Cereal (Panic Fest 2024) review

We’ve heard many crazy theories over in the past few decades; movies create psychos and heavy metal is the devil’s music to name a couple.

I have to say, as capitalism goes we haven’t had a killer cereal to date. Shane R. Preston’s short is an idea that feels right at home in the Larry Cohen oeuvre. Could it have been a dodgy bowl of Weetabix that sent Michael Myers over the edge? Maybe we will find out in the Halloween TV series…

In Cereal, a young girl, Chelsea, who has an attraction to the spookier things in life sees a message in her cereal, which may awaken a bloodlust she never knew she had; it must be the sugar content, right?

Preston’s short is a love letter to the eternal spooky kids out there and is laced with dark humor.

The relationship between Chelsea and her mother feels like a Pandora’s box to wider issues for both of them. There are winks to Halloween, but Cereal doesn’t take itself too seriously, and feels all the better for it.

Cereal screens as part of Panic Fest 2024.