Bits and Pieces.

Hey there everyone. I have a few things I wanted to throw up here on this lazy Sunday. First, I went to a screening on Friday night for the Worldwide Short Film Festival. Every year they have a midnight show of horror shorts from around the globe called the "Creepy" programme. In addition to fun splatterfests "Desmond Coy" and "Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre" (as well as the cool little zombie piece "Elsewhere" from Norway), there were two that deserve special mention. The most professional looking of the bunch was "Bitten" from France. The sound was blaring and the gore work was done by the same people who worked on the now infamous film Inside. That should give you an idea of what to expect. I think my favourite though, would have to the Spanish short "Violeta" from Anna Solanas and Marc Riba.

This bizarre and disturbing piece about a little girl who lives by the sea with her family is just effed up. It was the first animated film I can remember where the sound design was as equally affecting as the visuals. When asked what her influences were, Solanas said old stop motion films from the Czech Republic. Though not mentioned by name, I would imagine Jan Svankmajer's film Alice would be one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if the work of Starewicz was in there too. I also ran into Darrin (from the 24hr short) at the screening, so it was good to catch up with him for a bit.

Speaking of the 24 hr film challenge, the results were FINALLY posted this week. Only a month late... We did quite well. We were voted 5th in the Audience Award Category (out of 26) and were awarded Best Late Film (out of 7). I'll always wonder how we'd have fared if we'd been able to get it in just an hour earlier, but oh well. The winner of the day was a short called "Styx", which you can view here. My personal favourite (it came 4th) was a funny little piece called "Christine". Check it out here.

Oh, one last announcement. Starting tomorrow, I am declaring it "Rat Week" here at The Horror Section. I have a few rodent themed stories lined up, in preparation for Friday's Trash Palace screening of the 1982 giant rat feature Deadly Eyes, which was shot right here in Toronto. Whew! Things are really getting busy around here.