach, Maggie Flynn
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt13230012/
We are at a small carnival with some dwarfs, freaks, a small Ferris wheel that barely reaches a few meters, and a fortune teller. Something new to attract people is needed, and that fresh new sideshow is a gargoyle-like creature which they hope will be a new crowd-pleaser. The city sheriff is invited to the opening show, where the monster will be unveiled under the banner “God’s Greatest Abomination”. The town’s God-fearing pastor, however, doesn’t like this, and believes the creature is The Devil himself. And of course, the opening doesn’t go as planned when the monster tears itself from the chains, spreads its wings and flies away to get itself some victims. Who could imagine that happening. The city’s first victim is none other than the pastor’s son, and since the Winchester brothers are unavailable, he puts the law in his own hands.
And in the meantime we get a middle part where the monster is hunted in the forest by incompetent police officers, since the forest is the cheapest place to shoot horror movies, and to stretch out the paper-thin plot. Although the tone seems somewhat family friendly and at times like a longer episode of Supernatural, there are some gory scenes to behold and decent make-up effects. The monster seems to be a mix of CGI and animatronics with more screentime than I expected, while the characters are mostly pale stick-figures where you quickly end up rooting on the monster, as one usually do in a zero-brainer like this. This is, however, one of the better SyFy movies made for TV (that I’ve seen, at least) Â from their endless catalog of cheap monster/shark films, especially in terms of the technical aspects – and it probably works best for the younger audience.
Director: Sheldon Wilson
Country & year: Canada, 2009
Actors: Lou Diamond Phillips, A.C. Peterson, Vlasta Vrana, Dominic Cuzzocrea, Simone-Élise Girard, Dan Petronijevic
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1397497/
A metalhead gets passed down a satanic guitar that riffs to shreds.
Death metal is a funny and gorey horror short, where a guy receives a family heirloom which happens to be a Satanic guitar. Using it requires a few rules to be followed…but of course, we know that every single one of those rules will be immediately broken, which ensues quite the blood-bath!
Director: Chris McInroy
Country & year: USA, 2016
Actors: Kirk Johnson, Michael Dalmon, Will Elliott
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt5640904/
Linda inherits her mother’s Victorian mansion, located in the middle of the Australian dusty farmlands. It’s been remodeled as an retirement / nursing home, run by Connie and the doctor Barton. She’s quick to settle in, but it isn’t long before nightmares begin to haunt her, while some of the old people start to die in mysterious ways. She finds her mother’s diary that reveals one dark secret after another, and opens repressed memories. She begins to see a figure in her bedroom window, the water tap turns on by itself, the house cat begins to hunt shadows in the hallways, and candles seem to light up by themselves. One of the female nude statues in the garden has had one of her tits crushed. Much of what Linda is beginning to experience is the same thing her mother noted in her diary. Linda’s underlying paranoia skyrockets to eleven as she believes someone is tapping her phone late at night while she talks to her boyfriend, Barney, the only one she can barely trust.
This obscurity from Australia is a slow-burner where the film takes its time to find out if it’s a gothic ghost story, or a psychological thriller just to make you as confused as the protagonist. The film has been compared to The Shining (1980), but I would say it’s more in the same alley as Roman Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy” with some similarities from Dario Argento’s Suspiria, where the atmosphere is the center focus with some really disturbing moments. And if you get creeped out by old people, well, this film is clearly (not) for you.
This is also the first and last feature film of Tony Williams, which is pretty unfortunate, because with a far more ambitious script I believe he would have made some really great stuff. While the film got its cult following in USA, it flopped in Australia. And the film’s cinematographer, Gary Hansen, died in a helicopter accident shortly after its release. Life is unfair.
And here’s a warning: Don’t watch the trailer. It spoils everything. Yes, it’s one of those.
Director: Tony Williams
Country & year: Australia, 1982
Actors: Jacki Kerin, John Jarratt, Alex Scott, Gerda Nicolson, Charles McCallum, Bernadette Gibson, Robert Ratti, Vince Deltito, Tommy Dysart, Debra Lawrance
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0084408/
Dr. Maitland is collecting esoterica, and one day the guy who is his regular source of such items offers him a skull that is supposedly the remains of Marquis de Sade. He soon discovers that the skull is possessed by an evil spirit who turns people into crazed killers.
The Marquis de Sade was a French nobleman born in 1740, and even those who don’t know about him will most likely know the words derived from his name: sadism and sadist. He wrote several novels, plays, and short stories, and is most known for his erotic works depicting sexual fantasies with a strong focus on violence. The Marquis became infamous due to his sexual crimes and abuse against young men, women, and even children. He was arrested and imprisoned multiple times, including in the Château de Vincennes, where he successfully appealed his death sentence. There, he remained imprisoned (despite an escape attempt). During the rest of his life he resumed to his writing, and during the last four years of his life (until his death in 1814) he began a sexual relationship with 14 year old Madeleine LeClerc, daughter of an employee at Charenton. After his burial, his skull was removed from his grave for phrenological examination. No one knows what happened to the skull after that, so there’s a little bit of historical info serving as the basis of the inspiration for this film.
The movie starts off with a gravedigger opening Marquis de Sade’s grave, chops off the corpse’s head with the spade and takes it home with him. After using chemicals to remove all the flesh and skin, he soon becomes the skull’s first victim. Of course, the skull comes into the hands of Marco, who is providing Dr. Maitland (Peter Cushing) with the esoterica he’s eager to buy for this collection. Sir Matthew Phillips (Christoper Lee) tries to warn him about the skull’s evil abilities, but of course, his warnings go unheeded.
The Skull serves as a good example of 60’s horror, and with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in the major roles it’s a little surprising that it hasn’t attracted more attention. The possessed skull and its levitation and movements with occasionally visible strings can probably be seen as a tad bit cheesy by today’s standards, but that’s just part of the old-fashioned charm of horror films like this. The effects of the Skull itself is a big part of the entertainment of this film, and during Dr. Maitland’s descent into madness due to the skull’s influence on him, there are some pretty tripping scenes.
Now, with the Marquis de Sade as the main focus of the film, you might expect more references to the erotic aspects (of which there aren’t any) but remember that this movie came out during a time where the censoring was pretty strict, so that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Overall, it’s well worth a watch, especially if you want to see the combined talents of Lee and Cushing. And, of course, if you want to watch a floating skull with visible strings attached to it!
Director: Freddie Francis
Country & year: UK, 1965
Actors: Peter Cushing, Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Nigel Green, Patrick Magee, Peter Woodthorpe, Michael Gough, George Coulouris, April Olrich, Maurice Good, Anna Palk, Frank Forsyth, Paul Stockman, Geoffrey Cheshire, George Hilsdon
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0059727/
No one likes working late on a Friday night!.. Especially if it’s a full moon and you happen to be a werewolf.
Overtime is an entertaining horror short about a guy who meets delay after delay, knowing full well that tonight there will be a full moon and he happens to be a werewolf…will he be able to get back home in time?
Director: Craig D. Foster
Country & year: Australia, 2016
Actors: Ainslie Clouston, Arka Das, Adam Dunn, Aaron Glenane
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt5243336/
The author Kathy Keen is on a trip in Bali, Indonesia, to do some research on an ancient black magic called Leák. She has already been to Africa where she learned about Voodoo, but she needs more material to fill her book on the subject of black magic. She gets help from a guy called Hendra, who’s got some knowledge of the local folklore, and he also soon becomes her love interest. He takes her to the obscure corners of the jungle where they meet The Queen of Leák, a crazy old witch with a cackling, screaming and over-the-top animated laugh. And it is obvious that the person who dubbed her voice had a really fun time in the recording studio. Anyway, it’s already hard to describe what’s going on here, but it’s something like this: the witch orders Catherine to take off her skirt so that the witch can tattoo something on her leg, using what looks like a long lizard tongue. If this sounds bizarre, you haven’t seen nothing yet. The tattoo is supposed to be a sign that Kathy is now an official student of Leák, and must come to her every night to learn more about this mysterious magic. And it’s straight down the rabbit-hole from here on, where Kathy and the witch dances like drunk hippies, transform themselves into pythons, flying screaming fireballs, and … pigs. You just saw that coming, right? And we get other things that include a flying head which you just have to see for yourself to believe.
The witch uses the body of Kathy to posses her, and wrecks havoc on the locals. This becomes too much for her love interest, who asks his shaman uncle how they can stop Leák and her black magic, so he can get his beloved Kathy back before it’s too late. And after this I can easily understand why Bali is one of the most risky places to visit. Just kidding.
Trying to explain this film to someone on a tired Monday, is almost impossible. And I find it a little funny that this is the first true Indonesian horror film aimed at a western audience. So, if this should be an easy thing to digest for us simple-people in the west without raising any eyebrows, I can’t even imagine in my wildest dreams what the regular horror movies from that country looks like. And I’m not at all familiar with Indonesian horror films, or Indonesian films at all for that matter, so I’m really eager to take a further look behind that curtain, if I’m even allowed to.
After doing some research one can learn that the film mixes several obscure myths and folklore from Indonesia and Bali, such as the flying head with its organs attached, which is called a Penanggalan. It’s their own version of the vampire myth, basically. The sight of the head floating around with strings, with its primitive effects from the stone age, is just pure cheesy gold. And it’s not easy to tell when the film is trying to be serious or intentionally funny when the completely absurd tone is all over the place. A truly unique oddball of a film, with a lot of bizarre, unpredictable crazy scenes one after another, and highly entertaining, that’s all I really can say.
Director: H. Tjut Djalil
Original title: Leák
Country & year: Indonesia, 1981
Actors: Ilona Agathe Bastian, Yos Santo, Sofia W.D., W.D. Mochtar, Debbie Cinthya Dewi, Itje Trisnawati, Ketut Suwita,
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0097942/
A young boy growing up in the suburbs of Chicago used to spend his vacations in Quetico Provincial Park, up on the border of Minnesota and Canada. But he won’t be going back any day soon, not after what happened to a girl called Francis…
Francis is an animated horror short from 2014, which is like a spooky and engaging campfire story where the narrator tells us the story of a girl who decided to take a rowing boat out to the middle of the lake. The visuals does a lot for the atmosphere, and it builds up the tension to a creepy reveal.
Director: Richard Hickey
Country & year: USA, 2014
Actors: Cameron Kelly (narrator)
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2974404/
The year is 1967, and the place is Bridgewater State Hospital For The Criminally Insane in Massachusetts. The documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, with his camera man John Marshall, was allowed to spend 29 days in the institution to film and witness the daily routines with its inmates and workers, filmed in black and white that sets an eerie tone from the first frame. The documentary starts with a light-hearted welcome, with a song number performed by the hospital’s talent show called Titicut Follies, but I guess it didn’t take long before the filmmakers were eternally grateful that they could leave this concrete hell hole at any time and never set their feet there again.
The documentary is completely free of narration, and the experience is like witnessing an absurd and sometimes very disturbing fever dream where the images speak for themselves. But this is far from a dream. It’s raw, unfiltered, claustrophobic and not far from a fly-on-the-wall feeling. We see a group of inmates who are constantly being ordered to take off their clothes in one of the gathering rooms. They also have only a small bucket to piss in, and possibly also shit and vomit in, which they have to take with them through a long corridor to empty. Several are stripped of all their clothes and have to stay butt naked in completely empty cells, while the guards humiliate and bully them like they were animals. We get a scene with an older guy named Jim, who makes the strongest impression. He’s in a psychotic episode. He’s probably sick and tired of walking around naked, so who can blame him. It also looks like he has blood around his mouth, judging from that blurry picture quality. Regardless, the guards think it’s funny. And this is just a glimpse of a completely rotten and corrupt industry that has not been much improved over the years, where fair treatment is as difficult to get as winning the lottery. And I think that what we see here is just the tip of the iceberg, and God knows what was going on when the cameras weren’t rolling.
Wiseman ended up with 80,000 feet of film, which I guess is several hundreds of hours of footage, and he spent a whole year to edit it down to an 84-minute film. Showing this to the public would not be easy when the bureaucrats (or bureau’rats, if you will) in the government of Massachusetts tried to ban the film for being screened at the New York Film Festival, claiming that it would violate the “privacy and dignity” of the inmates. As if their privacy and dignity wasn’t violated long ago already. It wasn’t until 1991 that the film was officially released to the public, since most of the inmates had passed away and  privacy concerns wasn’t longer an big issue. Little did they imagine that even fifty years later, the film still feels fresh and manages to provoke as it’s unfortunately still relevant. The DVD is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. And on YouTube.
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Country & year: USA, 1967
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0062374/
