The 2021 Deep in the Heart FF’s Horror Shorts Program delivered the scares, the dread, and some fresh talent
Ever since the likes of Saw, Mama, and Lights Out went from being short films to high-profile features, filmmakers and fans have increasingly seen the potential for horror shorts to create interest in longer versions. Who knows when Guillermo del Toro will next be on YouTube, deciding he wants to pay for 80 more minutes of the nifty, scary video he just watched? Numerous horror shorts in the Deep in the Heart Film Festival appear to have this in mind, leaving the viewer either wanting further explanation, or just more time with the same great premise. Indeed, when the entire shorts program ended, I was not ready, and wanted it to keep going. Considering that so much studio horror feels lethargic at present, it’s a blast to be energized by the scares of the likely next generation.
Paolo Mancini and Daniel Watchorn’s Bloodshed feels the most directly influenced by Saw. A man is afraid of his own blood, for reasons that aren’t fully revealed. And while he is most definitely crazy, possibly a murderer, maybe even a vampire, it’s the little things that make his tale so fundamentally uncomfortable – like the fact that he uses a homemade, infected looking IV machine to give himself blood transfusions. Actor Bruno Verdoni offers the rare voice-over narration that’s actually creepier and grimmer than what we’re seeing; we don’t know this mans’ whole story, but we know enough to be worried. The short holds its own, but could easily be the opening sequence to something far more complex.
Similarly ending in scary mystery is Emmet O’Brien’s Hear Hear. Clever camera work and lighting turn what seems like a friendly Irish voice into something far more creepy, simply by having it come from two distinct locations it can’t possibly be in at once. While we never learn quite why, we quickly learn to fear it. An expansion of this particular story could go either way. Is it a ghost, a curse, an expert mimic? Maybe your imagination is more frightening than anything a feature would conjure, or maybe there are plenty of possible avenues here.
And then of course there are the ones which establish a creepy killer around which possible franchises could bloom. The Barber Brothers’ ’80s homage No One Is Coming, delivers a creepy robed figure with a candle who knocks three times and leaves severed eyeballs in its wake, while Ali Alkhafaji’s Hyder features an angry Muslim spirit who threatens to kill anyone that would break up a marriage. The joke, in this particular horror-comedy, is that the headstrong alcoholic Arab-American (played by Alkhafaji) who’s haunted by Hyder would rather risk death by vengeful ghost than admit to being wrong about anything. Hyder’s makeup could use some improvement, but as a concept, he begs for further stories.
For the best monster, or maybe the best two monsters, depending upon one’s definition, Minsun Park and Teddy Tenenbaum’s Koreatown Ghost Story is the winner. Margaret Cho embodies the very real-world horror of a judgmental older relative who effortlessly picks apart self-esteem with cutting remarks, but is she more or less terrifying than the acupuncture monster hidden somewhere in her large, atmospheric house? A fantastic location, and the novel use of the Korean holiday Chuseok as a kind of Halloween, help to make this a compelling 14 minutes. The story is complete, but the creature effects show just enough to suggest its design could be one for the ages.
Other shorts feel like completely satisfying one-offs, with Roshni “Rush” Bhatia’s Dark Passage a masterpiece of storytelling so short it would fit on TikTok. In one single minute, it sets up its creepy Uber passenger premise, delivers a phenomenal jump scare – you know it’s coming, but fall for it anyway – and a solid conclusion. It’s significantly longer, but Garreth Carter and Will Douglas’ The Farmhouse feels similarly self-contained, as a youthful party in rural England shot through nostalgic haze deteriorates into brutally realistic violence and stalking.
Finally, Matt Rosenblatt’s Movie Night expertly twists a convincingly scary date into a completely different kind of threat, one reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails’ long-out-of-print music anthology film Broken. The only overindulgence comes in Rosenblatt discovering what every young horror filmmaker before him has: that Night of the Living Dead is public domain, and therefore can be used to belabor the point as much as one likes. His own ideas are more interesting; he doesn’t need to rely on George Romero’s for any sort of rub.
