The first-ever Gasp Horror Film Festival concluded yesterday, with part of the schedule including the Women in Horror Short Film Showcase.
Here are our verdicts on some of the shorts screened –
A Bloody Graveyard Story
Graveyards have been a horror trope since time began, it feels like.
Add to this a group of teenagers aiming to summon a ghost and you can pretty much predict things are gonna go south.
This is the opening of Vanessa Stachel’s animated short A Bloody Graveyard Story.
One of the group is feeling paranoid about conjuring other forces such as werewolves and vampires, but surely this won’t come to pass?
Stachel fully uses the gothic setting with some beautifully shot scenes that feel plucked from an old-school Hammer horror.
Weirdly the film takes a detour with an interesting social commentary which you won’t see coming.
A Bloody Graveyard Story needs applause for its interesting concept and execution.
Girl At Party
Men are always wary of powerful women, especially if they, in this case, have supernatural powers.
In Jess O’Kane’s Girl At Party, we follow a teenage girl whose special abilities are awakened after meeting a boy at a party.
As a pulsating synth beat plays over the opening credits, we see said girl, fluffing her hair, and putting on lipstick, clearly looking like a hunter trying to entice its prey.
There is a melancholic quality to O’Kane’s short, as the pair’s meeting escalates sexually and we see what her power really is.
Girl at Party plays with big ideas and pulls them off in a snappy and abject manner.
Sewn With Scarlet Strings
From the opening of Lillianna Munro’s Sewn With Starlet Strings, you will get the feeling that you have found a long-lost VHS tape.
Its scuzzy, lo-fi style is quite haunting, as we delve into a person’s first night as a vampire.
Munro’s vision feels quite surrealist, with colours pulsating. The vampirism curse feels similar to a drug addiction, like Joe Begos’ Bliss.
Sewn With Scarlet Strings won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but certainly offers a unique take on the vampire lore.
Hold Me Till The End
The first frames of Arla Piacentini’s Hold Me Till The End give you a good indication that this is gonna be a bumpy ride.
A woman smokes a cigarette whilst standing over another woman who has been struck in the head and is possibly dead on the floor.
As with a lot of horror, everything is not what it seems, as we witness countless attempts by the now suspected dead woman, to try and end her life – but why?
Is this paranoia a metaphor for a possessive relationship?
Hold Me Till The End is loaded with social commentary, and veers between surrealistic, dream-like scenarios and some really heavy hitting themes.
This one will stay with many after the credits roll.
When You’re Gone
Living in the city can be tough, especially if said city is New York.
We dive into the city, just as it appears something could be terrorising the citizens, and it’s coming from the sewers…
While this is going on in the background, we follow a twenty-something woman, who finds out her partner may be playing away; but how are these motifs connected?
When You’re Gone thrives in what feels like the underbelly of the city, where the bars feel like a character of their own and the water may not always work in your apartment.
The film boasts excellent practical effects, feeling sticky and nasty. If you want blood, you came to the right place.
V.Pyre
I must admit I have always been fascinated by the anime style of filmmaking. It’s quite unlike any other.
The anime in question here is student short film V.Pyre, which paints a frenetic picture of what’s like being a creature of the night.
With its rock ‘n’ roll infused theme, V.Pyre is bombastic ride that pulls no punches.
More vampire films like this!
They Will Know You By Your Fruit
You know someone either isn’t of this world or is a little bit extra when they are stirring food with their bare fingers.
Couple this with some funky eyeballs and you have the opening of They Will Know You By Your Fruit.
This trippy short plays with the theme of duality, and you will never look at eggs the same way again.
Onna
Halloween is the night of the year for mischief, and in the case of horror short Onna, potentially infidelity too.
Having said this, have you ever heard of Nosferatu foreplay? Well there’s a first time for everything I suppose.
Onna builds up tension nicely, switching gear with some now you see it, now you don’t scare tactics.
I guess playing away on Halloween can really be deadly.
Living Room
Bloody Flicks 