Short Film Program: Short Trip to Hell
Page One
Abunch of actors in a zombie movie are attacked by actual zombies, and then they get into a huge fight because the survivor who has the best head on their shoulders is a redshirt extra that certain people consider themselves above having to listen to. (The extra is black and the people who don’t like him are white, so I’m detecting a bit of a metaphor here.) It was entertaining enough, I guess, but I had a bit of difficulty trying to remember it a couple days afterward.
Stay
A coven enacts a human sacrifice ritual to summon a demon and one of the witches enters a sexual relationship with it, and a lot of bodies pile up before she realizes it really isn’t into commitment. Pretty damn funny, actually. If you’ve ever heard/read me use the phrase “gnarly cock of Satan,” I’m pretty sure it appears in Stay.
The Bloody Ballad of Squirt Reynolds
A bunch of years ago I saw a short film called, I think, The Ballad of Stumpy Sam. It was a musical horror-comedy set at a summer camp and the main song told the story of the titular slasher that plagued the camp. This is pretty much the same thing, but in this case the slasher is called “Squirt Reynolds” because he wears a Burt Reynolds mask. It’s probably a lot funnier if you haven’t already seen the Stumpy Sam film. I do hope the big cowboy hat is a reference to the “oversized hat” Norm MacDonald wore while playing Reynolds, um, I mean Turd Ferguson, in the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy skits.
Brace Face
A local girl wears one of those big awkward headgear things, presumably to keep her braces in place, so of course the local asshole kids make fun of her. It turns out she doesn’t actually wear braces. The actors playing the parents give their characters a sort of conservative-1950s-Jesus-freak vibe, giving the entire production a bit of a campier feel than a straight-up synopsis of the action would suggest.
The Daughters of Virtue
More retro religious zealot antics, although this time the aesthetics invoke the late ’70s and early ’80s. A quintet of seemingly upstanding, God-fearing ladies turn on one of their members when it turns out her friend’s husband has been bending her over the barrel and showing her the fifty states. It really didn’t do much for me, except for the final shot.
Quiver
If someone were to make a tutorial video on how to summon the Cenobites without the assistance of a Lemarchand Box, it would probably look a lot like Quiver. Which makes it sound like I should have liked it, but ultimately, it did nothing for me.
The Chairman
I tend to feel that short films are best when they’re condensed and focused; pretty much the opposite of The Chairman. It’s got something to do with psychics and conspiracies, and corporate shenanigans, and advertising. The protagonists are a telepathic father taken hostage by a shadowy business combine, and his equally telepathic daughter. The suits are driving the daughter to suicide for some reason, because they need the father to make mental contact with her and convince her not to, which he refuses to do because he doesn’t want to give the bad guys what they want. At least that’s what I think is going on; I had a hard time following it. It would probably have been a lot better at feature-length.
Mainline
When I say “condensed and focused,” Mainline is what I’m talking about: one actor, one room, a lot of Bob Loblaw about time travel. As with The Chairman, I wasn’t entirely sure why the character was doing what he did—something to do with eliminating paradoxical doubles left over from previous time-travel experiments—but the story was so laser-focused, the atmosphere so intense, it didn’t really matter to me.
Oxford Coma
You ever see someone get killed with punctuation? Easily my favorite of the program.
The Brink
The Brink isn’t so much of a movie as a loose framework for first-time director Jonathan Lin to hang a series of action sequences on. The action sequences are genuinely remarkable, particularly the third-act set pieces that take place on a boat in the middle of a fucking typhoon. Unfortunately for me, I found the material not involving people beating the shit out of each other less than compelling. It’s really hard for me to accept a cop as “heroic” when he’s as reckless and ruthless as The Brink‘s protagonist—and his attitude towards his job, which places him squarely to the the right of Donnie Wahlberg’s character on Blue Bloods, did little to endear me to him. So I didn’t find the overall experience a pleasurable one, but there’s clearly an audience for this sort of thing, so.
China. Directed by Jonathan Li.
Empathy Inc.
Yedida Gorsetman serves up science-fiction and social commentary in equal measures with Empathy Inc. Zach Roditas stars as a disgraced financial advisor who sees a shot at redemption when a college friend gives him an opportunity to invest in a new tech startup—a VR experience that allows the rich to walk in the shoes of the disadvantaged. Could it be that things aren’t what they seem? Insightful and thought-provoking, Empathy Inc. examines the relationship between the haves and the have-nots, and comes to the conclusion that even the most well-intentioned attempts to work within the capitalistic system can be corrupted. Gorsetman has more to offer than a sermon, delivering memorable images in crisp monochrome; the cast, including Roditas, Kathy Searle (as Roditas’ wife), Eric Berryman (as his college buddy), and Jay Kleitz (as the developer of the technology). Not to be missed.
United States. Directed by Yedidya Gorsetman.
Malicious
Michael Winnick’s tale of a young couple plagued by an evil spirit taking the form of their stillborn daughter isn’t out-and-out bad, but neither is it particularly memorable—it provides a bland viewing experience, and much of it slips out of one’s memory within a couple hours of viewing. Winnick borrows his one effective moment—you’ll know it when you see it; it involves the phrase “you don’t”—feels copied wholesale from the Blumhouse/James Wan playbook; not even Delroy Lindo can elevate this material. If there’s not much to say about this one, it’s because there’s so little there.
United States. Directed by Michael Winnick.
Clara’s Ghost (U.S.: dir. Bridey Elliott)
Bridey Elliott’s Clara’s Ghost doesn’t find much new to say about the personal lives of actors—turns out they’re totes fucked up; who knew?—but she doesn’t pull punches and much of her directorial début (she also wrote) is fall-on-the-floor hilarious. Bridey’s mother Paula Niedert Elliott stars as the titular Clara, a washed-up and somewhat unstable alcoholic actress who finds herself the target of a ghostly visitor (Isidore Goreshter of the U.S. version of Shameless) on the eve of a photo shoot…all to the consternation of her husband Ted (Bridey’s father Chris Elliott…you know, from the Letterman show) and daughters Julie (Bridey’s sister Abby) and Riley (Bridey herself), all of whom are also actors. The hilarity that ensues is dark indeed. The plot tends to stagger vaguely from set-piece to set-piece, and I wish Bridey had the courage of her convictions when it came to the ending. But fans of sardonic dysfunctional-family comedies such as Arrested Development should find lots to love here.
Larry Fessenden makes a memorable brief appearance, increasing the festival’s Fessenden Count to 2.
United States. Directed by Bridey Elliott.
