Someone has to review this and I guess I drew the short-straw….again. Short horror is likely the mostly challenging short because you have to elicit two feelings: Concern and Fear. The problem is that if you don’t care about the actors, you can’t feel the fear because you can’t identify with them. Their demise is as important to you as whether or not you should do light or heavy starch.
Poor poor What’s Her Face house-sits for her father and takes a bunch of stupid pills. Not that she’s using drugs, but I’m assuming stupid pills were taken because What’s Her Face does A LOT of stupid things. A creep tries to get access to her apartment building, she refuses. He gets in any way and threatens her. A normal person would at least try to call the police or her Dad. She does, however, take out the garbage when she knows a psycho is out and about, and this act of stupidity gives him access to her father’s flat and the psycho kills her. That’s it.
I don’t mind if something is gratuitous, but please don’t make it boring. It did allow me some time proof my bread; so, I suppose the film did do that.
Some shorts are just garbage trash. Some lack a coherent structure. This particular short tried to be clever, but ended as kinda dumb. I don’t mind things being stupid. Many of the nicest people in my life aren’t geniuses. In fact, a nice dumb friend is waaaay better than a smart mean one. This short was like a dumb/lazy friend. It felt like a couple of randos got a camcorder and just decided to make a Christmas themed short horror film.
I have watched worse films. At least, this short was done on a small budget; so, I can’t crap on it too much. It does need some crapping upon… for fairness.
Lily has a problem: she sees a monster outside of her window and her Tae Bo training boyfriend doesn’t believe her. Eventually, he sees the monster and it kills him and she starts dating the monster. I guess that it’s like a trial by ordeal. The monster defeated her boyfriend; so, the monster gets to watch old movies with her etc.
We used to elect Presidents the same way. The electoral college was a battle royal with everybody claiming each other’s spouses and electoral college votes. The Iowa caucuses was just full-on cannibal- very Hills have Eyes, but with extra corn. I’m sure that those brave/weird souls of yesteryear would’ve understood this short film and would have been immensely entertained. I am not and was not, but they did make an ok home movie.
Ayn Rand- Libertarian, funny hat wearer, and author of that book your roommate wanted you to read in college, but you thought – If only there were an audiobook app. Imagine further, what if libertarians got funding and militant? This is the premise of what evolved into the Bioshock franchise.
Personally, I don’t play a lot of videogames. I used to be really into flying videogames and strategy videogames, BUT I unwind by watching dude’s play videogames. I’m assuming they’re dudes because they usually are. This is a fun way for Xennials and Zoommers to enjoy a game without …. ya know .. playing it.
Bioshock was created by Ken Levine. He was a theater major from Vassar- the last person who’d you’d expect to become a videogame development icon, but here we are. He started out with System Shock, a primitive AI gone evil game that featured a fairly new first person perspective that allowed you act as the bludgeoner of evil forces.
Bioshock was something new. Where Doom had you running around killing things, Bioshock created a World and Society. The graphics of course were amazing, but it created a civilization and culture. Any civilization needs a agreed upon political philosophy, which can attract or be imposed upon others. This civilization creation mixed with horror was Videogame gold!
Ken chose Objectivism to be the underpinning for his societal construct.
According to Ayn Rand, “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute”. This of course can lead to a life of solipsism and in Bioshock that’s what happens.
In the game, a rich industrialist, Andrew Ryan, leaves the terrestrial world to create a city of Rapture under the seas because the government was too intrusive. He wanted to fully unleash Man’s creative potential without rules or regulation. This allowed for scientific innovation in the form of “Plasmids” a drug which gives the user lethal superpowers, but it also led to the city failing because everyone started killing each other for dominance.
You play Jack and go through the game killing all kinds of freaks – BRUTALLY! As you go forward in the game, you are completely immersed in blood and libertarian political philosophy. You’re led by an Irish voice who says – “Would you kindly?” Before telling you to do things.
I don’t want to give away any ending. I do want you to give it a chance and watch below!
This is worth watching if you’re sick of the Walking Dead and crave a sendup. It does have a beginning, middle, and end. It is aggressively mediocre, but so is Thursday- when I was supposed to get this review out. I did not. I have no excuse, except that I fell asleep. I love pizza though, especially with anchovy.
Anchovy gets a bad rap; it’s salty, but COME ON, you’re eating an open-faced cheese sandwich- not the time for sanctimony. This is worth a watch and as is very obvious frozen pizza caused a zombie outbreak. Bummer. Frozen pizza is trash, but sometimes you want something trashy. The heart wants what it wants.
Hulu….Why? I have to educate Hulu or stop them; it takes a Village or The Village. A short needs a Beginning, A Middle, and an End. It should NOT be a teaser for a longer film that you could not get a budget for or a story that you couldn’t figure out. I’m not watching any more of Hulu’s garbage trash. They should stick to being the depository of re-runs. Yes, I’m mad.
Me.N.A features, Jeff, an office-worker-drone who really wants to be special, but isn’t. I’ve worked with these office workers: their cubicles are bare or their cubicles are overly ornate. They are desperate to be noticed. *Sigh* I remember one lady who had all these figurines; she liked to make fun of deaf people and when I called her out, she just glared at me…for months. Well, she ate a lot of fast food; so, maybe she’s had a coronary by now? *I look up to the skies to an indifferent God who doesn’t know my name.*
Jeff decides that the best way to be special is to get his DNA tested. This isn’t the worst idea. I mean, a DNA test confirmed the family rumors that we were Italian and that was an awesome day! Maybe the lifechanging moment for Jeff could be located in his GATC. Who knows? This short was getting kinda good. Then, the rails came off. Fencers, I guess, show up and cart Jeff off to a large …. I guess … gerbil cage. Anyway, that’s it. No conclusion. No ending. Matthew Epstein, the writer/director, didn’t know what a short was. I wish that he had called me first.
The short is NOT a teaser. It’s a brief self-contained story and anything else is a total cheat and garbage because anyone can leave something unfinished. Now, we have a story without an ending like a shitty version of Quantum Leap. Hulu, you are dead to me.
I would’ve put up a poster pic for this, but they were all terrible- Much like this short film. Sometimes an artist just gets in her own way and forgets that you need a story first and not just adapt a Bazooka gum wrapper joke to film. I get it- doing things IS hard. BUT, why bother me with your terrible terrible work? What did I do to you? I’m just a humble math-oriented-handsome-Italian with a love of film and artists, but more importantly, I like to be entertained. I don’t sit down and take time from my busy life to groan.
This short is boring, corny, overdone, and cost WAY too much to make because I’m assuming that production cost over 50 dollars or….. pounds. It’s about a hipster couple who pays the rent by letting their “Bloodsucking Landlord” drink the boyfriend’s blood because…get this… the landlord’s a vampire…see what they did there? *Eye Roll so hard that eye is now at Trader Joe’s 2 miles away*
UGHHHHHHH. I never thought that I’d watch something that made me long for the days of watching Sabrina on Netflix because at least post-season one the lighting was so dark that I could pretend that I wasn’t watching. Plus, I watched it with Lisa, which was fun. Whereas this horrible garbage trash is neither fun, nor good.
Maybe if you had gas-station-sushi or drank the month old chocolate milk because hey…chocolate and you brought your phone with you on your emergency run…maybe it’s worth a watch? Maybe?
Did you ever wonder what happens after all the action is over in a Christmas horror movie and it’s the next day- Christmas Morning? Did you further wonder if that question could be answered in just over 3 minutes? Then, this is the short for you!!!!
It’s crazy; I’m on such a roll right now because I have watched so many great shorts! I was EXTREMELY dubious that a 3.766 minute short could entertain me let alone Laugh Out Loud (as the kids say). This short delivered, therefore, these are the greatest actors of all time and the director is both the greatest director and writer of all time (Mathematical proof available upon request). If you look at the imdb pages of Rebeca Robles, Eric Whitten, and Nicholas Santos, I am once again proven correct (which is the most important thing in life).
This is another must see short. These actors are just terrific!
What happens if you’ve moved on, but your ex hasn’t? Ok, I won’t lie- This short scared me. Really. Usually, these films are from the women’s perspective, BUT as someone who dated his share of psychos, this one got to me. No one believes you until you play them the threatening voicemails or point out the ex who is out standing outside.
At it’s heart, Sleepless is love turned inward. The ultimate closure for the ex is the ultimate ending for her once true love. So, Earth, Wind, and Fire- After the love is gone- she’s going to kill you!
One of the amazing things about this short is that EVERYONE involved got a well-deserved great career. The directing and writing pulled me in. I was legit thrilled and scared. Peter Huang (director), Aaron Abrams (male lead), Anna Hopkins (female lead), Jenny Raven (female lead) all went on to bright careers. A lot of the shorts are sad that way- you see hidden gems who remain hidden.
The film is 6 minutes and change; so, think about that- the writer/director and actors gave me more thrills and fear in 6 minutes than a feature length has in 120 minutes. This is truly excellent acting and filmmaking.
What if OK GO went psycho? This short explores that premise. The protagonists Milton and Paul are much like OK GO, talented, yet a tiny bit pompous. Although OK GO hasn’t murdered anyone…yet, I’m sure that if they did start a life of murderin’ that they would murder like this.
Milton and Paul have just been laid before getting tenure. This fact made me like them less because I despise professors. I’m sure that some are not lazy, sanctimonious, garbage-people, but they must be in hiding or retired because even this week, one of my professors just didn’t show up for class- Just didn’t feel like it. I assuming his thoughts were as follows: Too bad, so sad lowly students – I’m going to roll around in my unearned money now like the thief that I am…. or something like that.
Try getting these holier than thou gasbags held to account and it will take you a year to get your money back and this wasn’t a For Profit school either- NO NO NO…These were public schools; so, take that taxpayer. In my case, it was Uncle Sam’s money that I demanded back because a calculus professor didn’t show up for the entire quarter for either of his classes; yet, he still expected to be and WAS paid. For me, hearing that two professors got fired in this film, made me wonder if I was watching fantasy and if a dragon would appear any minute. I swore heavily in an earlier draft, but I held back for you.
These two professors were fired and decided to kidnap those whom fired them and kill them using Rube Goldberg machines. My main critique is not the jokes or writing- those were fine; overall, the short was entertaining. No, my problem was that they didn’t spend enough time making the Rube Goldberg machine complex enough. Try harder, but then again, perhaps that lent some realism to the film because there is nothing lazier or worse than a college professor. We could put them on the same Herpes-Infected-Horny-Racoon-Island (HIHRI) where I’d like to put all of the sanctimonious politicians. Now, that is a platform we can all get behind!
Finally, I get to watch a good short. I will not lead you astray. This short is worth your time. I promise. It goes for comedy and achieves it. A short is successful if you care about the story and characters and get an emotional response in a brief period of time. Really, that is a tremendous achievement. It has a mean girl (well, mean girl demon), two aspiring devil worshippers, and a neglected boy who needs a sitter.
The two girls summon a demon and she appears and it’s awesome!!! The girls are all goth and the Demon is too cool for school-Brooklyn-hipster-badass.
The demon starts savaging them, “You’d be really pretty if it weren’t for your clothes and face and house”. This is fun because demons are usually scary, slick, or sexy, but that’s usually only the purview of male demons. It was fun dark girl power. I felt like I was back in the City and it’s nice to know that these people still exist in my absence.
After the demon is summoned, she’s takes a liking to the real underdog and the story becomes a quasi-revenge story. I really to hope to see Lauren Cipoletti (The Demon) more. She has great comic timing and we need more of her!
Through the Shattered Lens 