2000s Robert Morgan Shorts

THE SEPARATION

(2003)

Overall: GOOD

 

This heartfelt tale of two conjoined twins seemingly removed from each other's physical bodies against their will plays out against Claude Debussy's "Claire de lune" movement.  A clear metaphor of the overall longing for the comfort that the past can offer, the entirety of said twin's lives seems to be summed up in The Separation's running time that is just shy of ten minutes as they are content when together and forlorn when apart.  Robert Morgan's animation is unsettling, but its most gruesome set piece is more emotionally tragic than horrifying.  Thus can be said for the entire film really.

MONSTERS

(2004)

Overall: GOOD

 

Both the first live action film by Robert Morgan and first not to use any stop motion animation, Monsters is a puzzling look into a disturbed child's head and what can manifest inside and out of it.  Ridiculed and threatened by his older sister and primarily brushed-off by his parents, an over active imagination starts blurring the lines of what may or may not be actually happening.  As far as presenting disturbed visuals from a kid's mind, Morgan does quite a job in tapping into such visceral fears.  It is not quite clear what to make of things at the end as it has all been too murky up until then to have the seemingly narrative left-turn appear plausible, but it is effective as a whole all the same.

 

THE CAT WITH HANDS

(2007)

Overall: GOOD

 

Two versions of Robert Morgan's The Cat with Hands exist; one made in 2001 as a "pilot" of sorts to secure funding for future projects and another, more fleshed-out one that was released in 2007.  While the initial installment which showcases but one scene is a bit darker and void of dialog, its ambiguity makes it somewhat more unsettling than its future counterpart.  That said, the latter, (which is presented more as a dark fairytale and features live actors as well as stop motion animation), is satisfyingly creepy in its own right.  It is also more gleefully macabre, with Morgan presumably having a bit more fun with the material the second time around.

OVER TAKEN

(2009)

Overall: MEH

 

Robert Morgan's entry in the Branchage Film Festival's 2009 48-Hour Film Challenge, Over Taken is unapologetically baffling, most likely for the mere sake of it.  A woman prances around a beach as a claymation stick figure ogles her with almost completely indecipherable dialog.  Meanwhile, a melancholy piano pieces plays throughout and at one point another woman shows up, laughs a bit, then gets beaten and stepped on by the first woman.  As it was made so quickly under the predetermined confines of the festival, attaching much meaning to the proceedings is a bit of a grasping-at-straws endeavor.  For those that enjoy pure, avant-garde befuddlement though, Morgan assuredly delivers it here that is for sure.

2000s Asian Horror Shorts

COMEDY
(2002)
Dir - Kazuto Nakazawa
Overall: GOOD

Part of Studio 4°C's shorts collection Sweat Punch, Comedy, (Kigeki), was directed by Kazuto Nakazawa who Westerners might be familiar with as the guy that did the anime segment in Quintin Tarantino's Kill Bill as well as doing the animation for Linkin Park's "Breaking the Habit" video.  Essentially a vampire story though it deliberately does not come out and officially proclaim it, the presentation is that of a dark, mysterious fairytale that is told in flashback by a young woman.  Even with some massive bloodshed near the end, it is all beautifully done and mostly plays out to the tune of Franz Schurbert's famous "Ave Maria", giving it a highly romantic feel.

 

HAZE
(2005)
Dir - Shinya Tsukamoto
Overall: MEH

 

Two versions exist of Shinya Tsukamoto's Haze; a twenty-five minute one initially released and a more unforgiving forty-nine minute one that indulges in torture porn a bit more than is comfortable.  In fact there is very little comfort if any to be found here as it is one of the most brutally claustrophobic works in horror there is.  Tsukamoto's cinematography is relentlessly harsh; it rarely breaks from close-ups lit in a manner one notch above "complete blackness".  Because of this, it is irritatingly difficult to tell what is happening for large portions, though this is no doubt completely intentional.  The ending is curious in a different, less visceral fashion and if anything else, Tsukamoto stays the course for virtually all of his work in challenging his audience in an assuredly confident manner that is quite meritable if not altogether enjoyable.

 

CHAINSAW MAID

(2007)

Dir - Takena Nagao

Overall: GOOD

 

If anyone wanted to know what a scene in Peter Jackson's Braindead might look like if it was done in claymation, Chainsaw Maid would probably satisfy such curiosity.  Simple, silly, and gore-ridden, animator Takena Nagao's second short is exactly what the title suggest.  Some hanky-panky between the title character and the man of the house that she is taking care of, (whatever that is about), gets interrupted by zombies and as you would predict, bloody mayhem ensues.  Nagao's design work is quite crude yet stylized with stark, brightly painted paper sets and zombies getting hacked in half and puking up piles of intestines that look like Play-Doh.  The intertitles are another humorous touch as there is barely any need for dialog save one moment anyway; it is primarily just hacking and slashing at colorful corpses.

2000s Foreign Horror Shorts

WARD 13

(2003)
Dir - Peter Cornwell
Overall: GOOD

 

The debut from Australian filmmaker Peter Cornwell, (The Haunting in Connecticut), Ward 13 is an amusing, dialog-less stop-motion nightmare that finds an unwilling patient trying to desperately escape the rather unwholesome hospital that he has found himself in after a car wreck.  The claymation is slightly crude, but it also benefits the movie's somewhat amusing tone; a tone which is enhanced by macabre things like disturbing looking medical instruments, a nurse in a Jason Voorhees mask, and one patient being turned into a Cthulhu monster.  There is also a nod to a Simpsons gag with a dog with two heads and a cloned sibling with two rear-ends.  Cornwell's direction is moody, funny, and rather suspenseful, unfolding more like a Looney Tunes cartoon than anything else.

 

GREEN VINYL

(2004)

Dir - Kleber Mendonça Filho

Overall: GOOD

 

This stylized, spooky short from Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho was based off a Russian folktale called "Green Gloves", here modernized somewhat to Green Vinyl, (Vinil Verde).  Told over narration and still photographs, it follows a mysterious, fairytale like logic which is more curiously compelling due to the film's contemporary setting.  A central theme is eventually revealed of passing one's own fears and eccentricities down to your children and the very stark, singular presentation makes the journey to get there more mesmerizing and eerie than downright frightening.  Expertly moody and quite rewarding because of it, it is a unique and memorable quasi-supernatural short film to take proper notice of.

 

THE LOST SPIDER PIT SEQUENCE

(2005)

Dir - Peter Jackson

Overall: MEH

 

During the making of his own gargantuan-budgeted remake and for shits and giggles, Peter Jackson and his special effects team decided to recreate the alleged "lost" spider pit sequence in the original King Kong.  Splicing together footage from other films that used the same models and going off of artwork and a script that detailed the segment, the split-screen work is a bit rough, but otherwise it rather seamlessly fuses with the 1933 version.  Considering that the stop-motion, prehistoric monster bits from King Kong are arguably the most enduring besides the iconic Empire State Building finale, Jackson's work here is a nice, gruesome addition.  Still, it is primarily of interest to cinephiles and just a minor curiosity on its own.

 

THE TORCHBEARER

(2005)

Dir - Václav Švankmajer

Overall: GOOD

 

The third short from Václav Švankmajer, (son of filmmaker Jan Švankmajer), is an ambitious piece that took five years to make and combines medieval fantasy and steampunk motifs, quite memorably at that.  The Torchbearer, (Světlonoš), seems to detail the perpetual rise and fall of power as an unnamed soldier withstands the trials of a mysterious castle where female statues test his wits and determination.  The film is visually captivating, almost exclusively composed of stark reds, bone, marble, stone, and metal with grinding gears, backwards whispers, some beastly cries from rats and a dragon, and a very subdued musical score by Ondřej Ježek as its only audio accompaniments.  It stretches its length a bit at times, but otherwise it is an excellently moody, mystical, and impressive bit of stop-motion animation.

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF MISTER HOLLOW

(2008)

Dir - Rodrigo Gudiño/Vincent Marcone

Overall: GOOD

This chilling and effective collaboration between Rue Morgue magazine founder/filmmaker Rodrigo Gudiño and web designer/illustrator/Johnny Hollow member Vincent Marcone, (the band of which also composed the eerie soundtrack), takes a very deep look at a single, old-timey photograph with quite a lot becoming more apparent therein.  The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow, (which sounds like something Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft would write, no doubt intended as such), stretches its premise for an acceptable amount of time, revealing numerous, sinister details before abruptly ending with plenty of questions still left on the table.  Mysterious and clearly occult-themed in nature, it is quite creepy and intriguing.

ALMA
(2009)
Dir - Rodrigo Blaas
Overall: GOOD

The only non-television, directorial effort from Spanish Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas, Alma is foreseeable yet still impressively done.  A dark fantasy film where the doomed title character innocently writes her name on a stonewall only to be then immediately captivated into a mysterious doll shop right across the street, the viewer is hip to the story's outcome rather quickly.  The beauty then may be in how Blaas makes the predictable narrative still enchanting to watch; the animation is very clean and efficiently rendered and its secretive setting could wield a slew of intriguing options if further expanded upon.  On that note, a full-length version of Alma is one of a handful of projects stuck in development hell that Guillermo del Toro has been attached to executive producing, so who knows if we will ever get any proper answers as to the secrets withheld here.

2000s British Horror Shorts

SPOILSBURY TOAST BOY

(2004-2005)
Dir - David Firth
Overall: GOOD

A series of three short animations from the comically disturbed mind of English animator and filmmaker David Firth, Spoilsbury Toast Boy is as wacked-out and hilarious as any of his other works. The segments play in reverse chronology, (probably?), but this hardly matters. The title character is essentially terrorized by a society of malevolent beetles who like to pretend that they are helpful to children, only to use them as slave labor to make toast for their giant beetle king. Either that or it is all a hallucination or some combination of the two. The haunting, ambient soundtrack and quite funny, distorted voices enhance many scenes that are equally unnerving yet laugh out loud strange.

 

RUBBER JOHNNY

(2005)

Dir - Chris Cunningham

Overall: GOOD

 

Another collaboration between avant-garde music video director Chris Cunningham and Aphex Twin, Rubber Johnny is a short film set to the song "Afx237 v.7" off of Aphex Twin's Drukqx album.  In it, a largely deformed boy/man confined, (or so it would seem), to a wheelchair spontaneously dances when his doctors and nurses are not yelling at him to stop.  It is also filmed in infrared and there is cocaine, a chihuahua, and indistinguishable "dialog" just to enhance the unnerving experience.  For those familiar with the filmmaker's work, it is disturbing and bizarre in Cunningham's textbook fashion.  It looks like what it is; something made by the same team that brought us the "Come to Daddy" music video.

 

CROOKED ROT
(2008)
Dir - David Firth
Overall: GOOD

More pure, nightmare fuel from David Firth, Crooked Rot is nothing more than creepy mannequin heads, creepy pig heads, creepy hands, and overall uncomfortableness for about four unflinching minutes.  All of which is the animators usual stock and trade and none of which is a bad thing.  The red curtain backdrop could be seen as a direct link to David Lynch, (whom Firth collaborated with on his comparatively weird, later short Flying Lotus Feat. David Lynch), and its disturbing qualities are not limited to its visuals; the indistinguishable, screamy dialog and squishy sound design are just as unforgivingly avant-garde.

 

DOG OF MAN
(2008)
Dir - David Firth
Overall: GOOD

 

The second short of five released in 2008 from David Firth, Dog of Man is a somewhat crudely animated, introspective one about loneliness where a man with no friends finds comfort via some grotesque means.  It is assuredly strange, with a dog speaking through a megaphone that emerges from its own mouth once a chord is plugged into its head, (whatever that is about), but this is probably the least weird detail herein.  The film's tone is ambiguous as it may seem oddly funny to some and, well, just plain odd to others.  There is an emotional undercurrent though that gives it some interesting context.  What that context is, who is to directly say, but that is certainly part of its curious appeal.

 

CURIOSITY

(2009)

Dir - Toby Spanton

Overall: MEH

A mediocre at best premise with a mediocre at best execution, Toby Spanton's debut Curiosity features future A-lister Emily Blunt as a typically stupid, female horror movie victim, but her illogical behavior is not exclusive nor the biggest offender.  Her significant other does the textbook, "You stay here and lock the door while I go outside to investigate something dangerous that's none of our business" move and the results are of course bad both from a narrative perspective and as a viewing experience.  It is so pedestrian that no tension is successfully built and though it is thankfully over almost as soon as it starts, the ending is quite abrupt and unsatisfying because of this.  Still, if it was stretched out to feature-length then the film would be even more unremarkable, so, count your blessings.

2000s American Horror Shorts

DOOM HOUSE
(2003)
Dir - Kevin Bowen/Richard Kyanka
Overall: MEH

A rare "movie" from Richard Kyanka of Something Awful fame, Doom House is an intentionally no budget parody of bad horror films, itself far worse than anything it is overtly taking the piss out of.  Made up of relentlessly bad cinematography and continuity errors, it crams as many haunted house cliches as it can muster into its fifteen-minute running time.  While the overtly ridiculous nature is occasionally amusing, (anything trying this hard is bound to be worth a chuckle or two), sadly one of the bad movie tropes it also takes on is tedious pacing.  All the amateur-hour quirks beating you over the head withstanding, it still gets pretty boring pretty quick.  For something meant to be as deliberately dumb as humanly possible though, it certainly has that going for it so one cannot really complain with the results.

 

9

(2005)

Dir - Shane Acker

Overall: GOOD

 

The third short film by animator Shane Acker, (who had worked on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), 9 was impressive enough to be nominated for an Academy Award and garnish the interest of Tim Burton who produced the full-length version which was released four years later.  Several years in production itself during his stint at UCLA, 9 presents a dark yet cleverly designed post apocalyptic world where robotic cat/spider monsters seem to be hunting rag dolls for some undisclosed, soul-draining purpose.  In its roughly eleven minute running time here, it comes off as more of a teaser for the eventually made feature.  This gives it an ambiguous nature, though not one that suffers due to it.  The short works best as a visual showpiece for Acker, though the themes that it merely teases are intriguing enough to enhance its fantastical tone.

 

THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD

(2006)

Dir - Mike Mignola

Overall: GOOD

A one-shot comic book adapted into a not-picked-up pilot for the Sci-Fi Channel, it is a shame that Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's The Amazing Screw-On Head never went anywhere further than this.  Scripted by Mignola and prolific television writer Bryan Fuller, (Hannibal, Heroes, American Gods, numerous Star Treks), and staring Patton Oswalt, Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, and David Hyde Pierce, it crams vampires, zombies, robots, demigod monsters, werewolves, an evil monkey, a hero dog, and, of course, Abraham Lincoln all into its brisk, twenty-two minute length.  There is enough backstory here to properly engage as a teaser and it is consistently hilarious, leisurely making fun of its ridiculous premise while simultaneously pretending to be a serious, multi-layered saga.  This might be all we'll get, but its minute, singular nature is the only complaint one can have with it.

THE HORRIBLY SLOW MURDERER WITH THE EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT WEAPON

(2008)

Dir - Richard Gale

Overall: GOOD

 

Kicking off a series of short films which inspired four sequels and one as yet to go into production feature length, The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is a pretty amusing one-note gag.  Made by filmmaker Richard Gale, (who also narrates it in his best movie announcer voice), it is a ten minute long mock-trailer that drags out the ridiculous premise to a pretty well-executed degree.  Just when it becomes stagnant, the joke just keeps pushing further.  Once it promises to be over nine hours in length and claims to have been filmed over several years and multiple continents, (twenty-two days and only in California actually), the tie-in with how utterly horrible such a fate would be is rather convincingly conveyed.  Whether or not multiple, further entries were necessary is debatable, but as a one-off spoof, it is rather delightful.

 

SEBASTIAN'S VOODOO

(2008)

Dir - Jaoquin Baldwin

Overall: GOOD

 

This UCLA film project from Paraguay-born animator Jaoquin Baldwin is elementary in premise yet quite effective in execution.  A series of voodoo dolls awake to discover tthat they are all being suspended on hooks with a creepy, shirtless guy sticking needles in them until they become lifeless by getting pinned in the heart.  Baldwin and composer Nick Fevola manage to jointly create a tense atmosphere in so brief a running time and it is even a bit heartwarming, (no pun intended), in the final, heroic moments concerning our sympathetic and rather adorable doll friend.  It is then understandable that Disney came a-calling for Baldwin as Sebastian's Voodoo shows some solid skill in crafting something dark yet ultimately uplifting.

1990s American Horror Part Twenty

THE FIRST POWER

(1990)

Dir - Robert Resinikoff

Overall: MEH

 

Certainly not a top-shelf entry into the occult/police detective hybrid genre, The First Power is also not a total waste of ninety-eight minutes, as close as it may come. The usual late 80s/early 90s action movie staples are present of police detectives getting away with behavior that would permanently make sure they never worked in law enforcement again, tough guy dialog front to back, and an absolutely comical car wreck sequence that Lou Diamond Phillips literally just stumbles out and walks away from.  On the horror cliche end of the spectrum, it takes pentagrams seriously, nuns and psychics speak in unnecessarily cryptic terms, and all supernatural powers are completely arbitrary depending on what the particular scene calls for.  It is a predictability fest every step of the way though with obvious foreshadowing, obvious psyche-outs, a forced romance, and one unmemorable, contrived scene after the other.  Naturally, villainous-faced Jeff Kober makes for a sufficient, demon-possessed bad guy and Bill Mosely shows up for a couple seconds if that is worth anything to anyone.  It is all harmlessly mundane, but mundane all the same.

SLEEPWALKERS

(1992)

Dir - Mick Garris

Overall: WOOF

The first film that Stephen King penned a screenplay for that was not based off of one of his pre-existing works, Sleepwalkers is a sure-fire trainwreck.  Directed by Mick Garris who has made a career of mostly B-grade, straight-to-video and/or made-for-TV horror movies, it at least introduces a typically intriguing premise from King about proto-vampire/werecat hybrids.  Things quickly crumble into absurdity though with atrociously random and ill-timed comic relief, "huh?" behavior from certain characters, cars blowing up with a single handgun blast, and inconsistent physical quips ranging from totally lame ones like knocking two guys heads together or just pushing someone to the ground, to much more schlocky ones like stabbing a cop in the back with an ear of corn or biting Ron Perlman's fingers off.  King's script is littered with a mix of plot holes, cliches, and conveniences which all assuredly affect the major tone issues at play.  When your title monsters have superhuman strength and can make cars disappear or change their make and model, yet a single house cat can scratch up their face and put them on their deathbed or set them on fire, good luck making anything else that happens not come off equally as silly.

FALLEN
(1998)
Dir - Gregory Hoblit
Overall: MEH

Mediocre yet acceptable from top to bottom, the supernatural thriller Fallen is as conventional as they come yet it gets by on a few saving graces.  Not surprisingly, the premise of a formless demon that can effortlessly jump bodies merely by brushing up against one goes a lot longer a way than the execution.  While there are a few moments where such a concept is sinisterly conveyed, (one where The Rolling Stones' "Time is On My Side" is turned into a sing along in a police station and a tense standoff near the end being chief among them), eventually everything gets bogged down by the evil antagonist toying with people for no other reason than to get the movie to the two hour mark.  Performance wise, it is strong though with a brief, typically unnerving appearance by Elias Koteas and particularly Denzel Washington in the lead who is just as typically stellar as always.  It gets a tad groan-worthy in its final moments, but the prolonged resistance to hamming it up from director Gregory Hoblit, (Primal Fear, Frequency), is admirable as it mostly benefits by its more dark, somewhat weighty nature.

1990s American Horror Part Nineteen

FLATLINERS

(1990)     

Dir - Joel Schumacher

Overall: GOOD

 

After taking a slight detour with the romantic comedy Cousins, Joel Schumacher's near-follow-up to his seminal vampire yarn The Lost Boys was the Brat Pack-esque, psychological horror film Flatliners.  Reunited with Keifer Sutherland once more in addition to Julia Roberts, Billy Baldwin, Kevin Bacon, and Oliver Platt, the cast is solid enough to elevate the at times flat, (har, har), material to a higher plane.  The script by Peter Filardi poses some interesting questions about life after death, but they end up being just questions as answers are bypassed in place of some very different concepts getting thrown into the mix about reckoning with one's dark, past grievances.  These details are a bit vague yet not so much in a detrimental way as Schumacher first and foremost maintains a vibrantly eerie tone even with the minor comedic jabs sprinkled in for good measure.  The ending is not the most satisfying in the world, but even with the last act not quite holding up to the first two, it is a memorable, evocative enough work for the duration.

 

BASKET CASE 3: THE PROGENY

(1992)

Dir - Frank Henenlotter

Overall: MEH

 

The third and last installment in Frank Henenlotter's increasingly absurd Basket Case series, Basket Case 3: The Progeny picks up right where the last one left off, even opening with said film's final moments just in case anyone watching may have inexplicably stumbled in uninitiated.  The practical effects budget seems to have been entirely blown on making the evil title twin look better than ever as no effort was made to even hide the seam-lines on the wigs and masks of the returning assortment of freaks.  This, the cartoon level, exaggerated performances, and the purposely moronic script, (this one co-authored by Fangoria editor Robert Martin), all go a long way in making this easily the least horror-tinged and most comedically-focused entry in the franchise.  Not that any of the other installment nor really any of Henenlotter's works prided themselves at all on anything less garish in nature or execution, but there is no denying that the lid has particularly flown off here.  The humor is so prominent yet the story so exasperatingly odd that many of the jokes are bound to miss their mark, but it is still a hoot by many measures.

 

APT PUPIL

(1998)

Dir - Bryan Singer

Overall: MEH

 

One of the rare Stephen King stories that qualifies as a horror entry without having any supernatural components, Apt Pupil doubly serves as Bryan Singer's follow-up to the crowd-pleasing The Usual Suspects from three years prior.  It had undergone production setbacks from within only a few years of being initially published as a novella in King's Different Seasons collection, finally getting green-lit after both Singer and Ian McKellen enthusiastically became involved.  While there are a few intense, well staged sequences and its subject matter is sufficiently skin-crawling, some fundamentals with the plotting itself inevitably bring it down a bit in its final act.  Up until that point, the audience can stay on board with an overly arrogant, morbidly curious highschooler taking advantage of an even less sympathetic Nazi war criminal, but eventually some eyeball-rolling coincidences stretch the plausibility factor a bit too thin to make the rather stagy finale deliver as well as it should.  The characters are not particularly fleshed-out enough to work either, though McKellen and fourteen year-old Brad Renfro give quite evenly matched performances as the disturbed, co-dependent teacher/student duo.