Overweight teen Sara lives in the shadow of a clique of cool girls holidaying in her village. Not even her childhood friend Claudia defends her when she’s bullied at the local pool in front of an unknown man. Finally, her clothes are stolen and she must get home wearing only her bikini. Her long walk home will mark the rest of her life.
Piggy aka Cerdita is a horror short where you actually root for a serial killer. The director Carlota Pereda also made a full-length movie based on this short, which was released in 2022.
Director: Carlota Pereda Writer: Carlota Pereda Country & year: Spain, 2018 Actors: Laura Galán, Elisabet Casanovas, Paco Hidalgo, Mireia Vilapuig, Sara Barroso, Jorge Elorza, Alejandro Chaparro, Pascual Laborda IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt8286974/
After a zombie attack, the sole surviving police officer of the rescue team recalls his painful memories during an interrogation. But the truth becomes more elusive as more conflicting evidence comes to light.
The Door is a fun Chinese horror short about a zombie outbreak and police officers struggling to make the right choices..
A shy teenager (Andrew) is peer pressured by his older brother (Mike) into playing a game that is said to summon the ghost of the town legend, ‘The Lady Beneath’. To disprove his brother and impress a girl at school he reluctantly agrees. The rules of the game are simple, as long as Andrew holds his breath, he is safe from The Lady Beneath. But how long can Andrew hold his breath?
Catch Your Breath is a creepy little horror short by Matt Sears, who also made Charlie Boy.
Director: Matt Sears Writer: Matt Sears Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Samson Oliver, Toby Oliver IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt22854234/
Winnie the Pooh is a light-hearted horror short about Christopher Robin and his mother, his hungry teddy bear, and a bottle of honey..
Director: Alex Magaña Writer: Jed Brian, Alex Magaña Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Ranen Navat, Brent Perrott Ashley Elsa White IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt27096379/
Annie buys a seemingly innocuous chair at the thrift store, but soon comes to regret it when she realizes something else came home with her.
In the Dark is a creepy horror short about a murder, a cursed chair, and the woman who buys it and unwittingly brings more than the chair into her home..
Director: Spencer Keller Writer: Spencer Keller Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Adara Toop, Jackie Maya, Bill Read Jr., Elizabeth Rhoades IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt26853126/
Laura and her father arrives at a secluded cottage which they are going to repair, as the owner wants to put the house out for sale. Having planned to spend the night inside the house, with its unstable and unsafe upper level and windows that are nailed shut, they soon experience that things do (of course) go wrong. A radio starts playing a sinister melody, and after Laura turns it off, her father goes upstairs to check on an other noise. Laura hears a commotion from upstairs, and shortly afterwards she finds her father’s murdered body downstairs. In a state of grief and fear, she tries to escape from the house but someone has locked all the doors. As she moves around in the dark house, trying to find an exit, more sinister things happen around her…
The Silent House (La Casa Muda) is a Uruguayan horror movie directed by Gustavo Hernández and made with a tiny budget of $6,000. The film is made to look like it was filmed in real time, in one continuous 88 minute take, but the real story is that it was actually shot over four days. Despite not being filmed in one take, the length of the takes are still rather impressive though. The film is based on what is supposed to be real events that took place in 1944 in a village in Uruguay, where two brutally tortured men’s bodies, missing their tongues, were found in an old farmhouse. In that regard, one could consider The Silent House as a typical gimmick-film, with the supposedly “single-take” filming as well as the supposedly “true story” (which there is no actual information about to be found anywhere online, it seems). As for the single-take gimmick, there’s been numerous other films going for the same thing while having in fact been edited to appear that way. Most notably, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope from 1948. Movies that rely heavily on gimmicks are often off to a troublesome start, though, and not surprisingly the movie’s reception was quite varied.
The Silent House is mostly leaning heavily on atmosphere, where inside the house the only light comes from two halogen lamps and some candles. The darkness in the house makes the viewer look for clues as to what might be hiding there, as the protagonist keeps cautiously sneaking around. It’s mostly a psychological thriller, with bits of haunted-house clichés like a haunting melody playing, a “don’t go upstairs” caution, and spooky imagery. Despite there not being much of a plot, it still manages to create a very tense atmosphere but the problem is still the pacing, which makes the film a little dull at times and some scenes dragging on for a little bit too long.
Overall, The Silent House is an atmospheric and different little horror film, albeit a little dull at times and offering a twist in the end which does feel a little confusing and ends up leaving more questions than answers.
There was also an english-language remake made in 2011, called Silent House.
Director: Gustavo Hernández Writers: Oscar Estévez, Gustavo Hernández, Gustavo Rojo
Original title: La casa muda Country & year: Uruguay, 2010 Actors: Florencia Colucci, Abel Tripaldi, Gustavo Alonso, María Salazar IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1646973/
While staying at an Airbnb in upstate New York, Robert and May find themselves in a haunted house. The problem is, they can’t remember anything that happens downstairs. Quickly acknowledging that their rental is haunted, they endeavor to leave, but every time they exit their room, supernatural hoodoo returns them to it, absent any memory of what happened outside. The couple must put aside their habit of bickering to come together and solve the mystery of their haunting in order to escape.
What Happened Downstairs is a cheesy horror short about a couple finding their rental is haunted..
Director: Andrew Nisinson Writer: Andrew Nisinson Country & year: USA, 2021 Actors: Andrew Nisinson, Meilin Gray, Katy Rea IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt16452602/
At a website called FreeGirlsLive, Alice is working as a camgirl and broadcasting sexual live shows from her little home studio, using the nickname “Lola”. Like most camgirls, Alice has people around her who knows what she’s doing, and people who are completely unaware. Her mother thinks she’s working on some kind of web development, while her younger brother is well aware of her cam girl actions but has promised to keep it a secret. It isn’t all just sexy fun though, and like any follow/like-obsessed SoMe dependant, Alice is totally desperate to rise on the website’s rankings, hoping to one day finally be the number 1 camgirl on the site. After simulating her suicide by slitting her throat using fake blood, her popularity finally increases, and on the next show she’s gotten as far as the top 50 camgirls on the site (whooo!). Things seem to be going rather well. That is, until next morning when Alice finds that she can’t log in to her account anymore, but that’s not all, not even the major part of her problem…because even though she cannot log in to her account anymore, “Lola” is still active and streaming. Logging in through another account, she watches the stream only to see what looks like an exact replicate of herself, even the studio she’s made in her own home looks exactly the same. Confused and completely weirded out (understandably, who wouldn’t be) she tries to contact customer service, at first thinking it must be some kind of replay of her old shows. They tell her that the show is indeed live streaming, and Alice is now finding herself falling through a digital rabbit hole…
Cam is a 2018 horror thriller directed by Daniel Goldhaber. At first glance, it may appear to be a simple cat/mouse thriller where the camgirl is the victim of a stalker, but when Alice’s doppelganger appears in the movie it shifts into a mystery thriller where you feel just as confused about the situation as the main character is. It’s a creative way of presenting a horror story about the desire for digital fame and identity theft, where many of us are already so linked to the digital world that much of our work and personalities have their home there. Seeing someone taking over your accounts is something that would be a nightmare for many people, not just those who are using it for their income. I mean, there have been stories about people calling 911 and the police because Facebook and Instagram were down. Jeez. Some people literally have their entire lives online, and the concept of someone or something stealing your identity digitally, not just hacking your account but literally stealing you, that’s an idea that ought to give most people the heebie jeebies.
The movie has some references to Alice in Wonderland, and not just the character’s own name. Her other online screen names include “MadHatter” and “MrTeapot”, for example. While Alice during her travels in Wonderland was fueled by innocent curiosity, the Alice in this story is driven by low self esteem and the desire to become popular. Not just popular, either, she wants to be number 1, top of the list. And in order to achieve this, she’s willing to do something that she originally promised herself to never do: fake something (her “suicide”). It’s an obvious metaphor for being a sell-out: she ended up doing something she had vowed to never do, just to achieve those extra views/followers/hits/likes/validation/fame.
Visually, the movie is appealing and does a solid job on portraying the Cam Girl culture without being condescending, and the story is fast paced enough to keep the viewer interested in how it all unfolds. The actor who plays Alice does a believable performance. In the end, the movie’s conclusion may feel a little too open and leaving some loose threads, not completely explaining what was really going on, but still giving enough hints throughout that makes you able to puzzle some of the pieces together. Cam is a digital nightmare, and with an increasingly more complex AI that’s all over the place these days, a theme like this becomes even more relevant.
Director: Daniel Goldhaber Writers: Isa Mazzei, Daniel Goldhaber, Isabelle Link-Levy Country & year: USA, 2018 Actors: Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh, Melora Walters, Devin Druid, Imani Hakim, Michael Dempsey, Flora Diaz, Samantha Robinson, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Quei Tann IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt8361028/
A lonely 50s housewife undertakes radical atomic surgery to win back her husband’s wandering eyes and to become the perfect wife in the process.
Satisfaction Guaranteed is a horror short about a loving wife who tries to do everything for her ungrateful piece-of-shit husband, going to rather extreme measures..
Director: Yue Ma Writer: Mary Mehrkens, Amber Morris(story), Ken Morris Country & year: USA, 2017 Actors: Alexandra Marian Hensley, Paul Keany, Craig Bruenell IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt4794842/
Twenty years ago, there lived a deranged teenager by the name Carl Bryce, who killed his parents. Carl’s body was never found, and his story has created an urban legend that the place he lived at with his parents is cursed, causing madness to everyone who trespass the area. The graduation student Mark is working on writing a study on contemporary myths, and gets an interview with the psychiatrist who once treated (or, at least tried to treat) Carl Bryce back in the day. Intrigued by this urban legend, Mark gets his friends to join him in his research on the old Bryce estate. Of course, once they’re there, they soon figure out that someone or something is after them.
Evil Remains (aka Trespassing) is a 2004 horror movie directed by James Merendino, with a premise we’ve seen several times before and lots of times after: a group of college students finding themselves in a situation with an unknown killer at their heels. Slasher movies present this formula with hardly any variation: it’s either a murderer on a revenge-fueled killing spree (or some other motive), or it’s something supernatural. Going in for a movie of this kind, you mostly know what’s in store for you. The film obviously references well-known classics, stirring little snippets of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead, Halloween, etc. into the pot, in typical low-budget style. Its attempt at combining slasher with haunted house kind of works, though, especially with the use of an old plantation house. The same house was also used in the 2005 horror film Venom (which was made by the I Know What You Did Last Summer director Jim Gillespie).
While neither story nor characters offer anything in terms of originality, and production value is considerably limited, it still manages to grant the viewer enough mystery and a little atmosphere to make the experience compelling enough. While the acting and characters are nothing to write home about, it’s still familiar territory for those who have trodden through the familiar paths of the typical teen-slasher before. I think I’ve made it evident by now that this is nothing new, nothing spectacular, and clearly low budget, but take it for what it is and it’s actually decent enough for a quick watch.
Overall, Evil Remains aka Trespassing is a fairly subpar horror slasher, filled with the regular tropes, but it’s not entirely without value. Works well as an easy popcorn flick, just don’t expect any kind of masterpiece or memorable experience.
Writer and director: James Merendino Original title: Tresspassing Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Jeff Galpin, Maryam d’Abo, Will Rokos, Daniel Gillies, Jeff Bryan Davis, Clayne Crawford, Estella Warren, Ashley Scott, Brandon Martin, Linley Thomas, Adela Johnson, Virginia Lamoine IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0350232/
