We announce the Official Selections of the category BEST SHORT FILM of DarkVeins Horror Fest 2021, a festival dedicated to horror cinema and now in its fifth year.
DarkVeins Horror Fest is an international event dedicated to horror, dark, gothic, extreme genre cinematography and is curated by the Dark Circle Cultural Association.
Also among the jurors for this fifth edition are Erica Salvatore and Tara Jabul from the page Celluloid Nightmares along with Davide D'Andrea and Caroline Darko of Horror Über Alles, community dedicated to horror cinema.
They were joined by Italian director and extreme effects artist Davide Pesca along with his video channel Splatter Point.
Fourteen short films were selected from the competition films:
- Oh, Baby (Ireland - 2021) by Stephen McKeon;
- Asmodeus (Canada - 2021) by Eric Falardeau;
- Crappy Christmas - Operation Christmas Child (Germany - 2019) by Jürgen Kling;
- Squish (Belgium - 2020) by Xavier Seron;
- Insomniac (Poland - 2021) by Michał Radziejewski;
- Koreatown Ghost Story (USA - 2021) by Minsun Park & Teddy Tenenbaum;
- Void (Australia - 2020) by Claire Marshall;
- Cruel Tale, Friday kills (France - 2020) by Guéguen Hugues;
- Mr. Spoon (France - 2021) by Perrine Lievois and Hadrien D. Fayel;
- Stalag III-C (Belarus - 2019) by Jason Rogan;
- Three Bloody Pigs (Italy - 2019) by Evarg Nori;
- Strange Attraction (Russia - 2021) by Svyatoslav Denisov;
- That Old Misery (USA - 2020) by Gray Creasy;
- The Thing in the Tub (USA - 2020) by Jason Ewert.
Links to other official elections:
DarkVeins Horror Fest 2021: BEST FEATURE FILM - The Official Selections
DarkVeins Horror Fest 2021: BEST TRAILER - The Official Selections
DarkVeins Horror Fest 2021: BEST POSTER - The Official Selections
Below is more info on the 14 short films selected for the BEST SHORT FILM category:
Written and directed by Irish composer Stephen McKeon, Oh, Baby (Ireland - 2021) is a horror film that pays homage to the mystery genre.
Duration: 15 min. 39 sec.
In the cast: Tara Lee.
Stephen McKeon has scored the soundtrack for more than 80 films including. Pilgrimage and Hole - The Abyss.
Plot: a young woman is awakened at night by the crying of a baby. Is she a prisoner or is something more diabolical going on?
Asmodeus (Canada - 2021), a black-and-white extreme experimental film written, directed and starring Eric Falardeau, the director of the cult horror Thanatomorphose (2012). Duration: 10 min. 30 sec.
Also in the cast are Juliette Pottier Plaziat, Stéphanie Cadieux and Annaëlle Winand. Special effects are by Nina Anton while cinematography is by Luc Desjardins.
Asmodeus has been described by the director as a "gory self-portrait, a journey to enlightenment." In addition, the film is inspired by the American avant-garde (Anger, Brakhage, Deren), silent cinema, transgressive art, and occult authors (Crowley, Lévi, LaVey).
The film is loaded with occult imagery in which a man conjures and meets three different female incarnations of the lustful demon.
Crappy Christmas - Operation Christmas Child (Germany - 2019), a Christmas-themed stop motion horror film written and directed by Jürgen Kling, who made the puppets in collaboration with Barbara Dehm. Running time: 6 min.
Plot: Kid is kidnapped and then held captive in a small cell located in the basement of a church where he is raped by three priests. One night, a mysterious furry visitor opens the cell door and leaves him a sack full of Christmas presents.
Written and directed by Xavier Seron, Squish (Belgium - 2020) is a short film shot in black and white, lasting 20 minutes.
In the cast: Jean Le Peltier, Martin Verset, Youri Dirkx, Baptiste Sornin, Elikia Bondewe, and Chantal Pirotte.
Plot: for work reasons, Flo leaves Sam, her five-year-old son and husband Tom alone but not before writing her partner a list of homework assignments, not leaving out the little one's guitar class as well. One day, however, Tom hits something on his way out of the garage with his car....
Insomniac (Poland - 2021) is a horror short film (running time: 12 min.) written and directed by di Michał Radziejewski.
Duration: 12 min.
In the cast of Insomniac (aka Bezsenny): Anna Grycewicz, Arkadiusz Detmer, Borys Bartłomiejczyk and Ilona Chojnowska. Photography is by Michał Palikot.
Plot: Ewa gets stuck in the middle of a forest because of a car breakdown. The sun is slowly setting and she must reach her home before dark. Otherwise, Ewa and her son will find themselves in grave danger.
Produced by Margaret Cho and Jim Wedaa (The Boy, The Boy II), Koreatown Ghost Story (USA - 2021) is a supernatural horror film about a Korean ritual. The film is written and directed by Minsun Park and Teddy Tenenbaum (Ghost Whisperer, The Dead Zone).
Duration: 14 min, 52 sec.
In the cast: Margaret Cho (Face/Off), Lyrica Okano (Runaways), Brandon Halvorsen, and Minsun Park herself.
Plot: a woman receives a macabre offer of marriage that would allow her to pursue her dreams, for better or worse.
Void (Australia - 2020) is an experimental short, 15-minute dance film and is produced and directed by Claire Marshall.
The film stars Erin O'Rourke.
Plot: a lone figure, dancer Erin O'Rourke, looks down, slips stealthily, sinks, twirls, stops, twists, traversing an ancient labyrinthine staircase as a metaphor for her psyche, for the "psychological entrapment" of women.
Cruel Tale, Friday kills (France - 2020) is a short horror film directed by Guéguen Hugues on a screenplay by Taillard Julien.
Duration: 26 min.
Plot of Cruel Tale, Friday kills (aka Conte cruel, un vendredi à l'auberge): managers of a large company are gathering in a hostel for a secret meeting. In the name of the new law on bioethics, they plan a conspiracy to slaughter their own employees whom they want to fire. However, they did not expect to find Suzy and Dany.
Directed by Perrine Lievois and Hadrien D. Fayel, Mr. Spoon (France - 2021) is a 14-minute black-and-white experimental horror short film.
The screenplay is by Hadrien D. Fayel while the cast includes Sibylle Liévois, Hélène Zanetto and Jean-Michel
Plot: one stormy night, Robine and her mother drive to an isolated house. Welcomed by Mr. Spoon into his dark abode, Robine struggles to understand that she is actually dead on the street and that the place she is in is nothing more than the hallucination of a dying brain…
Inspired by real events, Stalag III-C (Belarus - 2019) was shot entirely in Minsk, Belarus.
The film is written and directed by Jason Rogan.
The cast includes Sam Falconi, Vadim Gitlin, Henri Falconi, Olga Bartlova, Anrdew Drobysh, Evgeniy Smirnov, and Aleksandr Faleev.
Plot: in the final days of World War II, U.S. paratrooper Joe Boyd leads a daring escape from a Nazi prison camp, only to face a more horrific evil beyond the prison walls.
Written and directed by Svyatoslav Denisov, Strange Attraction (Russia - 2021) is a 20-minute short film starring Snejana Samokhina, Lyubov Kokovina and Arseny Alexandrov.
Plot: In the apartment of Sofia's man lives his ex-girlfriend. He is unable to make a choice, and because of her a conflict arises between the two girls.
Eventually, Sofia decides to break off the relationship and punish him.
That Old Misery (USA - 2020) is a horror thriller featuring Gray Creasy as director.
Duration: 17 min. 22 sec.
In the cast: Loretta Harper, Gray Creasy, Diane Dixon, Clay Brocker, Kayla Phillips, and Kevin Kelly.
The screenplay is by Gray Creasy himself while the photography is by Paul Cain.
That Old Misery is a "post-technological" folk horror tale that explores the themes of human isolation, climate catastrophe, and viral diseases through the lens of despair and psychosexual madness.
The Thing in the Tub (USA - 2020) is a horror comedy directed by Jason Ewert on a screenplay by William Tucker and Roy C. Booth.
Duration: 6 min. 25 sec.
In the cast: Harrison Hicks, Krysta Sanders and Daniel Hoffstrom.
Plot: everything was going great for Associate Professor Wilkins, until he brought home a lab sample--and left it in the tank.
Three Bloody Pigs (Italy - 2019) by Evarg Nori.
Of the duration of about 5 minutes, Three Bloody Pigs is a fun horror-trash-splatter video clip with the legendary soundtrack by Troll 2.
Official palmettes:
