The 2025 deadCenter Midnight Shorts Featured the Festival’s Vibiest Moments
No deadCenter experience is complete without screening one of the festival’s many shorts blocks, and one of the most eclectic and provocative of this year’s lineup is the 2025 deadCenter Midnight Shorts. Programmed by The Cinematropolis’s own Laron Chapman, this collection of eight short films ranges from the absurdly hilarious to the poignantly shocking, all in a tight hour and 45 minute package.
Described by Chapman as “full of vibes, full of WTFs,” the block certainly delivered on both aspects.
Patch
The opener, “Patch,” from writer-director John Thomas Dickson, provides a bang of a start to the proceedings. It centers on a butcher (KC Eke) attempting to repair a hole in the roof of a slaughterhouse, only to be attacked by a strange, cow-like creature. Similar to the horror films of Jacques Tourneur, “Patch” relies heavily on shadows, allowing the viewer to imagine what isn’t seen to fill in the gaps. The result is simple but effective, especially so in this case.
Palindrome
While the scares of “Patch” were more visceral, “Palindrome” achieves a quiet sense of dread through atmosphere and slow-building tension. Written and directed by Krit Komkrichwarkool, the film follows a man’s quest to make sense of his partner’s disappearance and sudden return. There’s something decidedly off about the man who came back. Has something changed about him, or is he even the same person? A surreal take on the changeling narrative, “Palindrome” gets under the viewer’s skin in the best ways possible.
Cherry Colored-Funk
Lightening up the mood, the following film, “Cherry Colored-Funk,” is a delightful and fast-paced comedy from director Chelsie Pennello and writers Pennello and Corbett Blair. In the short, a man calling himself Roberto Ferrari (Michael Tow) opens an Italian ice business, only to have a host of characters show up and potentially ruin his big day. Enhanced by Tow’s hilarious performance, Roberto is a perfect lovable loser, one the audience can’t help rooting for despite his many flaws.
Banjo
The laughs continue with “Banjo,” directed by Cameron Poletti. Poletti co-wrote the script with the film’s star, Alex Poletti. The film is an absurd, not-for-the-squeamish tale about a man losing his virginity — and a piece of his body — in a remote cabin, where he begins to suspect his friends might have sinister motives for bringing him there. The story goes to unexpected places.
UNTZ UNTZ
Following “Banjo” is the music video for the catchy dance song “UNTZ UNTZ” by Tommy Cash, which features a series of “sexual olympics,” all of it censored with emojis, though not so much that the audience can’t tell exactly what’s going on. Wonderfully silly and boundary-pushing, “UNTZ UNTZ” features imagery that would no doubt make John Waters stand up and cheer.
Jeff
In a stark tonal shift, the next film in the block, “Jeff,” is a difficult but rewarding watch. The story follows a phone sex worker, Marcia (Nicole Elliot), who takes a disturbing call from a man calling himself Jeff (Brian Villalobos).
Writer-director Julia Hebner, who was in attendance at the Saturday night screening of Midnight Shorts, continuously shifts the setting of Marcia and Jeff’s conversation as a means of commenting on various sexual fantasy tropes. It provides a compelling framework for her two actors to interact with each other in the same physical space. This makes Jeff’s dark confessions all the more unsettling because it allows the audience to experience both actors’ stellar performances more intimately than if they simply remained on phones in separate locations. Hebner never shows anything graphic, relying instead on her actors and the power of the words, which the filmmaker says she took verbatim from an actual call she received during her days as a phone sex worker.
Berta
Following “Jeff” is “Berta,” written and directed by Lucía Forner Segarra, another short with a single name as its title, though they are ultimately very different films despite the title synchronicity and a shared theme of the evil that men do to women. Nerea Barros portrays “Berta,” who kidnaps the man who sexually assaulted her years prior, and who will stop at nothing to make him understand just how much he hurt her. The film is a satisfying twist on the rape-revenge narrative, a type of story more and more being reclaimed by women, with spectacular results.
Whitch
Last but not least is writer-director Hoku Uchiyama’s horror comedy “Whitch,” about a woman who, after putting her daughter to bed, discovers a crone in her living room holding a white rabbit. Things get whacky (and bloody) pretty quickly, and the ending is a perfectly timed punchline to the short’s overarching joke. “Whitch” acts as the perfect button for the deadCenter Midnight Shorts block, a new addition to the programming, and one that will hopefully return next year.
For more recaps like this one for 2025 deadCenter Midnight Shorts, check out our full festival coverage.
