ABHORRENT **** Canada 2019 Dir: David Scott. 15 mins A notably grim and graphic entry into the “fucked up family” cycle of modern rural (usually American) horror, this pivots around Simon (Alex Friesen), a teenage boy who has just passed a rite of passage on his family farm. Dad (Garth Wigle) is stoic and intimidating, Mom (Stacey Iseman) is heavily pregnant and increasingly anxious about the locked basement in which a cow and her calf are kept. Everything feels like it could explode into chaos and carnage at any moment. Iseman’s passing resemblance to Shelley Duvall (complete with axe) fleetingly…
Author: Steven West
HAIL TO THE DEADITES **** Canada 2020 Dir: Steve Villeneuve. 79 mins Director Steve Villeneuve, who made the indie horror love letter documentary UNDER THE SCARES (2010), wears his EVIL DEAD-loving heart on his bloody sleeve with this unashamedly cuddly feature about the fanbase surrounding Sam Raimi’s original trilogy, complete with tribute songs and a large ensemble of key ED personnel. The opening proudly boasts about how, in the absence of actual clips from the franchise (with which anyone watching will be more than familiar anyway), everything here is created by EVIL DEAD fans, including Lee Hardcastle’s wonderful Claymation EVIL…
UTUKKU **** Canada 2018 Dir: Mathieu Laprise. 15 mins A bite size mini-series, unfolding here in three 5 minute chapters, this has an affecting performance by Leanne Desilets as a downtrodden high school student, frequently bullied by Principal’s daughter Zeneb Blanchet and initially seen forcibly shut in her own locker. Desperately seeking some kind of solace and retribution, she visits a Shaman named Mr Abu (Hamidou Savadogo), whose policy is “no refunds”, and scrapes together enough cash for a two day loan of a creepy amulet-clutching doll. She has 48 hours in which to return it in good condition and…
FORET NOIRE *** Canada 2018 Dir: Philippe David Gagne, Jean Marc E. Roy. 20 mins Lushly shot by Olivier Gossot and afforded a lush, evocative orchestral score by Amaury Chabauty, this is a modern spin on old-fashioned drawing room mysteries, shot in Quebec but set in France. For those who were too bored or too horny to listen in French at school, the title translates as “Black Forest”, which incidentally remains King of the Gateaux World. Set in Jura, Eastern France, it pivots around a live reenactment of the recent murder of a French Canadian. Standing accused are three Canadian…
EXT *** Canada 2019 Dir: Adrian Bobb. 9 mins Visual FX artist / writer / director Adrian Bobb riffs on some of James Cameron’s concepts and obsessions for this hugely ambitious short, set in the year 2354 A.D., three centuries after the “great digital immigration” has resulted in the whole of humankind abandoning accepted reality for the digital equivalent. Summoning humanity back to the real world is a war between the “First Gens”, those who sacrificed their bodies for immortal digital life – and their offspring, “Code-Spawn”, beings who never saw what we know as the real world. A new…