Good Morgan To You!

As I await the release of Stopmotion, Robert Morgan has released a new short online called Ray Incident. Check it out below.

Red Iron Road

Hey all. I just wanted to let you know about an exciting new animated anthology series that is dropping today on Tubi (among others) called Red Iron Road. It features six different stories (most of which I have seen and are ace) with varying styles recalling everything from Secret of NIMH to Heavy Metal to A Scanner Darkly. Check out the trailer below, and then give it a whirl!

Among Us Reimagined

I came across these Among Us animated shorts made a few months ago. This first one is from the YT channel 3DPrintGuy.

Lastly, here's another from GoldenLaneStudio, although in truth it feels more like Dead Space than The Thing.

Short of the Week #78: To Dust

Here's more nightmare fuel from UK stop-motion animator Robert Morgan.

These were fragments used in Shawn Snyder's film debut To Dust starring Matthew Broderick. I love that in addition to his own short films, Morgan's gooey fingerprints are now being left throughout the cinema world.

Short of the Week #75: Belial's Dream

Here's the 2017 short Belial's Dream from the incomparable Robert Morgan that up until now was only available on the Arrow Blu-ray release of Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case.

Yep, surreal and nightmarish as per usual! Morgan's partnership with Arrow appears to be ongoing as he most recently created a short film for the Blu-ray release of Jörg Buttgereit's Schramm entitled Tomorrow I Will Be Dirt.

Short of the Week #73: Girl In The Hallway

Valerie Barnhart's Girl in the Hallway, a short film that basically slayed all in attendance when it screened at Fantasia has now been uploaded to Vimeo. Enjoy is likely the wrong word, but here it is.

Short of the Week #62: Winston

This week I dug into the wonderful world of animation and pulled out Aram Sarkisian's short Winston from 2017.

This was Sarkisian's final project at California Institute of the Arts. I love the Poe-like qualities of this piece as much as its distinctive art style. I look forward to seeing what comes next for this young talent.

Short of the Week #20: Violeta

I wanted to go back in time a bit for this week's entry. One of the first short films I reviewed here was Marc Riba & Anna Solanas' 2006 short, Violeta. With its disturbing visuals and almost unbearably squishy sound design, this short has stuck with me for over a decade.

Watching this again, I realized that this duo was also responsible for one of my recent favourites, Dead Horses. I'm thrilled that these two are still unleashing their stop-motion nightmares onto the world.

Short of the Week #12: Junk Head

I mentioned a film yesterday that played What the Film Fest called Junk Head. It is a stop-motion animated opus from Japanese filmmaker Takahide Hori. Essentially made by just Hori himself over the course of five years, it is an amazing achievement of dark wonder and whimsy. Below is the 2014 short that started it all and became the first chapter of his two-hour epic. Enjoy!

Short of the Week #2: Bobby Yeah

This week I'm talking about UK-based animator Robert Morgan. I first became aware of his work when his 2003 short The Separation appeared on Fantasia's short film compilation DVD Small Gauge Trauma and since then he has amassed an impressive library of stop-motion joints. It was at an all-night short film marathon in 2012 that I first laid eyes on his Morgan's twenty-three minute opus, Bobby Yeah. 

So captured was my imagination afterward that Bobby ended up being that year's Halloween costume. I can't imagine a short film will ever win that honour again. I haven't seen his latest Belial's Dream yet, but I hope to soon.

Best Horror Shorts of 2017

As I indicated yesterday, I am now in a position where I watch hundreds of short films a year. When you attend a shorts block at a film festival, be aware that someone has spent countless hours pouring over submissions to give you the very best.

I likely broke a personal record this year having watched over three hundred for SFFF, two hundred (and counting) for HXFF plus the usual supplement of Little Terrors subs and regular festival viewings. I enjoy it and the feedback received when someone really digs a short you played is really rewarding. I obviously have to sit through a lot of not-great shorts, but surprisingly few are so abysmal that they break my spirit. No one sets out to make a bad short, so their heart's in the right place at least.

Today though I want to highlight some tremendously gifted filmmakers who really shone in the short film space this year. Though some of these were technically from 2016, most are currently still playing around the world.

First and foremost is Natalie Erika James' Creswick. This creeper from Australia has been tearing up the festival circuit after making a splash at Fantasia this year. I still marvel at how well the visuals and audio were mixed in this piece. Rumour is that James' is currently now working on a feature version so the future is very bright for her indeed.

A short that I absolutely adore that hasn't been seen nearly as much as it should is Dániel Reich's Recall. I'm not aware of it screening anywhere in Canada so I'm eager to show it at LT in 2018. Everything about this short is top notch and I imagine that the 20-minute running time is the only thing that has kept it from showing everywhere. I guarantee you will wish it was longer when the credits roll on it though.

For the third year in a row, Toronto filmmaker Justin Harding has directed a winner. Latched went so far as to play TIFF - the highest honour for a short, at least in the Big Smoke - with good reason. It has high production values, a playful tone that borders both on the whimsical and grotesque and a great cast. It is only a matter of time for Harding makes the jump to features.

Another great creeper I came across while screening shorts for Little Terrors was LA native Evan Cooper's The Armoire. It was some genuinely freaky imagery and an audio hook that will literally give you the shivers.

As crazy as it sounds, one of my favourite shorts this year was a Skittles ad. Fox really brought it when they broadcast some two-minute horrors during the Halloween season. Floor 9.5 is the perfect marriage of execution and economy.

Now there are shorts that are meant to scare, but there are also ones that aim to just entertain and I saw many of terrific ones this year. Chief among these were Mike Marrero & Jon Rhoads' Buzzcut and Joe Hitchcock's Stick To Your Gun. The former seeks to make a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon and the latter proves just how difficult personal grooming can be during the end of days.

Kelly Jane in Buzzcut

I also really like the world building involved in Adrian Selkowitz's Taste. A short that is funny and satirical while being incredibly well put together does not come around often.

In terms of short shorts, Greg Kovaks' Fun is just as advertised. Recalling the puppets of Kovak's classic short Tasha & Friends, this takes a loving stab at those kids' shows that encourage kids to talk  to the screen.

2017 saw an amazing numbers of solid animation shorts this year. So many were there that we at SFFF were able to put together an entire block of animations from around the world. The best (and coincidentally the most dour) was the Spanish stop-motion import Dead Horses by Marc Riba & Anna Solanas.

Lastly, there are the ones that go for the gross out, and none were better than Logan George & Celine Held's Mouse. If this tale about two junkies down on their luck attempting the yuckiest get-rich-quick scheme doesn't make you squirm, nothing will.

It's been one hell of a year! I think I got one more post in me before the ball drops so we'll talk then. Stay safe, kids.

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Hey all! I have recovered from TIFF and now have a few more days to relax before the busiest month of the year starts. Here's what I've got for you today.

Stranger Eighties.

With the upcoming second season of Stranger Things approaching, The Duffer Brothers have been releasing one-sheet posters on Twitter to celebrate their influences. I'm sure I don't need to include the originals for you to get where they were coming from.

Stranger Things returns to Netflix on October 27.

Haunted Puppets.

Those who have seen Kevin McTurk's Mill at Calder's End (now available on the Minutes Past Midnight anthology) know his puppetry skills are second-to-none. Currently he is hard at work on his newest opus, The Haunted Swordsman and he needs your help.

This is an all or nothing campaign, so please give if you want to see this project come to fruition.

Toulon's Trunk.

I received an email last week about this upcoming release from Full Moon and I just had to post about it.

It's such a gorgeous set and very hard for me to refuse. When you think of it, twelve discs for two-fitty ain't half bad. Hmmmm. The set will be available for presale here starting October 2nd.   

Same Time Next Year I Guess.

Oh great. This day again. Time to once again call on Mr. David Firth.

This guy gets it. It had actually been a while since I'd looked in on this crazy duck. It's good to see he's still super busy. Here's the nightmarish video he created for experimentalist Flying Lotus.

Shorts After Dark 2016

Toronto After Dark's mandate has always included showcasing short films from Canada and around the globe, and this year was no different. Here below were some of my favourites.

After his powerhouse of a short Point Of View last year, Justin Harding has followed it up with another winner. Kookie, anchored by a comically adept young lead in Ava Jamieson and the scariest cookie jar you've ever seen, delivers both the laughs and scares. Harding is killing it right now.

I was also glad that TAD played Greg Jeffs' It's All In Your Head. We programmed this at Fright Night Theatre last month and its wonderful turnabout is the precisely the reason I love watching short films.

The action short Olga from Quebec featuring veteran stuntwoman Naomi Frenette was easy for me to get behind. She absolutely kicked ass in this and I hope to see her in more projects soon.

Naomi Frenette in Olga.

The shorts programmers Peter Kuplowsky & Shannon Hanmer also served up heavy helpings of absurdity with the likes of Boy Toys, Astron 6's newest Divorced Dad and batshit wacko Greener Grass.

For me, the most visually resonant short that played this year was Tim Egan's Curve. Immediately putting the viewer in peril, it's a short that makes you feel physically uncomfortable.

And speaking of uncomfortable, there was also Anthony Cousins' When Susurris Stirs, but for a very different reason. If this one doesn't make you cringe, then you are made of stone. Also back this year, was Brit Oliver Park with his new chiller Still. He is another filmmaker who is mining gold from the home invasion subgenre boom.

Lastly, there was Dianne Bellino's beautiful stop-motion animation short The Itching. I don't think I've ever seen the plight of social anxiety better represented than it was here.

The Itching.

It was not only a strong year for shorts at TAD this year, but there was also a wide range of stories, themes and tone that hit us with a little bit of everything. Well done, guys!

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Some stuff happened this weekend, and the world got a little more shitty. But, life goes on I guess.

Those Damn Yuppies.

I found a cool little A to Z list over at The Good In Movies this week, detailing a group that is often imperiled in horrors and thrillers - the yuppies. Click on the pic below to check out the list.

The past has seen some great ones like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Fatal Attraction and Dead Calm but it is good to see that this subgenre is still going strong with more recent entries like Orphan and The Invitation. If anything, these movies just drive the point home that danger can come from anywhere.

Yeah!

One of my favourite animators working today is UK-based Robert Morgan. This week, he properly posted his 2011 opus Bobby Yeah to his Vimeo account. Take some time to enter the distinctly nightmarish world of Robert Morgan below.

My 2012 Halloween costume of Bobby still remains one of my best, I think.

Death House.

Harrison Smith's newest project Death House, often referred to as The Expendables of Horror, released a teaser this week.

The storyline, about two federal agents trapped in a prison housing the world's most dangerous criminals, is intriguing and they have certainly amassed an impressive list of horror greats including Kane Hodder, Bill Moseley, Michael Berryman, Sid Haig, Tony Todd, Barbara Crampton, Dee Wallace and Gunnar Hansen. Currently it looks like the movie is naturally aiming for Halloween release.

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Morning all! Sorry I've been slacking off this week, but I really couldn't do much of anything until that “little movie” was on the other side of me.

As per usual with big event films, there was the initial hyperbole followed by the naysayers beating their drums loudly to be heard in the din. I myself, enjoyed it a lot. It had a good mix of new and old, and my minor nitpicks were just that. Elated as I was though, I did feel there was something missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Subsequent to my viewing of the film, a friend of mine posted a comment on Facebook that I think hit the nail on the head.

“I thought it was a very good Star wars film, but also knew within ten minutes that I didn't need it.”

And there's the rub. The prequels were shit, there's really no denying that, but I have realized that no new Star Wars movie is ever going to approach the Original Trilogy - yes, even ROTJ. It's not only because of the age I was when I saw them, but also the environment in which they were made. As a person who is by nature nostalgic, it's been a sobering last few days.

But, enough of this foolishness, on with the news...

The Simpsons Get Hardcastled.

Check out this awesome rejected Simpsons couch gag made by claymation guru Lee Hardcastle.

You know, it's been such a long time since I've watched The Simpsons, that it actually took me about halfway through to realize the “animals” were the school bullies. Great mash-up, if not a little disturbing.

Monster Wearables.

I found these awesome pins from artist Gargledmesh on Big Cartel this week.

There's a holiday sale on right now, in which you can Buy 2 and Get 1 Free. For eight bucks each, I am finding them really difficult to resist. For more info, click here.

You Are What You Eat.

I saw this great Staff Pick video on Vimeo this week called Insect Bite.

Made by Grace Nayoon Rhee, it's like a weird hybrid between Robert Morgan & Don Hertzfeldt. Love it. For more of her work, click here.

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Hello all! It's October, the most glorious and spooktacular of months. Here's what I've got for you on this fine afternoon.

Canadian Giallo.

Journalist turned filmmaker Chris Alexander announced the details of his fourth feature this week, the giallo-infused BlackGloveKiller. Check out these sweet promo posters below.

The film, that will feature music legends Peter Murphy and Nivek Ogre, follows the bloody trail of Miranda, a beautiful predator who stalks the city streets at night looking for prey and sits in her gilded cage by day, waiting for the sun to set.

Alexander, who will also score the film, describes BlackGloveKiller as “narratively, an extension of my other films, stories of women pushed into extreme situations, living on the fringes, told in a dream like manner.”

Taking on cinematography duties this time around is Gabriel Carrer (If A Tree Falls, The Demolisher) which seems like a good fit, as he also has a solid grasp of the retro aesthetic.

Look for BlackGloveKiller in 2016.

Kill Your Phone.

With Until Dawn still fresh in my memory, I've been looking for other genre-themed games. Recently, I came across this one called Kill Me Again, which basically looks like Bejeweled crossed with a Final Fantasy and Resident Evil.

It looks complicated, but hey, it's free and available on both iOS and Android.

Home Hell Home.

I am a big fan of stop motion animation, especially when it takes the opportunity to go where most filmmakers won't. One of Two Evils by Cristoph Younces is such a short, delving into the dark corners of domestic violence. Those who saw Younce's ABC's of Death 2 contest submission M is For Maieusiophobia should have some idea of what they are in for.

Considering the incredible stop-motion talent coming out of the UK these days (Robert Morgan & Lee Hardcastle among them) they should all pool their resources together and create a feature. I'd be first in line for that!

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Hey all. Today I'm engaged in a last minute shoot - which you'll all be hearing about soon, like tomorrow if all goes well - so today's Messenger post is coming to you from the past. Let's get down to it.

Blood Ten Inches Wide.

I spoke previously that Videogram (Swedish tapehead & musician Marcus Sellegrin) has an upcoming EP for Camp Blood, but now he has some cool art (provided by Andy Grail) to go with it. Check it out below.

Set to release on 2015's third Friday the 13th in November, go can get more info here.

The Other Side.

I wanted to pass along this wonderful short film called Coda by Irish director Alan Holly. This animated exploration of what happens after death is creepy, beautiful and profound in equal measure. Enjoy!

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It looks like we've got a one day reprieve from the deep freeze here. It's really sad when you're glad that it is only a single digit negative outside. Anyway, I'm running behind today, so here's today's all-video DKTM.

Blocks of Horror.

For those who aren't aware, Nerd Block & Rue Morgue have been running a short film competition over the last few months. Some of the submissions are well... something, but there are a handful that I'm happy to support. Here below are three of my favourites that were either extremely polished and/or showed some kind enthusiasm.

The contest is still accepting submissions and votes until March 16th. Click here to see the rest.

Trailer Trash.

A couple of trailers hit the Web this week. The first is a new trailer for one of my faves from last year, Justin Benson & Aaron Morehead's sophomore effort Spring.

I am a big fan of this movie. They took the great character stuff from their debut and expanded their act by moving from a stuffy cabin to the beautiful Italian countryside. Spring releases on March 20th. The second trailer is for local boy Gabriel Carrer's The Demolisher.

I'm digging the retro revenge vibe and it's also nice to see actor Ry Barrett front and center on this one.

Hardcastle Lets It Go.

I always look forward to the work of Lee Hardcastle and this Friday, he unveiled his latest creation, a mash-up of Disney's Frozen and The Thing.

Experiencing the words of Donald Moffatt spoken by a claymation reindeer was just the pick-me-up I needed right now. Hopefully, it is for you too.

Trailer Tuesdays: Night Train To Terror

Just when I thought it would be a while before i saw anything as enjoyable as Bloody Birthday, along comes a chance encounter with 1985's Night Train To Terror. Holy fuck. THIS movie!!!

My previous knowledge of this movie did not go beyond the poster.

I always figured it was a second rate slasher, but it is actually an anthology about God and Satan battling over souls on a train. The first half-hour is largely incoherent, but my, does it have countless gifts to give if you stick around.

Musical interludes, complete with sax and break dancing! 

Richard “Bull” Moll - inexplicably credited as Charles Moll - in two different unconnected roles!

Random stop motion animation creatures!

Gratuitous Nudity!

And Cameron Mitchell!

Vinegar Syndrome recently released a Blu-ray, so it shouldn't be too hard to find it in some capacity. And oh boy, do you ever want to check this one out!