CHILLING SHORTS FROM THIS SIDE

You have to hand it to the programmers of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival who every year select the best of short horror filmmakers.  It will be great to see directors north of the border flourish to new heights and take the audience under their wing but our support for them it’s just as important.  It was really difficult to narrow down the shorts this year to just about five of our ultimate favourites.  These five shorts were the ones that were really captivating and used the structure of the short film to make you think twice or maybe even three times of what really took place.    Director Patrick Devlin keeps this notion really kicking with his film Mimic which is like a quick slap in the face.  A teacher alone in her school summons a spirit while she is preparing a lesson.   Unfortunately, she summons a demon that starts giving her the wits as she tries to figure what is happening disorderly outside of the classroom.  Above all the timing of this film is perfect.

After The Rain is a next level short horror film by director BJ Verot where a child abductor is haunting the town and preying on his next victim.   This child abductor looks very familiar and may have you think if it is him or not.  We obviously don’t want to spoil how the child abductor looks like but if we can say that there is just one thing about him is that he is menacing.   After Rain does not waste any time in getting the ball rolling because this menace is just definitely evil.  But it begs the curiosity and the wonder of childhood as this little girl, played by Molly Hansen, lets her amazement take her to dark places.  Sometimes there is no sunshine after the rain.

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco was always right on his skit about how people are not excited anymore when people ring the doorbell.  This is certainly the case in the film Split Decision directed by Scott Riopelle where both Jeff and Claire are contemplating whether or not to let in a woman in who is crying for help and knocking hard on their door.   Jeff and Claire are both expecting the worst and their decision affects the outcome of the film.  Split Decision is a film that just goes to show that sometimes the best decision you make is never really a great decision for all.  Nonetheless, we look forward to upcoming works of Scott Riopelle in the future

As we have said it before and we will say it again, there are horror filmmakers who take advantage of the timing and structure of the short film.  Director Santiago Menghini does this effectively in his film Milk, where young Daniel goes downstairs in the middle of the night to get a glass of milk.  Little does he know that his sleepless mother has quite the surprise for him.  This film again plays on the wonders of our childhood and how we had to always reach for something in the refrigerator in the middle of the night to help us back to sleep.  Although, director Santiago Menghini does not warn you not to cry over spilled milk when reach for this.

Do we ever really know how the urban legend or the mythical witch of Eastern folklore Baba Yaga really looks like?  Director Sylvia Trouvé and Dale Hayward present this short stop-motion animation film Bone Mother which is about a young vain and arrogant price by the name of Vlad the Impaler who visits the house of who is known to be the devil’s grandmother Baba Yaga.    Who would ever have the guts to do such a thing but there can only be one man who would and watching this brilliant short film by the National Film Board will find out.  The audience definitely wonders at the end if the truest classic monster of our time comes from this witch.   It does make sense though.