The deadCenter 2024 Horror Shorts
Each year, the deadCenter Film Festival presents a quality block of horror movie shorts. The 2024 deadCenter Horror Shorts block was no exception. The films featured in this year’s presentation ranged from English language to international works featuring snake-ish and bug-like creatures, vampires, doppelgängers, and good old-fashioned human killers, to name just a few. The seven entries collectively comprised a weird, eerie, and altogether chilling viewing experience.
SHÉ (SNAKE)
SHÉ (SNAKE) headed up the block. It follows Fei Li (Xiaonen Wang), a young violinist struggling with her internal artistic pressures and the demands of her family. Written and directed by Renee Zhan, the film boasts wonderful performances from its entire cast, but especially Wang, plus some goopy, ‘80s-inspired makeup effects and stop motion critters – manifestations of the turmoil Fei endures.
Shadow and Transylvanie
Up next: Shadow, from filmmaker Kamell Allaway, a Gothic nightmare beautifully shot in black and white that grapples with the terror of burgeoning adulthood, both from the perspective of a child and a mother. Following this film, Transylvanie, another tale about a young girl, this one a Dracula-quoting 10-year-old who believes she’s a vampire on a quest to sire a companion with whom to spend eternity. The short, written by Rodrigue Huart, David A. Cassan, and Axel Wursten and directed by Huart, features a magnificently pulsating score by The Psychotic Monks.
Bath Bomb
Fourth in line was Bath Bomb, a stylish, perversely funny queer Giallo from writer Michael Clifton and director Colin G. Cooper, about a doctor who seeks revenge against his cheating boyfriend. Cooper attended the Saturday afternoon screening of the Horror Shorts block, moderated by The Cinematropolis’s own Laron Chapman. He answered questions from the crowd about everything from intimacy coordinators to prosthetic body parts. Cooper also revealed plans to turn the short film into a feature, so horror fans have something special to look forward to.
Inner Demons
Inner Demons followed Bath Bomb. In it, a woman’s depression and suicidal thoughts come to a terrifying life as a faceless, pod-person-like version of herself. Filmmaker Jasmine J. Johnson and her effects team provide some of the block’s most terrifying imagery with this creation.
Rain
Making its world premiere at deadCenter, Rain centers on a woman who, after returning home for Christmas, sees her parents, sister, and husband transform into a grotesque parody of nuclear familial bliss, ostensibly the result of a mysterious orange haze that begins to dominate the sky. This quiet cosmic horror from writer/director Imogen McCluskey boasts beautifully creepy visuals and an impressive performance from its lead actress, Kimberly Alexander.
Dream Creep
Last but not least is Dream Creep from Carlos A.F. Lopez, a weirdly comical and bloody tale about a man who hears desperate pleas from his partner coming from her ear hole. The bizarre concept only gets stranger the longer it goes on. The film had audience members alternately laughing and cringing, and it was a perfect end to one of the most solidly entertaining horror collections deadCenter has ever offered.
Find more exclusive deadCenter 2024 coverage only at The Cinematropolis.
