Review - Claymania: The Films of Lee Hardcastle (Dir. Lee Hardcastle)

Not a feature film this time but a collection of shorts from Lee Hardcastle. Probably most famous for T is for Toilet from The ABCs of Death (a film I just can't be bothered to watch.) It's the kind of animation that would have been made if Peter Jackson (from his splatter period) had directed the Morph segments from Take Hart. Plus they're Northern which is a bonus.

The highlight for me due to its northern humour and gormless northern main character has to be An Alien Claymation. It's got a great ending too. And for your delectation here it is:

There were many other great shorts, including his most recent offering, the sequel to T is for Toilet, Ghost Burger which is an epic 23 minutes long. This just made me want to see a full feature by him.

I'll pop the other ones on for you to have a look at. Hopefully I can remember them all. There are loads more on YouTube including his 60 second versions of famous films. It would be a bit harsh to rate these against features so I'll rate them against other shorts.

8/10

evlkeith

Short Film Review - Taxi (2012 - Dir. Arianjie Az, Nadia Yuliani)

It's strange how I get to hear about films. I'd written a feature for our sister site into the valley of the obscure about some quality acoustic numbers that I'd found for free on Last.fm. One of the songs included is by Sundae Sunday and very pleasant it is too. By some odd coincidence it turns out that the singer had co-drected a short horror film. And here it is...

The first thing that hit me is how professional it looks. It must have had a small budget and yet it looks good visually and the music adds greatly to the atmosphere. This would be a good start to a full feature.

It was pretty obvious that she wasn't going to be as defenceless as we'd been led to believe but questions arise as to why she got a little bit eccentric and ate those naughty men. I like to think that the fellow on the motorbike had something to do with it. The fact that we don't see his face raises further questions: is he even human? I can imagine the story continuing with motorbike man as an anti-hero, causing all manner of mayhem.

My only problem is the second death that left me feeling cheated. The first contains blood and, more importantly, guts. It all feels pretty savage. The second death meanwhile is relatively bloodless, consisting of close-ups and zooms, with no visible participation by our heroine. Where it should have topped what had come before, (maybe with a severe head twist?) it all seemed like a bit of a comedown.

But I'm being picky. This is a well-made short that shows that the filmmakers should be let loose on a feature film. 
7/10
(This rating is based on other short films I've seen - it would be a tad unfair to rate it against full feature films.)

evlkeith

Review - Into the Abyss: The Savage Cinema of Dennison Rama (Various years - Dir. Dennison Rama)

This was a retrospective of shorts from Brazilian filmmaker Dennison Ramalho. My ratings will be based on comparisons with other short films.

Nocturnu

This short comes across as more of a music video, with admittedly great music. I'm never that keen on vampires, never have been, and this one contains vampires, so maybe I'm not the best person to comment on this. It had an unsettling atmosphere especially when a nun enters the fray. Not really my cup of tea, luckily better things are to come...
3/10

Love From Mother Only

This one was based on a song, quite a pleasant song about motherly love, and Dennison has slightly twisted it by throwing some Brazilian black magic into the mix. He's a total hero. Two lovers are about to split up unless he leaves his sick mother and runs away with his partner. The stakes gets raised when it becomes, "Kill your mother and bring me her heart." Adding sex, violence and devil worship to well-loved songs is inspired and this short starts to show some real potential.
6/10

Ninjas

Now to my favourite. Think Elite Squad but with even more excessive violence and you're about there. A Brazilian cop accidentally (yeah right) kills a young boy and it gets covered up by his superior. Things all take a turn for the worst as he has to prove his worth by taking part in executing and brutalising a couple of criminals. It was funny to hear how the director gets his funding from the government... and then makes a film that is very critical of the police force. Great stuff.

Ninjas contains one of the harshest uses of nails that I've ever seen (I'll never be able to look at high heels in the same way again) and some twisted religious imagery, but I'd love to see the director go even further with violence. This is really well-made and acted, and makes me think that a feature by Dennison would be fantastic. 
9/10
evlkeith

Short Film Review - Fat Kid Massacre (2012 - Dir. Joseph Durbin)

I'm aware of our nation's love of laughing at fat people. Especially fat people running, skipping or bouncing on trampolines. You've only got to turn on the telly to be bombarded by reality shows featuring the above activities, all in the name of improving the participants' health. Yeah right. Why aren't there any programmes where anorexics are fed Ginsters and forced to watch telly all day? There could even be a sneaky toilet cam to check that they aren't chucking up their gorgeous pasties. Clearly that would be deemed offensive in the eyes of the public and studio executives, anorexics are worthy of our support and respect after all, whereas fat people are fair game.

Fat Kid Massacre is basically one of the above programmes but in short film format. It even has the obligatory fat people running in slow-motion shot. 

The story concerns some 'Fat Bullies' and 'Ian: The Skinny Bitch' (their words, not mine). If that doesn't set the tone, I don't know what does. Obviously, the bullies go and do their bullying routine on Ian. He gets miffed and decides to get revenge. Amusingly, one of the comments on YouTube is from someone who thought that they shouldn't have revealed the killer. Who else could it be? There are only four characters: three of them are 'Fat Bullies'. It doesn't take any Thelma style deduction to work it out.

As a bit of a Mac boy, this screams iMovie. The sound effects are very familiar and are not used that effectively. The only creative choice that I appreciated was the decision to show the force feeding of one of the 'Fat Bullies' in one continuous shot. Not convinced that it would have killed him but it is some impressive eating.

Anyone who goes out and makes a film has to be applauded due to the hard work involved, but the material is disappointing and cynically aimed at twelve year olds. The film-makers are looking for funding to turn this into a full feature. Sadly, there will be a market for it, but I wouldn't want to see a longer version of this. I'll post the full short below so that you can decide for yourself.
1/10
evlkeith

NB For those wondering, this review is in no way based on my personal weight. I enjoy the odd pasty. But I also enjoy salad.

Short Film Review - The Puzzle (2008 - Dir. Davide Melini)

We'll start this review in a slightly different manner. Seeing as though it's only five minutes long, you can watch the film first before reading the review.

This short was shot in one day with a budget of only 300 Euros. But I'm not going to take that into account in the rating, it's got to stand on its own merits. Compared to a similarly low budget feature such as Atrocious, its central idea came as a bit of shock and provoked more of an emotional response than the whole of the longer film.


Initially, I wasn't sure where The Puzzle was going. The story, concerning a mother who won't give her son any money despite constant pressure, could have done with a touch more screen time to develop the relationship between the two characters. But despite her problems, she partakes in a spot of jigsawing to relax. (Doccortex would love this. He loves jigsaws. If anyone wants to get him a present, a jigsaw is your best bet.) 


The ending startled me the first time I watched it. I even felt a tiny shiver-ette down my spine. When I thought about it afterwards it didn't make too much sense. Wouldn't she have been able to work out what the image was before placing the final piece? Maybe her mental state was such that she couldn't focus on what she was doing and was operating on auto pilot. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt just because it was so effective.



The acting quality is not the greatest but this is possibly due to the budget. Again, this could be an issue of financing, but I would have liked the final shooting to be harsher and more graphic (that could just be me being a gore-hound). It may have added extra power to the shock that came before it. But on the whole, I enjoyed this and the final image on the jigsaw has stuck in my head (which is more than can be said for any of the shots in Atrocious). The rating is based on a comparison with other short films, just to be fair. I said I wouldn't take the 300 Euro budget into account, and I haven't, but it is certainly an impressive short for less than the price of an iphone.
6/10
evlkeith

Short Film Review - Familiar (2012 - Dir. Richard Powell)

Short films are never as satisfying as full length features but they can highlight the work of promising new creative teams. This is the case with Familiar. 

Familiar is definitely a film of two halves. The first half is fairly horrific. We get to hear the inner thoughts of a middle-aged man. His daughter is leaving home soon and he is looking forward to starting the rest of his life. He doesn't particularly like his wife and feels like she's held him back. Then she breaks some news to him. She's pregnant.


The initial section will probably resonate with a lot of people. It evokes similar emotions to the end sequence of Heavenly Creatures, where you have a character that is content with their life but you know that someone else is plotting something generally unpleasant against them. I audibly said, "Oh no!" a couple of times when his schemes were revealed. The acting is mainly good, apart from a very strange piece of moustache twitching. It's a definite talent but possibly not that appropriate.

Eventually, schizophrenia is suspected as it becomes evident that he has two voices inside his head. This was all very promising and I was really looking forward to what was coming next. 

Then it all goes severely pear-shaped and standard issue. Body horror. I like a bit of body horror. Who doesn't? But after such a strong build up, giving us an insight into the mind of someone suffering from mental illness, was body horror the right path to take? There's a nice bit of gore, but again did it need it? The Wicker Man has shown that the most horrific films can be completely bloodless. This could have done the same. The time devoted to bloodletting could have been used to further examine the psyche of this moustachioed fellow and produced a more satisfying result.

So, think of it as two films, the first one great and the second one... okayish. Short films are a showcase for new talent and Familiar definitely shows a lot of promise. My review score is based on other short films. (Compared to the Virgin Shorts put on before films in England, this is a world-beater.)
7/10
evlkeith