Happy Horrorthon! I found a great and FREE place for horror short films! Alter on Youtube!!!!

I’ll admit the social message was a bit obvious, BUT it is WAAAAAAY better than Two Sentence Horror.  Also, the stories try to hide the social message with some well-done horror.  Lastly, if you don’t like it, you’ve only lost 8 minutes of your life- 20 minutes MAX!!!

The Plague takes place in Spain.  A woman is living alone in her father’s home.  He has Alzheimer’s disease and the elderly father has returned to his home.  His daughter finds him in the shower and she is immediately she fed up.  She wants him back at the nursing home and tells him so.  All during the short, he has arms reaching out to her for affection, but his daughter spurns him repeatedly. 

In a brilliant allegory, gun thugs appear and try to kill her father who has super-strength, but not enough against 5 armed men who shoot him, put him in a steel box, and store him in an abandoned area to rot in a living death.  The father was never depicted as a zombie only that when he died he was not ready to go and only wanted to be with his daughter.  The steel box represented the nursing home where so many of us put our parents.  Saying the father was dead but wasn’t ready to go, symbolized how she was treating her father- he was already dead to her, but he still loved his her.

I won’t put my personal opinion on nursing homes here, BUT I will say Guillermo Carbnonell is welcome to break bread with me anytime.

Happy Horrorthon! This short from Dean Loxton is a thriller throwback.  Abdul (Akin Gazi)  is in a relationship with an unstable SJW (Madeleine Sims-Fewer).  It clocks in at about 8 minutes, but it throws you right into the suspense.  Abdul is looking at body of woman and he gets a call- “Did you do it?”

The story is told in a flashback where we learn about his SJW girlfriend and the frustration Abdul with life and being in love with someone unstable.  As someone who nearly married an unstable person, I could relate to Abdul. He was on edge because he never knew what was coming next with his girlfriend.  This edge keeps you guessing until the end.

Dean Loxton sets the mood for a great thriller and you can watch it in just 7 minutes and change!!! I highly recommend this film.  It really keeps you on edge and keeps you guessing.

See Suspect on Vimeo Here!

Halloween is approaching! We should not forget to discuss the fear of failure, which this episode did not have a problem doing.  Wow, I’ve reviewed some hot garbage, but this was the mathematical derivative of garbage because it was the rate of change from boring to embarrassing.  The only bright spot was veteran Bruce Davison’s performance that was wasted on such hackneyed craptastic material.  Sad.

The first story was about a Monkey’s Paw. Yep, Nicotero decided to do a monkey’s paw story….on purpose. It follows the typical trope: Get a Paw, make three wishes, and they all suck somehow, but this time with mediocre zombie makeup.  Honestly, it looked like Party City was missing some 2 dollar makeup.  We should all feel sad for the time that I shall never get back.

The second story was auditioning for the Walking Dead radio show because half of the rushed hot mess was exposition.  A mayor and cronies go bad during a zombie apocalypse and town executes them.  This story also had some second tier Walking Dead zombies and David Arquette who basically did agonized facial expressions whenever he was on camera.  I used to really like David’s acting, but now he just looks like he’s tired and needs to angry poo real real bad.  Maybe, David decided to get some gas station sushi, wash it down with past questionable milk, and go to set? That’s what his acting told me.

This show has potential for actual greatness, but man, if Nicotero doesn’t do some quality control, it’ll just be another schlocky horror series like Two Sentence Horror.

Happy Horrorthon! Remember to decorate your tree for SamHain; he’s like Sam Goody because he’s from the past, but probably not like Yosemite Sam.  Why am I writing kinda goofy? Because I just read the early 20th Century version of Scooby Doo!  Yes, Lovecraft can be kinda corny.

In The Hound, two graverobbers get more than they bargained for when they steal a dead hound’s amulet and the ghost monster stalks them.  Jinkies!  There is very little character development, but the there is a whole heck of a lot of stuffy prose to obfuscate the simplistic plot.  The hound starts howling at night “Shaaaaaaagggggggy” “Vellllllma” or something close to that.  They start to go crazy and one of the grave-robbers dies! Jeepers!

The grave-robber/narrator decides to return the amulet to the groovy ghoulie, but he gets robbed! Ruh-Roh! Of course this turns out to be good luck because the Evil Scooby kills the muggers.  For some reason, he decides to visit the doggy grave again and it’s covered in the gore of meddling kids! Zoinks!

Would I recommend reading this story? Well….it was kinda fun and maybe worth two Scooby Snacks!

Happy Horrorthon.  Yes, I’m reviewing Thriller. I separate art from the artist.  There is too much understanding that is lost if we create a Bushido for people to be worthy of artistic contribution.

Thriller is unique because like the majority of works I’ve reviewed this season, it’s a short film.  It’s even a film within a film within a film.  Michael and his date are watching a scary movie, they are in a scary movie, and then she is in a real-life scary movie.  It’s directed by John Landis at his best.  It’s got the humor and horror married together.

Today, this song is a great vehicle for charity…YEP! People across the world on this weekend will dance the Thriller Dance to raise money for charity.  In the Seattle area, amazingly wonderful and handsome people perform the Thriller dance to raise money for Survivor Northwest – a charity that empowers women who have had a cancer diagnosis to survive and thrive through fitness, health and wellness services.

For those of you who never been touched by the horror of cancer, I envy you in a way that you will never understand.  For this charity dance alone, Thriller should remain. See the amazingly beautiful and talented dancers below.

.

The Man Who Loved Flowers is a short story by Stephen King. Yes, I’m doing another one; it’s become a theme for me this horrorthon.  I’m pretty amazed at how King can take just a few pages and create a whole world.  Unfortunately, for the characters in this story, the world has a man who likes to murder people with a hammer…Yes, a hammer!

It’s New York City in 1963 and among the headlines of the Day: JFK (still alive), Vietnam is kicking off, and there is a man murdering women with a hammer.  The story is very good at lulling the reader into a sense of security.  There’s a man with a love of spring that that is palpable.  In fact, everyone is nostalgic and happy when they see him because he personifies the love of spring.

As he wanders around New York, he purchases some flower and then he finds Norma.  Well, Norma in his mind only because Norma is dead and so is this woman very soon after he meets her.  It’s a brutal scene and sudden.  He spends a lot of time describing the murder.  After the killing, he’s all smiles.

I wouldn’t say it’s the best of his short stories, but it’s not terrible.  I would describe it as the Honda Civic of short stories; yes they are easy to steal, don’t have a lot of power, and look like a moving bad decision; but, the Civic has reasonable gas mileage and shouts to the world – Yes, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I can still afford a tank of gas!

Happy Horrorthon! In The Cats of Ulthar by Lovecraft, there is a town that has a strict rule: Do not kill cats and NO DANCING! Most people have this don’t kill cats thing as an unspoken rule, but for the people of Ulthar, it had to be written the fuck down!  The town wasn’t always this way.  The town had two old psychopaths that got their jollies out of luring and slaying cats just for the Memmmmmmories.  Poor Rum Tum Tugger never saw it coming.  For him, a new day would not begin.

Everything was going purrrrfectly, until a bunch of demonish people passed through Ulthur.  The travelers had a child with them who had a wee kitten, but not for long because when the the travelers fell asleep, the old couple decided all nine lives of the  kitten must end and not even Elaine Paige’s voice could save it.

This made the boy demon all bummed out so he he summoned demons to empower the town’s cats to eat the elderly couple and they did have one big Fancy Feast! So, the town made the no killing cats rule, which caused a severe lasagna shortage and general hatred of Mondays.

Dagon by HP Lovecraft is a brief story that strives to set up his “mythos”. HP Lovecraft made Stephen King’s work possible and his first name HP makes me think of my favorite tangy steak sauce. I doubt there is a a connection to Lovecraft and steak sauce, but who knows?  Maybe they’ll be some discovered works where the Old Ones try to consume humanity and the world, but are placated with deliciousness of HP?

HMMMMMMM. Yum.

Dagon is short; it clocks in at 5 pages, but that was interesting enough to inspire the film Dagon- Lisa’s Dagon Review.   The story is written by as a memoir of man who is strung out on steak sauce for days…I mean heroin…no….wait…morphine- that’s it.  His name is never mentioned; so, I’m calling him Doug.  You heard it first – his name was Doug.

Doug was a naval officer … somehow.  I mean really the only thing this guy seemed to know how to do correctly was morphine.  His ship is attacked and captured by the Germans without any description of a fight.  Was he in the French Navy? He and his crew are captured and the only people more incompetent than he is are the Germans who easily let him escape.  Also, he has no concept of navigation.  Are we sure he was attacked by the Germans or were they on a mercy rescue mission?

His wee row boat runs aground on a murky grossness that smells of rotting dead fish.  So, he’s in Maine?  HIYO!!!!  He discovers that there is a temple of sorts worshiped by Fish-men … really.  This is a recurring theme in Lovecraft’s books: incompetent sailors and archaeologists uncover interdenominational cities with monsters. Doug even sees one of these walking fish sticks and it freaks him out so much that he goes and insane and swears off Red Lobster forever.  Somehow, he manages to get back out to sea and gets rescued, but seeing the monster and their weird island makes him really need morphine.

The story was quick paced and you can see how his “mythos” would evolve. It is also clear that “Incompetent weirdos find slime monsters” was likely the working title of most of Lovecraft’s works.  He also uses the word Bas-Relief a lot, which makes me think of a fish in sunglasses hanging out on a lounge chair rather than stone carvings of soldiers doing things.  The big lesson from his work is that if you’re doofus, you’ve probably already met Dagon or Cthulhu.

You be the judge. What do you think of when you read Bas-Relief:

Happy horrorthon! This episode followed the trend of the second story being the better of the two, but really it showcases a two short films every week.  I never really watched short films before because they sounded impossible  You have twenty minutes or less to put a story together and give it some heft.  It’s interesting to see how it’s accomplished.  Short stories are one thing, but a film has establish shots and tension in short order…pun intended.

The stories tend to be very straight forward; you really can’t spoil them.  The Companion- a boy makes a Golem who kills his mean brother.  Lydia Lane’s Better Half- Lydia is trapped in an elevator with a woman she killed.  Yes, the second one is better. I like that elevator horror is slowly becoming a sub-genre, but does everyone have to be crushed between floors?

The Companion opens with a teenager who is repeatedly abused by his older brother.  This changes when he goes to a farm and finds a Golem-Scarecrow.  At first, the Golem wants to kill him because he isn’t holding a magical cane…really.  The deceased farmer in the story created the Golem because after his wife passed, he was lonely; so, he created a Golem-Scarecrow….as you do. Well, the Golem murders people if they aren’t holding his dead wife’s cane.  Whatevs.  As with most of the first stories, the acting was fine and the story was fine.  Not great, but it did allow me to pass the time during physical therapy exercises.

The second story starred one of my favorite actresses and people- Tricia Helfer.  I loved her in BSG, she’s great in Burn Notice and Lucifer, and she does the Tulip Ride for the Seattle Humane Society.  She has the drive and talent of a million people, which means that there are 999,999 very sad lazy people out there because of Tricia Helfer.  This short film was no different! She plays Lydia Lane, a high-powered CEO, who passes over her protege Celia for a CFO position.  Later, a struggle ensues and Celia gets accidentally impaled in the head with a glass award killing Celia and she needs to get the body out of the office building and hide it.  She seems to be getting close to an escape until an earthquake causes the elevator to stop.  UH OH.

After Celia’s death, there’s virtually no monologue or dialogue. Tricia Helfer has to deliver suspense and fear with movement and facial expressions alone- she does.  It becomes a one-woman show …. except for Celia who is a possible zombie, but it could also be that Lydia is losing her mind and it’s this ambiguity that makes the story really pop.  The direction by Roxanne Benjamin was excellent as well. She has a great future in both action and horror.

These stories are really important because they are great and they give opportunities to new directors with a lot of talent!