Full Circle

Just a quick note to post about a webseries that recently hit the YouTubes. My filmmaker buddy Darryl Shaw, who has been kicking it in Japan for the last few years, just premiered his new web-series The Hounds of Asterisk. The first two eps are now up.

Now, puppy ownership may not sound all that malevolent, but if I know Darryl, things are about to get fucked up right quick. The “full circle” part of this equation is that within my 2013 short Lively, I had footage from one of Darryl's past works Garlic Bread Man vs Superbo Lasagna Man playing on the television. Well, responding in kind, in episode 2 of HoA, Darryl has Lively playing on the tube. It's just like the back-and-forth Raimi & Craven had going back in the day!

Anyway, enjoy! 

Sunday Short.

Hey all. Here's a local short film that just dropped online. The Four People Who Call You At The End of the World is directed by Kenzie Yango and stars the lovely and talented Storm Steenson who you may remember from my 2017 short The Good Samaritan. Enjoy!

 

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.

Small Scares #2

Hey all. Check out the newest episode of Small Scares featuring my second short film The Monitor.

Click here for more content.

Happy Halloween!

Hopefully, despite current events, you find someway to celebrate All Hallow's Eve. For your consideration, here's the premiere episode of Small Scares, a short film showcase hosted by Lula Mae Mortis.

Small Scares Coming Soon

Here's the teaser trailer for an upcoming web show called Small Scares, a weekly horror short film showcase featuring your ghostess with the mostess, Lola Mae Mortis. 

The first episode drops on Halloween. If you have a short film gathering dust, click here to submit.

Short of the Week: Make Me A Sandwich

Here's a great little short from last year from director Denman Hatch that I programmed at both Saskatoon and Hexploitation. Bon appetit!

Short of the Week: Bill

About this time last year, I posted about a short film from the UK filmmaking duo of Dan Gitsham and Sophie Mair. Now, here is their latest short entitled Bill. Enjoy!

Some top notch economy in that film. Bill just premiered on the short film platform Film Shortage so be sure to check that out, as well.

Short of the Week: The Missionary

Here's a local short from a few years ago called The Missionary directed by Fil Santos. Enjoy!

Come One, Come All!

This year's Hexploitation Film Festival kicks off tomorrow!

The festivities begin tomorrow night with prolific actor Art Hindle being presented with a Career Achievement Award. Hex weekend is jam packed with genre content, but don't take my word for it, behold this sizzle reel!

For more info, including festival director Aaron Allen's recent appearance on CHCH-TV, click here. I'll be there most of the weekend, including Saturday afternoon to introduce our bangin' shorts block. Hope to see ya there!

Hex Shorts 2020

We announced our short film line-up for this year's Hexploitation Film Fest yesterday. It's a pretty bangin' one if I do say so myself. Check it.

HXFF runs Feb 20-22 at Hamilton's Staircase Theatre. For more info, go here.

Short of the Week #81: Withorwithout

This music video for the band Parcels is a bit old, but I dig the High Tension/You're Next vibe. Plus it's got Milla and terrific direction from Benjamin Howdeshell. Enjoy!

2019 Shorts

Despite my lack of drive to make any sort of official end of year/decade lists, I felt compelled to at least post about my favourite short films from 2019. I now spend about ten hours a week watching short film submissions for various festivals so this format has become a sizable part of my life.

Even though short film visibility has increased (thanks to avenues provided by institutions like Little Terrors and Shudder), I still like to promote short filmmakers I feel strongly about. I don't need to be the millionth person to say how awesome The Mandalorian is, but I can perhaps steer someone to the latest project by Justin Harding or Faye Jackson. That's a bit more meaningful.

I'm happy to say that I was able to program all but one of these short films below at Saskatoon Fantastic. 

(Fears) Directed by Germán Sancho. 

Directed by Guillermo de la Rosa.

Directed by Jason Gudasz

Directed by Oskar Lehemaa.

Directed by Lance Edmands.

Directed by Erica Scoggins.

Thanks to Shannon Hanmer for introducing me to Place and A Noise That Carries and Fantasia for allowing me to discover the rest. Here's to a short-tastic 2020! 

Short of the Week #80: Glitter's Wild Women

So this one is more of a black comedy than horror, but I love it. Check out Roney's 2018 short Glitter's Wild Women below.

Short of the Week #79: Tick

Been a while since I've linked to a short here, but my friend Ashlea Wessel's 2018 short film Tick premiered on Alter today so here it is below.

While Wessel has been trying to get a feature version of Tick off the ground, she also found time to make another short called Daughter of Babel. For more info, click here.

Short BITS 2019

My recent trip to Saskatoon Fantastic ran parallel with the eighth edition of Blood In The Snow so I was sadly unable to attend this year. However, they were kind enough to send me screeners so I did get a look at this year's crop of shorts. BITS had a staggering number of films playing this year - three separate short blocks and a web series showcase - but here below were my faves.

Robert Cuffley's Romi was a dark bit of Black Mirror-esque sci-fi. Spearheaded by a strong performance from Camille Sullivan, it's not surprising to me that this took home Best Short honours.

It was cool to see Jeff Sinasac (a former collaborator of mine) show up in Tyler Williams' Sky So Blue. This was an engaging two-man show (Daniel Park being the other) built upon a cool concept involving an ethereal piece of music.

Though it was more of a faux trailer than a short, I got a kick out of Frédéric Chalté's Le otto dita della morte or The Eight Fingers of Death. It nailed the giallo aesthetic perfectly and I kind of wish it had been around last year so I could have paired it with Crystal Eyes at HexFest.

Short films that I really respond to are creepers that feature a really cool prop (The Armoire and Kookie are past examples) and this year that short was Daniel Pike's The Acrylic. It oozed with the energy of the creature features from my childhood. 

Similarly, Navin Ramaswaran's newest The Remnant has everything we would expect from this journeyman of Canadian genre cinema. It's not BITS without a Navin joint!

I think my fave overall was Jeremy Lutter's Giltrude's Dwelling. I saw this short earlier this year and was glad to see it show up at BITS. This short possesses a tremendous amount of high quality world building, production design and just old-fashioned heart.

A good showing this year and a proper way to close the curtain on the two-thousand's teens.

SFFF 2019.

I have returned from my trip to the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival and it was an absolute blast. Toontown is a wonderful place that was surprisingly sunny and had way more stuff to do than I was expecting. The downtown area had so many bars and eateries, it was almost overwhelming. Imagine your town. Now imagine that every convenience store near you is now instead a bar. That is my experience with Saskatoon.

The festival itself was super fun and by all accounts, attendance was up this year. My shorts programme went over well, as did most of the other shorts that played in front of the features. 

Me introducing the Shorts Programme.

I was happy to catch Jocelyn DeBoer's Greener Grass and the horror anthology Scare Package with an audience and they both killed.

There were no shortage of special events, as my friend Serena's Drunken Cinema screening and the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party both went over like gangbusters. 

However, the biggest event of the fest was the Joe Dante triple bill with himself and actress Belinda Balaski in attendance.

Belinda Balaski (Gremlins, The Howling) & Joe Dante

Event poster art by Sebas Theriault

It was a terrific experience and many thanks to the crew in Saskatoon for having me out.

Go West Part II

Well, I'm off to Saskatoon for SFFF. Stay out of trouble while I'm gone.

SFFF Shorts

Last week, the 10th edition of the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival unveiled their shorts line-up. You can check out the full slate here, but I thought I'd let you in on some of the good gets I'm especially stoked to see on the big screen.

A short I brought over from Fantasia is Joshua Giuliano's In Sound, We Live Forever. I love the unique narrative of this one and am looking forward to see how this plays with an audience.

Speaking of reactions, I'm sure there will be some audible squirming during Oskar Lehemaa's Bad Hair, which is easiest to byline by asking “what if Cronenberg had made The Peanut Butter Solution.”

Next, if there was ever a perfect short/feature pairing it is Jason Gudasz' Place with our presentation of Greener Grass. We will all be in absurdist overload by the end of this night I assure you.

I'm very proud of our shorts program (screening Thursday Nov 21st, 6pm) this year, as well. Entitled SHE, it features eight tales with a strong female presence either behind and/or in front of the camera. Some inclusions are current festival darlings Erica Scoggins' The Boogeywoman, Izzy Lee's Re-Home and Adele Vuko's The Hitchhiker. 

SFFF runs from Nov 19th to 24th at Saskatoon's Broadway Theatre. Click here for festival info.

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.