This year, I made a point of seeing all of the horror shorts film blocks at the festival. The feature films were excellent this year, but you can always catch the features that show at Overlook in the cinema or eventually streaming. The short films are labors of love that are condensed kernels of horror that are not as easily found.

I thought it would be good to celebrate the festival’s best horror shorts by getting together with the people who made them. I interviewed nine filmmakers to discuss their experiences making the movies in a casual discussion with each other. Several of them were having their world premiere showings at Overlook. Horror shorts are allowed to take bigger chances than feature films. Big feature films are the product of many parents, with the director, writer, editor, and studio all having an influence on the final product. In the case of these films, often, it is a singular vision, with one person serving in all of those roles. When you get to show your film at a festival like this, it is a considerable achievement.

There were 22 horror shorts shown in this year’s festival, and they were grouped by theme. Group one: Freaky, Group two: Apocalypse Pretty Soon, and Group 3: The Furies. Congratulations to Katie Rife, the short film curator for the event. Her selections played off each other very well and provided a broad array of interesting concepts and styles. I hope the festival bundles these films up in packages that will become available for viewing by a larger audience. (Including you!)

Directed by Luke Zwanziger
Starring: Lowell Deo, Joel Austin

“A mad botanist experiments on an unwilling human subject to give plants a fighting chance against climate change.”

A mad science eco tale where the protagonist and antagonist could be flipped. A mad scientist is doing horrible things to people for all the right reasons. An average Joe just doing his ethically questionable job. Pair that with leveled-up stop motion puppetry and makeup work, and you can understand why this short has been a fan favorite in many film festivals.

Watch the trailer for Vines

“When Maya commits to a month of sobriety and takes up sculpting as a hobby, her crab sculptures terrorize her former drinking buddy — her brother Toby.”

Pure, wild absurdism. It is almost too strange a film to describe accurately. Dry January shows off the risks you can execute in a short film that a studio would surely prevent. A woman takes to crafting a crab sculpture that comes to life as a hunky crab man who barfs up curious trivia and aphorisms to live by in the middle of the night. What? Hey, it works. I really enjoyed this film, which is an homage to the struggles of recovery but taken in an amusing direction. You will never see another film like this one. Trust me.

Some of the great fun facts that got barfed out by the crab man:

Who knew?

Watch the Trailer for Dry January

A traveler stops to rest in a clearing of a haunted forest. Soon, they learn they have stumbled upon the lair of a terrifying troll who demands gifts for passage.

The Traveler and the Troll won the Best Short Film award at Overlook. It received a raucous response during my viewing, as the clever and hilarious dialogue paired with an astonishing puppet that would be at home in Jim Henson’s workshop. The story lures you in with the classic fairy tale tropes and engages you with lovely production and silly banter. The troll isn’t all that terrifying, but he is terrific. The world premiere film also claimed an honorable mention award for Creature Design.

“A member of a famous K-Pop boy band whose face has been disfigured by an accident must undergo surgery to repair his fracturing image.”

This medical malfeasance tale of a pop star who loses everything, his dreams ruined by a car wreck, reflects on vanity and the price of fame when the beauty is lost. What is the price you would pay to get it all back? Body horror and surgical reconstruction echo films like The Substance and The Skin I Live In. Benedict Chiu is early in his short filmmaking career and pulls off a stylish and tight production.

Watch the Trailer for Boy Band

“Eager to make new friends, Kate attends a slumber party, but the night takes a sinister turn when the girls decide to play a strange party game.”

Have you ever felt like you were in over your head in a social setting with new people? There might be something off, but the peer pressure is overwhelming, and you are determined to see past the awkwardness and gut it out. Such is the fateful decision in front of our protagonist. Every sign points to danger, but fearing rejection, she joins an unsavory activity. Short and punchy. This was the world premiere for Call Earl.

“A young trans woman is chased into a junkyard while being followed home late at night. There, she must outwit her predator and summon the strength of a goddess. ”

Cruelty won the Scariest Short Film Award at Overlook, and deserved it. It features traditional serial killer stalker tropes and inverts the power paradigm. Some nifty effects and using Kali as a protector was a fresh perspective I would like to see made into a feature. The crisp editing ramps the tension and punctuates the story with a perfectly gory end that satisfies on many levels.

Watch the Trailer for Cruelty

An aging boy band decides to sell their souls for fame and fortune. Unfortunately, not reading the fine print could prove disastrous. Wickedly funny, with a song served two ways: Once as a pop harmony number, and following a fateful blood pact, a death metal version of the same song. Shades of Spinal Tap and Puppet Show vibes abound. Oh, how the mighty have fallen… and risen again! This was the world premiere for Arson.

Directed by Alejandro Artiles
Starring: Maykol Hernández, Leticia Torres, Marta Zubiría, Ryo Ruiz

“Isolated in the La Palma observatory, Fran must face the last thing any parent wants to hear.”

Los Muchachos deservedly won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at Overlook. Like Pontypool or Orson Welles’ reading of The War of the Worlds, this story utilizes radio audio clues to create the fear in your mind. The zombie apocalypse is coming, and Fran is working in his observatory when the world changes due to a comet passing through the stratosphere. His wife and son are experiencing the coming apocalypse firsthand, and he is helpless as the reality sets in. The film was so powerful that the audience was stunned into silence when the credits rolled. Riveting.

“Frankie reunites with her toxic community and must tap into her dark side to survive unscathed.”

Pro tip: Don’t mess with a witch’s family unless you’re fully prepared to accept the consequences. Slush paints a grim picture of returning home to a closed-minded community, an allegory for our divided times. Frankie is a clever witch whose sense of justice takes some unique methods of revenge. From someone who also lives in the Pacific Northwest, I feel that the urban-rural divide is startlingly real in this depiction.

Watch the trailer for Slush

Directed by Stacy Haiduk & Sophia Tatum
Starring: Stacy Haiduk, Sophia Tatum, and Reina Hardesty

“Lana and Strode, a mother and daughter, take to the road for a five-day killing spree.”

It’s the great American road trip with daywalking vampires. Real-life mother and daughter Stacy Haiduk and Sophia Tatum channel their inner Thelma and Louise in this blood-soaked romp through the desert southwest. Mom wants to continue preying upon the unsuspecting humans the way they always have, with seduction. The daughter wants a more direct approach. This short film oozes style and sexy confidence, and oh, that beautiful Cadillac. Want one.

Watch the Trailer for Brand New Cadillac

Directed by Ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby
Starring: Benairen Kane and Kim Savarino

“A burgeoning romance between two Natives takes a sinister turn as one grows suspicious of the other’s Indigenous heritage in this darkly comedic nightmare.”

I also caught this film as part of the SXSW Midnighter Shorts programming. Pride in your cultural heritage can forge strong bonds. But when you sense that someone is trying a bit TOO hard, warning signals flare. Such is the case with our two protagonists in The Beguiling. What initially feels like a bonding over shared indigenous experiences and common ancestry becomes awkward; the motivations of the relationship are in doubt, leaving you wondering who is appropriating whom. You need to pay close attention as the clues are subtle, but you get clued in simultaneously with the characters, and then it’s too late. Only one of them is leaving the apartment.

Watch the Trailer for The Beguiling