Tag Archives: Short Film

Short Film Review: Beyond the Moonlight (2025) Duration 9 min

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In terms of production value, short films really run the gamut from goofy DIY productions slapped together with little forethought in someone’s backyard, to slickly produced professional pieces with Hollywood-level craftsmanship. With recording and editing equipment being more accessible and user friendly than ever, barriers to creating a film have never been lower, but the ability to create a good one remains as difficult and elusive as ever. Regardless of the tools and technology, the biggest factor in determining the quality of a film is how well it’s able to succeed on the most fundamental level of being “a good story, well told.”

With a total runtime of just nine minutes and the film itself being contained to just over six, Beyond the Moonlight doesn’t have a lot of runway to work with but from the beginning is able to establish a level of quality with rich atmosphere and beautifully executed shots. The story follows a young woman (Isabella Jaimie) furiously practicing ballet at night and performing for a strict task-masker (Alexandra Almendarez) who keeps demanding more from her. The film at this point gives strong Suspiria vibes and effectively builds tension with excellent camerawork, well-crafted lighting, and a particularly impressive shot that utilizes mirrors to great effect.

While I applaud the use of practical effects here the main misstep in the film is the fundamental tonal shift at the end that takes a tense and intriguing set-up and puts a button on it that’s downright hokey. The idea itself is solid and had the scene been taken a little more seriously, it could have ended on a much stronger note. That being said, I was still left wanting more as this whole film really just hints at the beginnings of a larger story and fortunately the short is already being adapted into a one- hour TV pilot. I’m truly intrigued to see how that goes because if writer/director Natalie Rodriguez is able to strike the right tonal balance we could have something really interesting here.

Availability: Unavailable

Currently there is no release date for the film but more info can be found on the official website here

Short Film Review: La Cabra (2024) Duration 14 min 50 sec

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La Cabra attempts to recreate the experience of watching a ‘70’s Satanic Panic cult film with its story of a little girl (Coral Degraves) who has strange encounters while wandering alone in the woods. Given the fact that the title literally translates to “The Goat” you can bet that both Satanism and the aforementioned hoofed creatures feature prominently in this film. I can see what writer/director Toruga was going for here, trying to build tension and dread through an ominous soundscape and scenes of an innocent child punctuated by sinister imagery, but the end result just doesn’t translate to a successful horror film.

Degraves does a perfectly fine job for someone of her age attempting the difficult task of carrying almost the entirety of the runtime on her back alone and the issue isn’t with her as much as it is with the pacing and direction. Even at under 15 minutes, the lack of meaningful onscreen interaction causes this to drag and it could have been a more engaging slow-burn at half the length (starting a short with a full credits roll out doesn’t help either). Shooting horror in broad daylight on a shoestring budget is no easy feat but even with those limitations in place this could still have made a larger impact with more creative camera use, minimizing the screen time of costumed characters, and excising cliched imagery of things like Ouija boards entirely. The sound design is the most effective part of the experience but it’s not enough to make up for the rest of the shortcomings.

Availability: Widely Available

The full film is available on Toruga’s YouTube channel.

Short Film Review: Oh… Canada (2024) Duration 6 min 14 sec

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Part faux-educational video, part national anthem, and multiple parts surreal fever-dream, there’s a lot going on in Vincenzo Nappi’s unhinged short Oh Canada. I wouldn’t exactly call it horror but it does take a surprisingly gruesome turn partway through its short runtime, which is always refreshing to see. It’s not the kind of film that has a tremendous amount to say outside of being a subversion of the kind of media that would expound upon the virtues of national pride with earnest sincerity but it does pack the scant six minutes with some memorable imagery that’s sure to rattle around in your brain for a while after. Whether or not the odd comedy bits hit for you will come down to a matter of taste but either way this film is clearly the product of a lot of hard work that succeeds in delivering an interesting and unique experience in the time it take blow through a couple of movie trailers.

Availability: Unavailable

The film premiered at the 2024 Fantasia Film Festival but does not have a release date at this time.

Short Film Review: Ride Baby Ride (2024) Duration 7 min 29 sec

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In Ride, Baby, Ride writer/director Sofie Somoroff utilizes the underrepresented sub-genre of sentient vehicles to deliver a stylish horror short where a female mechanic (Celina Bernstein) must do battle with a monstrous Camaro. The film is incredibly well shot and while its subject matter draws some thematic comparisons to Christine, the surreal style and dark absurdity of the content is more akin to Titane. While the concept might sound silly to some, the execution is not and the underlying feminist message comes through clearly. Somoroff does an excellent job using concise imagery to communicate the feeling of menace and violation the mechanic feels when she is simply trying to purchase the car from a couple of creepy guys in the opening scene. With top-notch production values and a core message that is as relevant now as ever Ride Baby Ride packs a lot under the hood in a fun trip that goes fast and leaves you wanting more.

Availability: Widely Available

The full film can be watched on the Alter channel on YouTube here.

Short Film Review: Fck’n Nuts (2023) Duration 11 min 56 sec

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With Fckin Nuts, writer/director Sam Fox channels the anxiety of introducing your partner to your parents into a short that is as quirky as it is grotesque. The film opens with Sandy (Maddie Nichols) on the phone tearfully trying to reach her boyfriend Dan (Vincent Stalba, The Blood of the Dinosaurs) who, much to her dismay shows, up at her front door. After professing his love for her, he insists on meeting her parents which she is adamantly opposed to and repeatedly states that they are nuts. However it isn’t long before he finally convinces her to let him in and that’s when things really get, well, fuckin’ nuts.

I really can’t reveal more than that, but suffice to say Fox does a great job establishing an ominous tone from the start that pays off in unexpectedly bizarre, horrifying, and just plain weird ways. The surreal style gives off Lynchian vibes with its slightly off-kilter suburban America setting which gets infused with body horror reminiscent of Todd Haynes’ controversial early 90s classic, Poison.

From top to bottom, every aspect of this odd little film feels highly polished and well realized, from the lighting, to the FX, right down to the meticulously detailed set dressing. Fox gives an excellent sense of movement with her stellar camera work that keeps the film from ever feeling stagnant in the single location and the acting from both leads brings the heightened reality of the world to life without overdoing it. There isn’t much more to say, especially as Fckin Nuts is something that really needs to be experienced rather than described.

Availability: Unavailable

The film is currently making the rounds at festivals and does not have an official release date. Check out samfoxyfilms.com for more info.

Short Film Review: All You Can Eat (2023) Duration 13 min

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Truly anything can be the villain of a horror movie it seems, and I do mean anything. From killer Kombucha bottles to deadly donuts to sentient tires and evil bongs, there really is no object too random or absurd to come to life and wreak havoc in a horror film. These films aren’t so much striving for quality as banking on morbid curiosity, so the real trick is convincing the viewer that once they’ve started something like Death Toilet 5: Invasion of the Potty Snatchers there is actually enough entertaining content to keep them there for ninety minutes.

When I saw that “killer burrito” is what seems to have come out of the random word generator that I assume people are using to craft these ideas I didn’t have high hopes for All You Can Eat. Even though these types of films aren’t going for anything more than campy fun they more often than not fail to even hit that mark and are simply insufferable. Imagine my surprise then when this odd story of a fast food worker (Verity Hayes) who is rightly suspicious of the weird experiments her boss (Andy Muskett) is doing in the kitchen turned out to be not just passable but downright entertaining.

The fact that it’s a short helps All You Can Eat not overstay it’s welcome but after a well-paced and engaging thirteen minutes I was actually ready and willing to see more. No, this short about murderous Mexican food isn’t going to blow any minds seeking a rich, complex story but it does manage to succeed where so many have failed and deliver a bite-sized chunk of genuine horror fun that is both bloody and satisfying.

Availability: Widely Available

Full video can be found on flyingeyeball.co

Short Film Review: Canary (2023) Duration 17 min 58 sec

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The apocalypse has always been a fertile topic for art, but with each passing day it begins to feel less like an abstract fantasy and more like an impending inevitability. Far from being a hot take or an alarmist viewpoint, the steady drumbeat of “our world is ending” isn’t so much catastrophic revelation as it is a pervassive, omnipresent anxiety that permeates our collective unconscious. The question isn’t so much if the end times will come about soon but which grotesque vision of the future will we be treated to as we usher in the denouemont of the human race? What seemingly impossible reality will we look back on as eeirly prophetic? The Road? Mad Max? The Matrix? 1984?

Canary never spells it out directly, but doesn’t need to as there are enough allusions to the clearly supernatural origin of the hellish new reality the characters are living in. For Alan (Barron Leung) things have found a way to get even worse as he finds himself trapped in a remote cabin where the only other survivors are three assholes who bully him mercilessly.

With such a high concept idea, it would be easy to overextend the modest resources of this independent short but director Taka Tsubota wisely chooses to take the all too infrequent approach of actually understanding how to work within the limitations of his available budget. This less-is-more philosophy works wonderfully here as Tsubota pulls off genuine tension with some excellent camera work and world-building without exposition dumps. The acting chops of some of the supporting cast aren’t quite where I’d like them to be but overall it’s a good story, well told, that fits perfectly into its runtime.

Availability: Unavailable

The film recently played at the LA Shorts film festival on 7/24/23 but does not currently have an official release date at time of review. Visit takatsubota.com for updates and further info.

Short Film Review: Final Gasp (2023) Duration 11 min 30 sec

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Short films are challenging because in almost no time you need to establish the world, the stakes, and make the audience care about what’s happening. Final Gasp seems to struggle a bit with some of these concepts as it tells the story of a young woman (Catarina Carvalho) who receives a mysterious package while alone in the apartment. From a storyline perspective all the necessary information is provided, but since other characters play such key roles in the story, it would have been more effective if we had actually seen them rather than only having them referred to or interacted with through text convos.

This is largely a one person show and Carvalho does a solid job working within the space she is given. The film is very competently shot (not a given for microbudget projects like this) and director David E. Teixeira does an effective job building tension and dread within a confined space. I also enjoy the otherworldly quality the film takes on at times and Teixeira economically uses camera angles, everyday objects, and a haunting score to great effect.

Unfortunately, it also succumbs to common screenwriting pitfalls such as characters making illogical and perplexing choices in service of moving the story forward, when it’s always scarier to see someone do everything right and still be put in danger. I mean, maybe instead of just using your phone as a flashlight, take two seconds and try calling the police. A bit of a mixed bag ultimately, but still a decent film that could have been a very good film had there been a more stringent evaluation of each story beat prior to shooting.

Availability: Unavailable

No release date as of review, follow David E. Teixeira on Twitter at @davidemmanuelt for further updates and info.

Short Film Review: White Willow (2017) Duration 2 min 40 sec

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Film is primarily a visual language and if you want to convey something to the audience in under three minutes then your visuals need to be on point and memorable. Such is the case with White Willow which deftly communicates a gruesome little story about self mutilation that won’t soon leave your mind. The film’s sole performer (Emily Lamberski) turns in a solid, compelling performance which is further enhanced by the excellent SFX work by makeup artist Jess Marie. Writer/director Ryan Swantek’s quick cuts and eerie ambiance create a jarring, unsettling experience while establishing a character who I would be happy to see more of in a feature or another short. A fun, nasty little piece that’s sure to get under your skin.

Availability: Widely Available

Full video can be watched on Ryan Swantek’s YouTube Channel.

Short Film Review: Kiddo (2022) Duration 14 min 57 sec

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Ambiguity in film is a difficult needle to thread, holding back just enough information to give the audience something to chew on afterwards without omitting key details required for supporting the action onscreen. In under fifteen minutes, Kiddo establishes a very intriguing world brought to life by excellent acting, a great visual style, and some nice moments of brutality. The sense of dread is palpable right from the beginning as we join middle-aged woman Kiddo (Lisa Howard) on a bus full of teens, all of them clad in matching pink jumpsuits. As the bus winds lazily through the bucolic countryside, it’s very clear that all is not right here and it might have something to do with the couple of rough-looking guys on the bus who aren’t dressed like the others.

I can’t go into more detail than that without getting into spoilers but suffice to say Kiddo has a very solid concept and executes it perfectly from a technical aspect. The only points where it falters slightly are a few moments of illogical character choices and some aspects of the world-building that don’t quite connect the dots. It’s still an incredibly accomplished piece of filmmaking and something that I would very much like to see expanded into a feature. This would provide more time to delve into the larger story and answer some of the burning questions about what is really going on to firmly solidify the reality of the world it created.

Availability: Upcoming Release

Film will be premiering on Alter on 12/29/22.