We’ve got another week of five-and-five, with five features and five shorts, and they’re all good this time around. We’ll open up with the acclaimed “Bring Her Back” which just hit streaming, and the brand-new “Hotspring Shark Attack” which just released as well. We’ll watch a couple of older films, “Border” (2018) and “Cure” (2017), and then go way back to watch Bela Lugosi monkey around in “The Ape Man” from 1943.
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Mainstream Films:
2025 Bring Her Back
Directed by: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Written by: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Stars: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Mischa Heywood
Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
After a disturbing opening, this takes a while to get to the horror, building nicely as things get stranger and more unsettling. It takes some time to figure out what’s really going on. The casting is spot on, the direction and effects are excellent. It’s a strange one, and we liked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch some people doing strange things for the camera, which sees things that we do not. Credits roll.
We cut to Piper and Andy, step siblings, and she’s got weird eyes. She tries to make friends with some girls at the bus stop, but they make fun of her face. She’s mostly blind. The two go home to find their father dead in the shower. He’d just finished chemo, and something went wrong.
The two get split up for foster care. Piper is going with Laura, but Laura’s had problems with troubled kids in the past, so she doesn’t want Andy. They beg to stay together, so they’ll allow it on a trial basis. He’s very protective of his younger sister.
They arrive at Laura’s house, and she’s very friendly and nice, although it’s clear that she’s more interested in Piper than Andy. Laura had a blind daughter, but she’s dead now. They go outside and meet a very strange little boy, Ollie, who’s mute and has a birthmark on his face. He’s another of the foster children. Andy and Laura get off on the wrong footing right away.
Later that night, Laura watches videos of the cult that we saw in the pre credit sequence.
We also see that Andy has been traumatized by finding his dead father. The next day, they go to their father’s funeral. Laura cuts off a bit of the dead man’s hair and puts it in her pocket. After the funeral, they all play a drinking game. They all, even young Piper, get incredibly drunk.
Meanwhile, at home, Ollie breaks out of the house and walks around the yard all bloody, trying to get into a locked shed. He watches the others partying from outside the house. Andy talks about the way his father used to abuse him when he was little, but he never touched Piper. Late that night, Laura pours her own pee all over Andy while he sleeps to make him think he did it himself.
Ollie sits in his room and eats bugs. Andy washes himself outside because he’s afraid of the shower. At breakfast, Ollie tries to eat a huge knife, cutting his mouth up, and Andy tries to take him to the hospital. Once they get outside, they cross the white circle on the ground, and Ollie goes into convulsions. “Help me!” he says, speaking for the first time.
Laura returns and is surprised that Ollie can talk now. She drags him back inside the circle and indoors, and there’s no more talking from him. We watch one of the old cultists videos. This has happened before, and it’s not pretty. Laura feeds the hair from Andy’s father to Ollie. We see from above that the house and much of the yard is surrounded by a big white circle.
Andy has a terrifying vision of his father, who tells him, “She’ll die in the rain.” Andy slips and knocks himself out, waking up at the hospital, in the rain. He tells Laura about this, and she says she killed their father. Then again, he’s got a concussion, so maybe he imagined that.
Laura dresses Piper up in dead-Cathy’s clothes and does her hair to look like her dead daughter. Laura wants Piper to stay when Andy turns 18, but Piper plans to go away with Andy when he leaves. We see that Laura still has Cathy’s dead body in her freezer.
Andy gets released from the hospital, and Laura’s not happy about it; could he be dangerous? On the old videotape, we see that there’s cannibalism and soul-transference going on. Laura hits Piper in her sleep and frames it so it looks like Andy did it. Laura’s got a whole story made up to turn Piper against Andy. It all gets very confrontational, and Piper ends up taking Laura’s side.
Andy goes to see Wendy, the social worker who placed them with Laura. He sees a “Missing Child” poster with Ollie’s face on it. When he sees Wendy, he’s very intense, and she won’t put up with him. Eventually, Andy talks Wendy into going to the house for a visit.
At home, Ollie destroys the kitchen and attacks Laura, taking a big bite out of her. He then takes a bite out of the wooden counter-top, losing most of his teeth in the process. The skin on his own arm starts to look pretty tasty after that. He crawls into the freezer with dead-Cathy…
Wendy shows up at Laura’s house as Andy breaks the lock on the backyard shed. He sees Ollie and frozen-Cathy out there. “We can bring her back,” Laura says to Wendy. Andy shows Wendy what he’s found, and they both run for the car, where Laura runs over them with her SUV. Wendy is killed, but Andy’s only heavily injured. Laura finishes him off by drowning him in a deep puddle.
Laura goes to pick up Piper from her game and they drive home. Of course, Piper can’t see how beat-up the car is. In the house, Piper hears Andy’s voice, but we see that it’s really Ollie, and he’s looking pretty horrifying now.
Piper locks herself in the bathroom, where she finds Andy’s body. Laura explains that she put an angel inside Ollie’s body, and now it’s going to put Cathy into Piper. Piper tries to run, but hits her head and passes out.
Laura drags Piper out the swimming pool as Ollie watches and joins in the fun. As Laura pushes Piper underwater, she wakes up and tries to fight back. Meanwhile, something comes out of Ollie. Halfway through the drowning, Laura has second thoughts and lets Piper go.
Piper runs to the road and gets picked up by a car. Laura looks at Cathy’s half-eaten frozen corpse and drags it outside, where Ollie writhes outside the circle.
Later that night, the police find Ollie, who can speak and tells them who he really is. They also find Laura and Cathy in the pool.
Brian’s Commentary
It takes about 45 minutes before we get to anything truly unusual or horrific, but it does eventually get there. It’s very slow paced as we see more and more weirdness that just keeps on building up as the film progresses.
The acting here is good all around, and the film is very visual, with lots of cool shots and interesting ways of filming things. For a long time, I thought it was going to be one of those “The monster was grief all along” films, but no, that’s only part of it.
It was good!
Kevin’s Commentary
This was really impressive. The cast, visuals, and story. Maybe Laura was going just a little too far for love. We could see how things were spiraling out of her control as she started getting in deeper. I give it a big thumbs up.
2025 Hotspring Shark Attack
AKA “Onsen Shaku”
Directed by: Morihito Inoue
Written by: Morihito Inoue
Stars: Daniel Aguilar, Shoichiro Akaboshi, Takuya Fujimura
Run Time: 1 Hour, 10 Minutes
Trailer:
1943 The Ape Man
Directed by: William Beaudine
Written by: Karl Brown, Barney A. Sarecky
Stars: Bela Lugosi, Louise Currie, Wallace Ford
Run Time: 1 Hour, 4 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A mad scientist falls victim to his own devices and gets stuck somewhere between gorilla and human. They’ve got a real ape in the lab, desperate plans involving murder, and police on the trail. How will these hijinx work out? We would say you should see it to find out, but you’d probably be okay if you don’t.
Spoilery Synopsis
A group of reporters talks about how tough their jobs are. The newspaper reports that Dr. James Brewster has gone missing, and it seems suspicious. Dr. Randall is there at the docks to pick up Agatha, the missing doctor’s sister. Carter, one of the reporters, thinks there might be a story in it.
Dr. Randall knows exactly where Brewster is, and he tells Agatha that he’d be better off dead due to their recent discovery. Brewster experimented on himself, and it was so successful that they haven’t been able to reverse it.
The pair drive to the place where Brewster has been hiding, in a secret room in a country house. In a cage is a big ape and also Brewster, Bela Lugosi, who has hair on his face like a gorilla. He’s an ape-man now! He can still talk, but he walks and roars like an ape.
Outside, a weirdo peeks through the window as the altered doctor tells his story. Carter’s photographer friend goes off to the war, and Billie Mason, a young woman, is his replacement.
Back at the lab, Agatha watches as Brewster injects himself with a new serum that doesn’t work. He tells Agatha that there is a serum that would work, but Randall won’t allow it. Randall explains that he’d have to commit cold-blooded murder to get the spinal fluid that Brewster needs.
Billie and Carter arrive at the Brewster house, and they hear ape sounds even from outside. They’ve come to interview Agatha, a famous ghost-hunter. Agatha discusses the ghosts that haunt this house. She plays a recording of a ghost for them.
Hearing again that Randall won’t kill for him, Brewster puts on a coat and hat and goes out, with the gorilla in tow. Detective Brady arrives to question Randall about Brewster’s “disappearance.” Meanwhile, in the next room, Brewster and the ape kill Randall’s butler and take his spinal fluid.
Randall calls the police, who find a clump of hair in the dead butler’s hand. He goes to Brewster, who has made the serum and needs the other doctor to inject it. He refuses, and Agatha forces him to do it… at gunpoint. Zippo, the weird peeping-Tom, continues to watch everything from outside.
Brewster can stand up straight now, but he’s still all furry. Carter comes to the door, and Agatha lets him inside. They talk, and he leaves, but right after, Randall says he’s going too and never coming back.
The formula soon wears off, and Brewster needs more. He and the ape go out again, this time killing the milkman, another man, and a woman, stealing their spinal fluid. He’s got a bunch of it now, but Randall won’t come. “If he won’t come here, I’ll go to him,” threatens Brewster. In a rage, he strangles Agatha.
Brewster shows up at Randall’s house for an injection, but Randall throws the spinal fluid on the floor, ruining it. Brewster kills him. Agatha wakes up, not dead, rushes over there, and runs into the police as they examine the body.
Carter and Billie sneak into Brewster’s house and explore just as he returns home. Carter is knocked out by Billie by mistake, but then Brewster grabs her and runs to the lab. Everyone rushes down to the basement lab and fights. Billie accidentally releases the real ape, who attacks and kills Brewster.
The police arrive just in time to shoot the ape and save Billie. Agatha runs down to find Brewster’s body.
Brian’s Commentary
We get a lot of telling, not showing, in the opening scenes. It was successful enough that “Return of the Ape Man” came out the following year. Lugosi looks more like a Mennonite than an Ape Man, but I guess it’s a little late to complain about that.
We never do find out why Zippo keeps staring in through the window at the lab. Who is he, and why does he keep tipping off the reporters?
I want to know why Brewster, who could still talk and work in the lab, felt the need to sleep in the cage with a real gorilla.
Kevin’s Commentary
It was popular enough to spawn a sequel even though things pretty much wrapped up at the end. It was interesting seeing Bela Lugosi in another role, and he’s decent at it, but I can’t really tout this as a classic or particularly entertaining.Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s every bit as stupid as you might think from the title, trailer, and poster. It’s also very funny and a fun watch. It embraces the bad shark movie trope and dials it up to eleven. Don’t expect any scary horror, but it’s worth the watch.
Spoilery Synopsis
Atsumi, the Monaco of the East, is a fancy resort. We watch a guy on a boat “feed” his ex-girlfriend to a CGI shark. She’s fine, though, and hits him. Suddenly, a shark flies through the air and a muscly guy appears on deck. We cut to a woman in a jacuzzi who is attacked by a shark. Credits roll!
We hear more about Atsumi and the construction of the projects there. The chief of police isn’t happy about the project; he’s planning to retire next year, and it’s all annoying. He goes out to the beach, where another shark-eaten body has washed up. They find keys to a local onsen. Surprisingly, the mayor wants to keep it all quiet.
The chief is at the onsen, and he meets an annoying tourist, who almost immediately goes missing. Why were the victims all in the ocean naked? Their clothes were in the locker at the onsen. They bring in a shark expert, Kose, who gets really excited at the teeth marks on the victims. At the construction site, they’ve found fossils of an extinct species of shark; could that be related?
A bunch of influencers come to the resort and film a guy being attacked by a shark– no, it’s a prank. Still, the influencers are swarming the place, and they all do their stereotypical “influencer” stuff. Dr. Kose explains that this ancient variety of shark has very soft cartilage instead of bones, so it might fit into tighter places than a modern shark. They could be swimming around… underground and coming up through the pipes. There’s even an animated diagram showing how this might work. We cut to influencers being eaten in hot tubs.
They evacuate the hotel, but soon, sharks start coming out of the sewers all over town. The loudspeakers announce, “Onsen sharks are now attacking people in the city,” as manhole covers explode right and left. Atsumi City is in a panic, and the mayor isn’t happy. The sharks derail a train, which goes flying to kill the mayor’s staff.
The police chief is swallowed whole by a shark, but then that muscle man from earlier shows up and punches the shark. His shirt says “Onsen Guardian,” and the sharks hate him.
The Anti-Hot-Spring-Shark Unit of the Defense Force arrives and shoots at the shark, but it releases explosive gas to kill them all. Shachi-Go is activated. It’s a special new armored submarine that can withstand the exploding sharks. The sharks release an EMP that makes it crash. The shark laughs evilly.
The Prime Minister gives a speech about destroying the city of Atsumi to save everyone else. The Americans show up with their Bath Buster bombs to solve the problem once the evacuation is complete.
The police chief survived his attack, but now he’s got an infection and is turning purple. They need a vaccine from the Onsen Shark’s fins to save him. His wife won’t give up on him. Mayor Mangan realizes that this is all his fault and feels bad. He’s attacked by sharks, but the Onsen Guardian saves him. The mayor explains that he needs to capture one of the sharks, for the chief.
We get a research montage as the scientists design and 3D-print a new submarine to fight the sharks. Before the shark-killing sub is finished, the sharks counterattack, but they are distracted. The sub launches from a catapult with Kose, Mangan, and the Guardian aboard. They all eat submarine sandwiches as they wait.
The sharks find the sub and attack. The sharks shoot their EMP blast, but the sub has shields. Two of the three sharks get harpooned, and the Guardian swims out to kill the third one personally. They retrieve one of the bodies, so they can make a vaccine for the chief.
Suddenly, a whole swarm of hundreds of sharks appears. The group debates the morality of wiping out the entire shark species by dropping a building on them. They fire a torpedo at the resort’s foundation, and the whole hi-rise tower falls apart, bombarding the many sharks beneath it.
Then the “King Shark” shows up, wearing a literal crown, and he’s ridiculously huge. He eats the Guardian, so Kose and Mangan lose hope, but wait– the Onsen Guardian is inside the shark’s belly, fighting to get out.
Out of weapons, the submarine flies into the belly of the monster. The Guardian, inside, gives a mega-punch to the King Shark’s heart, knocking it way up into the sky, where Mayor Mangan shoots it, causing it to explode.
A month later, the mayor’s face is on a package of steamed buns just like he wanted. The Chief has recovered, and he watches as the Onsen Guardian rises out of the water, ready for more battles.
… And there is an after-credit scene.
Brian’s Commentary
This is the funniest, and also the most stupid, film we’ve seen in a while. It’s a perfect live-action anime. It picks on all the shark movie tropes as well as Japanese TV, anime, and influencer culture. The special effects are ridiculously, intentionally bad, which is part of why it’s so hilarious. The acting is way, way over the top as well.
Just watch the trailer. If it appeals to you, you will love this.
It’s crazy stupid, but it also may very well appear in my top ten for the year. Awesome!
Kevin’s Commentary
They effectively manage to spoof a lot of things in this movie in such a short package. It’s stupid but funny, and I had a good time seeing it. They did a good job putting this together.
1997 Cure
Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Written by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Stars: Masato Hagiwara, Kohi Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki
Run Time: 1 Hour, 51 Minutes
Trailer:
Watch it: https://amzn.to/3HJ1kWx
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was very atmospheric and kind of slow moving, but always fascinating. A cop on a quest to solve a murder case keeps finding it gets stranger and more complicated as the movie progresses. It’s dark, and grim, with well worn settings and peeling paint everywhere - perfect atmosphere for the story. We thought it was great.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman reads a story about Bluebeard to her doctor.
We cut to a man who breaks off a pipe and beats a woman to death with it.
We cut to Detective Takabe, who is called to the scene. The killer seems to have left his clothes, including his ID. The woman was beaten with a pipe, but she died from having a big “X” cut into her throat which made her bleed out. They soon find the man hiding outside the room, and he seems terrified. Takabe talks to the police psychologist, Dr. Sakuma; there have been three similar cases in two months. None of the “perps” are connected in any way, and they all seem perfectly rational after the murders.
A confused-seeming man on the isolated beach asks strange questions to another man. He doesn’t know the date, where he is, or even who he is. He takes the man home and gives him coffee. “Mamiya” is written on his coat, so they assume he must be Mr. Mamiya.
Detective Takabe goes home and talks to his wife, Fumio. She’s sick, but Takabe isn’t sure how bad it is, or if she’s even really sick.
We watch a man jump out a window, and Takabe is called in to investigate. That was the man who found and helped Mr. Mamiya. He killed his own wife and then tried to kill himself, but he’d always been very stable before. What happened? Mr. Hanaoka, the man, survived his fall but has no memory of why he killed his wife. “It just seemed the natural thing to do.” “The devil made him do it,” says Sakuma.
That night, Mr. Mamiya is taken in by the police and kept at a tiny little station until morning. He seems just as confused and disoriented as before. Mamiya is very hypnotic with his lighter, and the policeman seems to fall into a trance…
At the hospital Takabe talks to Sakuma about the murders being done by hypnosis; someone is making these men kill. Sakuma thinks it’s highly unlikely that the killer is a hypnotist.
In the morning, the policeman that talked to Mamiya kills his partner. Mamiya goes to the hospital and talks to doctor Miyajima. He says he can see all the “things” inside her, but his own insides are empty. He hypnotizes her with water spilled onto the floor and then leaves. Not long after, the doctor sees a big “X” painted on her wall. She later cuts up a man in the restroom.
Takabe questions the police officer who killed his partner. Sakuma asks questions, trying to see if hypnosis was involved. All signs point to another man being involved. The policeman, Mr. Oida, tries to cut an X in another officer’s chest- with a coffee stirrer. He has no idea why.
Takabe gets another call. Mr. Oida had taken a stranger to the hospital, and he was treated by Dr. Miyajima. Takabe finally finds Mamiya hiding at the hospital and takes him in for questioning. Mamiya doesn’t know who he is, nor does he remember any of the victims. Takabe really doesn’t like this suspect. Takabe goes home and has to find his wife, who got lost going to the store.
Takabe goes to Mamiya’s house and finds bunches of psychology books there as well as books on mesmerism. Takabe then goes home to find his wife hanging from a noose which he does not take well. No– he seems to have hallucinated it; she’s fine and running the vacuum cleaner.
Mamiya tells Takabe what he saw. He knows. Mamiya tries to hypnotise Takabe, who tells the criminal more than he probably should. On the way out, Sakuma recommends that he not talk to the prisoner anymore.
Takabe puts his wife in the mental hospital, which is where we saw her earlier reading the Bluebeard book.
Sakuma finds an old police case from 1898 that involved hypnosis and a woman cutting an “X” into her son. They used to call hypnotism “Soul Conjuring” back in those days. Sakuma starts doing his own research and decides that Mamiya is some kind of “missionary.” We see that he’s got a big “X” painted on his wall, too. Mamiya escapes not long after Sakuma kills himself.
Takabe finds Mamiya at an old abandoned hospital. Mamiya says Takabe let him escape. Takabe shoots the mesmerist three times. When Mamiya tries again to hypnotise Takabe, he gets shot another five times.
We see Takabe’s wife, at the hospital, with an “X” cut in her neck. He goes out for dinner, and we see the waitress pick up a knife and go after someone. Is Takabe the “carrier” now?
Brian’s Commentary
It’s very weird, slow, and ponderous. It starts off like a regular serial-killer mystery from the detective’s point of view, but as we see more and more from Mamiya’s point of view, it gets more complicated.
Hypnosis is overused in horror films, and usually not realistically. This one uses it as a central theme, but treats it in a more serious, less magical way.
It’s good– we don’t get too much of an explanation, but enough that it mostly makes sense.
Kevin’s Commentary
This was a different take on the serial killer genre and made a different use of the hypnotism trope. The atmosphere throughout was perfect, and the cast was excellent. I give this one a big thumbs up.
2018 Border
Directed by: Ali Abbasi
Written by: John Ajvide Lindqvist, Ali Abbasi, Isabella Eklof
Stars: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jorgen Thorsson
Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A strange looking customs officer is very good at her job, literally sniffing out when people are smuggling or up to bad things. It’s a talent that her coworkers, and soon the police, take seriously. Things get more complicated as we gradually learn who she is, and she gets mixed up with a guy who looks as strange as she does and has the same abilities. This was excellent. It’s well made and unique.
Spoilery Synopsis
Tina is a very unattractive border guard. She checks bags at the Swedish port. She busts a young guy for smuggling alcohol into the country. Credits roll.
She drives home to her cabin in the woods, and the dogs don’t like her. She goes for a walk in the woods, barefoot, and the fox watches her. Her boyfriend, Roland, raises muscular dogs and he doesn’t like it when people call them “fighting dogs.”
At work, Tina sniffs the crowd and calls one man aside. They don’t find anything in the man’s bag, but she insists on smelling his phone. He’s hiding a memory card inside, and the man freaks out before being arrested. Later, she smells another passenger and he looks a lot like she does. She lets him pass.
That afternoon, she goes to the nursing home to visit her father, and it takes him a minute to remember her name. He worries that Roland is taking advantage of her, which he clearly does.
That night at home, she goes outside and pets a wild moose behind her house.
Agneta calls in Tina and wants to know how she “sniffed out” the memory card full of child porn from that guy yesterday. She admits she can just sense these things; “I smelled it on him. Shame, guilt, rage, and other things.” Agneta is a high ranking police officer, and she’s skeptical about the “smelling thing,” but she gives Tina a new assignment to help them locate the pedophile apartment.
We cut to Vore, the creepy man that Tina let through yesterday. He passes her again. She insists that he has something on him, and her coworkers know better than to argue. During the more thorough search, they learn that Vore is female - he has a vagina, beard notwithstanding. Vore has a scar on his tailbone, and we saw in a previous scene that Tina has one as well. They don’t find anything on her. The two look very similar, and there’s almost an animal attraction between them. And then Vore leaves.
Tina asks her father about her scar, and he says she fell on a rock as a little girl. She doesn’t remember it, but she also doubts his story.
In the daytime, she tracks down Vore, who feeds her a maggot; she tries it. She takes him home, and the dogs don’t like him, either. Still, they shut up when he growls at them. Roland is not pleased to meet Vore, who will be staying in the guest house. Vore kisses Tina, and she’s not sure what to make of it.
At work, Tina is continuing to stake out the child-porn guy’s apartment to try to catch the people who were making it. She sniffs out the right place. She finds people doing something to a baby and reports it. They go back later and find a camera and footage.
Vore explains that she’s not ugly, she’s better than most other people. She thinks she can’t have children, as there’s something wrong “down there.” He’s very understanding and insists that she’s fine.
Esther comes over and shows Tina and Vore her newborn baby, and that night, Vore goes out to the woods and gives birth. He mashes up more maggots to feed it before hiding the baby thing in the refrigerator.
Roland leaves to go to a dog show, but Tina knows he’s got a girlfriend waiting. There’s a thunderstorm, and both Tina and Vore hide under the table in terror as the lightning comes close. They’ve both been hit by lightning before. Later, he wants to have sex with her, even though she insists that she’s deformed. They go at it… like animals. She grows the parts she’s missing; she’s actually been a male this whole time. Sort of.
That night, he explains that she’s a troll, like him. She can smell evil and lightning chases her. She had a tail that was cut off and discarded when she was little. He knows of a small group of trolls in Finland. The following day, they frolic through the woods, naked. They’re in love. “Humans are afraid of us. And they should be. Vengeance is coming.” Humans performed medical experiments on Vore’s family. Vore clearly hates humans, but Tina thinks they aren’t all bad.
Tina confronts her father about her whole life. His dementia doesn’t allow him to give a straight answer. When she gets home, she roars at the dogs and tells Roland he needs to move out– tonight!
Tina goes to the guest house and sees the fridge taped shut. She opens it and sees what’s inside. It’s that strange-looking baby.
At work, she continues to work on the pedo case, trying to find out where the babies came from. The suspect is ripped out of the police van and killed with the help of a moose, but no one sees who did it. Tina knows it was Vore and asks him about it.
Turns out, Vore is involved with the pedo ring. “I help them hurt themselves.” The thing in the fridge is not a baby; it’s a Hiisit, and it’s just fine in there. It’s like an unfertilized egg for trolls. He’s been saving it. “They come out of me regularly.” He swaps the hiisits for real children and then sells the human babies to the pedos. “They must suffer as we’ve suffered.”
Tina roars at him in anger and then goes out to the woods to eat worms. She hears an ambulance and follows it to Esther’s house. She sees that her new baby has been switched with the hiisit. She rushes home to find Vore gone. “You’re not human. Meet me at the ferry,” says the note he left.
She finds Vore on the ferry. He wants them to carry on their race, but she doesn’t want to be evil and has him arrested. He jumps overboard instead.
Tina’s father explains her origins. Most of the others of her kind didn’t live for very long. Her name was Reva. When she gets home, there’s a baby, in a crate on her porch. It’s got a little tail and a beard. She feeds it a bug, and it smiles. There’s also a postcard from Finland. Will she go?
Brian’s Commentary
It took hours in the makeup chair to get Tina’s makeup on. The prosthetics here are really convincing. She looked like a Neanderthal or something similar from the very first scene. We also see that she’s got a very close affinity with animals. Obviously, she’s not quite human or something, but the rest of the movie is about us learning the rest of the story.
I liked how all Tina’s coworkers had seen her be right so many times that they never really doubted her ability to smell evil on people.
This one is very different, interesting and engaging all the way through. Very entertaining!
Kevin’s Commentary
This had a great story structure, letting us see that Tina isn’t quite normal right from the beginning, and filling in the gaps as it goes along. The makeup on the two of them is completely realistic. I thought it was an exceptional movie, probably going to be one of the favorites I’ve seen this year.
Short Films:
2025 Short Film Social Media Presence
Directed by: Paul Davis
Written by: Paul Davis
Stars: Natalie Clark, Amanda Greig, A.J. Moorehead
Run Time: 10:30
Watch it:
What Happens
We watch Katie, an influencer, go about her day photographing, commenting, tagging everything she does on her phone. One day, she gets a new follower, an account that only follows her. Then the gifts start arriving… at home.
Commentary
This should be a public service video about turning your location services off. It’s really well done. There is one line of dialogue, just comments and such on the Instagram posts. We’re pretty clear all along about what’s going on, but poor Katie is the last to know.
It looks great, well shot, well paced, and the acting is excellent. Good use of music too.
2023 Short Film We All Belong to the Tower
Directed by: Dustin Weible
Written by: Dustin Weible
Stars: Harley Renault, Logan Cobbs, Kevin Kedgley
Run Time: 9 Minutes
Watch it:
What Happens
Kaitlin’s father gets an emergency call from work, but he’s an architect, so how bad can it be? At school, all the teachers turn on the news, which is reporting a strange new tower that appeared in town– overnight. People start reacting strangely to the news, even right there in class. That evening, Kaitlin’s father is… different.
Commentary
This is a really low budget short that tells a good story with very little explanation or special effects at all. There’s a building, and then there are the reactions to the building. At the end, we don’t get any real answers as to what it is, but we know it’s not good.
Very nice!
2023 Short Film The Gourd, the Brad, and the Ghostly
Directed by: Jillian Terwedo-Malsbury
Written by: Rob Knoll, Annie McGrath
Stars: David J. Castillo, Elester Latham
Run Time: 8:34
Watch it:
What Happens
Doug has put a lot of time into the jack-o-lantern this Halloween, and it looks great. Whoops– it fell off the window ledge, 29 flights up. He looks out the window, and it looks like he may have killed a man down there. It’s a very long ride down in the elevator to find out what happened.
Commentary
This is really great. Doug goes from happy, to terrified, to relieved, to terrified again, and he’s very convincing. All the weirdos who head to and from the Halloween party are especially good. The ending… is maybe not what he deserved, but it’s hilarious.
2023 Short Film Robbie Ain’t Right No More
Directed by: Kyle Perritt
Writer: Kyle Perritt
Stars: Madeleine McGraw, Jadon Cal, Jason Davis
Run Time: 18 Minutes
Watch it:
What Happens
The family has a get-together for Robbie, who’s just home from the war. Vern the father, warns young Sarah that Robbie saw some action over there, and he just isn’t like he used to be. They all sit down for dinner, and the conversation goes awkwardly. What exactly happened to Robbie over there? It’s not what everyone assumes.
Commentary
This is good. It’s very dark toward the end, but we see enough to know what’s happening. The family dinner seems very realistic; we’ve all got one relative who doesn’t know when to shut up when things get tense.
It had a good touch of science fiction. I liked this one a lot.
2025 Short Film Every Time We Meet for Ice Cream Your Whole F*cking Face Explodes
Directed by: Anthony Cousins
Written by: Anthony Cousins, Carlton Mellick III
Stars: Arden Michalec, Logan Schuneman, Alexander Michuda
Run Time: 7 Minutes
Watch it:
What Happens
A boy on the schoolbus gets bullied regularly, at least until a new, funny-looking girl arrives in town. He wants to be friends and asks her out for ice cream. Their first date goes… strangely. He’s not deterred, however.
Could this be a lasting relationship?
Commentary
This is really cool. It’s retro without getting crazy about it, the bullying seems to be at a realistic level, and the two main characters act believably, except for that one small issue.
It looks really nice, the acting is perfect, and it’s got a fun resolution. Excellent!
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