Dead By Dawn 2016: The Shorts.

As there is only one movie left for me to cover in my look back over Dead By Dawn 2016 (I had to miss the last two features, with an import disc allowing me to see Men And Chicken just in time for this coverage) I thought that this would be a good place to quickly review the shorts. All of them.

The 2D & Deranged selection were as follows:

Alt-Tab - mad genius. My personal selection for the best animated short. 9/10.

Francis - a gorgeous campfire tale with an amusing punchline. 7/10.

  
Other Lily - Interesting and quirky, with a nice line in that particular feeling you get when trying to get to sleep despite feeling terrified. 7/10.

Mute - absolutely brilliant. Would have been my choice for best animated short if not just beaten by Alt-Tab. 9/10.

Frozen Blood Test - most will have seen this by now. It's worth watching again. And again. And again. 8/10.

Then you had some of the usual What You Make It selection, a typically eclectic mix:

La Seance - an interesting look at a very particular branch of photography. 7/10.

The Nest - many will have already seen this Cronenberg short. That doesn't make it any less unnerving. 7/10.

The House Is Innocent - a highly amusing look at the warm and witty couple who own an infamous murder home. 8/10.

How Deep Can I Go? - strong contender for my favourite of the fest until some other choices were shown. You may agree with me when you watch it. 9/10.

Death In Bloom - enjoyable and amusing look at death dealing with a slightly fussy customer who just wants her final moments to be perfect. 6/10.

Saturday had a short programme that reminded us all of Where The Wild Things Are:

Boniato - an interesting and impressive little monster movie that could easily be expanded upon, I think. 8/10.
I still prefer Play Dead, however, from the same talented people. So here is Play Dead for you to enjoy.

The Bridge Partner - very droll, but also very amusing. 7/10.

L'ours Noir - an absolutely hilarious look at how not to attract the attention of bears. 9/10.

Foxglove - strange and flawed, this one didn't really work for me. 3/10.

Bad Throttle - a great punchline makes this well worth seeing on a big screen, but it's overlong when you consider the joke. 6/10.

Three short movies made up the Apocalypse Soon section:

Graffiti - a quiet but enjoyable tale set in Pripyat. 7/10.

The Disappearance Of Willie Bingham - starts decent, gets better, and becomes downright horrifying as things go on. Brilliant, bleak stuff. 8/10.

Monsters - my personal choice for the best short film of the festival. Amazing stuff. 10/10.

Last, but by no means least, we have I Blame The Parents, and this lot included:

Viking - a brother and sister give their dad a send off while also revelling in the fact that he's finally shuffled off this mortal coil. 7/10.

Honor Student - more like a music video, this is no less impactful during its final moments. 7/10.

Black Eyes - almost feels like Harold & Maude remade with two child stars. Wonderful stuff. 8/10.

De Kleinzoon AKA The Grandson - dark, witty, and with a fantastic punchline. 9/10.

Blight - superb stuff, yet another short film that easily feels ripe for expansion. It's all about a priest helping a family deal with their possessed and pregnant daughter. 9/10.

The Babysitter Murders - this won best short film of the festival. While it's polished, amusing stuff, and benefits from a layer of meta winks and nods, it's also far too predictable, and ever so slightly smug. But most people seemed to disagree with me. And I still really enjoyed it, regardless. 7/10.

And that covers them all. If you like what you have seen here then please do share the love for these talented film-makers, and keep an eye out for the other titles mentioned here. You won't regret it.

Treevenge (2008)

A bonus short for today because you can never have enough Christmas spirit.

Treevenge is a wonderfully demented short from Jason Eisener (who is now best known for directing the wonderfully demented Hobo With A Shotgun). It's all about the horror of being a tree at Christmas and shows everything from the point of view of the scared, tortured trees. That's all there is to it.

The cast aren't really all that important here because the focus is very much on the trees. Viewers are even treated to subtitles, showing just what the trees are thinking/saying as they get uprooted, chopped down in size and forced into a stand that then has screws tightened to hold them in place.

It may be only approx. 16 minutes in length but Treevenge is very much a short film of two halves. The first half shows how nasty we humans are to trees at the most wonderful time of the year and the second half shows the outright carnage of the revenge (hence the title). While the first half is full of some nice little observations and great gags, the second half lets rip with bloodshed and gore and does so in spectacular style. Eyes are poked out, limbs are removed and even babies are severely harmed.

It's like the best kind of Troma film nicely compacted into one near-perfect short. The fact that it's very rough around the edges just adds to the appeal (as do the soundtrack cues from classic Euro-horrors of yesteryear) but the most admirable thing is probably how polished it all is despite that roughness, something that Eisener would nail perfectly in Hobo With A Shotgun.

I have nothing else to say, this is just a bonus, short review for a short film that every horror fan should watch at least once. It makes for a fine appetiser before the likes of Santa's Slay or Silent Night or even Bad Santa.

8/10

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A Trip To The Moon (1902)

The first, chronologically, of the 1001 Movies To See Before You Die that I am going to be making my way through (well, I might stop at 1000 and then see if I gain immortality), A Trip To The Moon, or La Voyage Dans La Lune, is as entertaining and impressive now as it was 110 years ago. Okay, I suppose that audiences who had seen nothing quite like it at the time would have been even more impressed, and may have wondered just what mysterious magic was at work, but this is a short film that anyone can watch at any age in any year and still easily enjoy. The special effects hold up as something a bit special, partly because of the charming and pioneering style but also because they're genuinely very, very good (especially the matte paintings).

The story is loosely based on two popular novels of the time, one by Jules Verne and the other by H. G. Wells, and simply follows a group of astronauts who travel to the moon and find some strangeness there.

Coming from director George Melies, this is a sci-fi film, a surreal adventure and just an all-round cracking yarn. The old style and the content mix to give a dreamlike atmosphere, the technical side of things is very impressive (if you're cynical about how well any film over a century old could hold up then I implore you to watch this and tell me how they did every little trick) and this is the most sprightly 100+ year old character that you may ever see.

Referenced through the years, mainly in a great Smashing Pumpkins video for their song "Tonight, Tonight" and also in the wonderful Hugo, this is one of many classics fully deserving of the title. Watch it, even if you just watch one of the many versions available on YouTube, and love it.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Melies-The-Magician-DVD-NTSC/dp/B0002W17TE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345536795&sr=8-1

Tape (2012)

The worldwide web brings people closer than ever and has really changed many lives, there's just no denying it. I remember many years ago trying to write a number of movie reviews with nothing more than a pen, some paper and a huge Halliwell's Film Guide for reference. If the internet hadn't been invented I may still be doing that, I just loved films and loved writing about them. But the internet HAS been invented and it's allowed everyone to have their say, for better or worse, on whatever they like. The phrase "everyone's a critic" has never been more appropriate.

The internet has also allowed me to befriend a number of people I would otherwise have perhaps not know of. Aaron Christensen, who takes the lead role in Tape is a great actor, a fantastic movie critic and an all round nice guy. It's quite sickening, to be honest. He's like the human equivalent of a cute puppy and I'd hate him if it wasn't for the fact that he's so bloody good at everything that he even managed to bring together a number of IMDb Horror Boarders, including myself, to write essays that would be put together to form Dr. A. C's Horror 101 (published by Aaron at his own expense and pimped around America . . . . . by Aaron). It was a beautiful moment, I still own my copy and show it off to friends with pride. I also met Jason Coffman through movie-related chat with Aaron and that's another friend added to the list. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, Jason created Tape, starring Aaron, and has been promoting it for a while now over in America. Of course, as soon as I heard about it I was keen to see it. I reminded Jason of this the other day and was sent the link required along with the kind message that if I wanted to leave it alone because of knowing those involved then that was fine. This, I admit, made me pause and think for a moment. Would I have a conflict of interests here? What if I didn't like the film and had to put those criticisms here, in harsh black and white, potentially damaging a blossoming friendship?

Well, when it comes to movies we all have our own biased way of viewing things. That's unavoidable, in my opinion, so a conflict of interests is just the same - it becomes a factor in the review that can be taken into account as long as people are aware of it. I just made you aware of it.

As for the chance that I would dislike the film and upset Jason and Aaron and the other people who worked on the film (some of them I know and some of them I don't) well . . . . . . . . . that's just a risk that crops up more and more now with the great number and variety of people I am always befriending due to an enduring love of the movies. I don't WANT to be saying anything negative about work done by friends but if I think I have valid criticisms then I'll just suck it up, put on my big boy pants and write honestly. And hope they don't want to string me up for it.

Anyway, after that long and rambling preface, let's get to the short film itself. Tape is about a man (played by Aaron Christensen) who engages the unique services of one Mr. Lake. Mr. Lake will do your dirty work for you but there's a catch - you must then keep the tape that he delivers to you for the rest of your life. Whether you actually watch the footage or leave it in the box, hidden away somewhere, it stays there like some kind of recorded tell-tale heart.

Short films are always, I feel, harder to review than features. There are often surprises that you don't want to spoil and even sketching out the plot may be enough to spoil the experience for others. That's just one of the reasons that I don't often review short films. The other main reason is that I always have enough features to be working through. But that's not to say that I am dismissive or ignorant of short films. I love many of them and they're often fantastic stepping stones for directors who go on to bigger and better things after creating on e or two little gems.

Is Tape a good short film? I'd have to say that it is. I'd say that even if I didn't know Jason and Aaron and a few of the others involved I would still have enjoyed the movie. It has a nice, off-kilter, vibe to it and things develop in a tense and interesting manner. It helps that Aaron is, indeed, a very good actor and great in the central role (damn him, one day I will find a flaw . . . . . . . . one day).

Is it a great short film. Oh, it's so close. This is when I have to weigh up everything that I already mentioned above, that conflict of interest and those friendships. Yet I think that any viewer watching Tape would feel the same way. It makes you wish it was on for longer, it prompts you to consider how the premise could be expanded into a feature, it entertains and also makes you think. It might not quite reach greatness but it tries damn hard and I know that those involved all put blood, sweat and tears into the thing so I'm more than happy to recommend it as a very good experience.

There are, as you would expect, some slight failings (despite Jason and co. doing their best with the limited budget there's only so far you can go with restricted funds - this is never going to look like The Dark Knight Rises, of course) but nothing can bring the film down too far, thanks to a central concept that proves so enjoyable that it would take a bunch of idiots to really mess things up. And, as I've known for some time, these guys are certainly not a bunch of idiots.

Well done, folks. Consider my jealousy of your talents increased tenfold.

7/10

Check out the Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/tapeshortfilm

Sheep Impact (2011)

And here we are, at the very very last point of the journey for the time being. The career of Steven Seagal has contained a number of ups and downs but the second decade of the 21st century shows signs that he may not be ready to shuffle off and retire just yet. The movies may not, overall, have improved immensely but they HAVE improved and he's also had some small roles in some very good fare. One such goodie would be Machete. The other would be this short, an advert for beer that packs more entertainment and humour into four minutes than our martial arts hero has managed to fit into his last five starring vehicles.

I'm sure there are many people who will roll their eyes and think less of me for reviewing an advert but what the hell . . . . . . . . people have rolled their eyes out me for doing a lot worse than this. And I maintain that this is more than just an advert, this is a perfectly formed gem of a short film.

Two young men are heading to a party when they run into some trouble. That trouble revolves around a sheep that Seagal doesn't want to see die. Oh, and Seagal isn't playing Seagal. He's a typical young Australian lad. By way of Steven Seagal.

Somehow, four people all worked together to write this. That's one person for each minute of screentime. Director Brendan Gibbons was also one of the writers but I'm not going to complain about the numbers because it looks like everyone managed to work together to get the tone of the humour and the quality of the whole thing just right.

Okay, it's not essential viewing if you're the sort of Seagal fan who just fast forwards through any scenes that don't feature him cracking skulls but it's great fun for those able to enjoy the absurdity of it all. And, once again (as rare as it is), it's nice to see that Seagal actually HAS a sense of humour.

8/10.

Watch Sheep Impact here.