2095

Written/Directed by Troy Romeo; Produced by Julia Stemock

Westly Ferris is in love with his co-worker, Shannon, but she barely knows he’s alive. When he builds up enough courage to ask her out, he fails miserably.

But that night Shannon contacts Westly on the internet and offers him the opportunity to get to know her better online, beginning an online romance. Yet during the day, Shannon feels they need to hides their relationship from the always prying eyes of the corporation. But the corporation might know more than either of them thinks, and in a world of computers nothing is as it seems.

24 min

The 3rd Letter

Written/Produced by Bastiaan Koch; Directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys

From award winning director/writer Grzegorz Jonkajtys and producer/writer Bastiaan Koch (Visual Effects: Sunshine, Hellboy 2‘, Transformer 2) comes The 3rd Letter, A distinctive dystopian vision where humans are utterly depend on health-care plans and technology to withstand the deteriorating climate. Set against a polluted, megalopolis world, the tragic tale of Jeffrey Brief (Rodrigo Lopresti) unfolds; Faced with the imminent loss of his crucial health insurance, Brief unwittingly unravels a dark truth behind his insurance. He is subsequently pushed to unspeakable lengths in an attempt for survival.

15 min

8 Butterflies

Written/Directed/Produced by Nick Narciso

A guilty mind trip or vivid nightmare, you decide. 8 Butterflies redefines the term ‘film noir’ as we know it. We will soon begin to find ourselves roaming lost in a place where hope and light are absent. A place which seems so dark and familiar, where we drift within a reality that may not even exist, as our sanity begins to fade.

17 min

Aces & Eights

Written/Directed/Produced by Matt Allen

Zombie-cowboys have returned to their favorite Old-West watering hole after an undead breakout. While the group is ‘playing’ poker, we are allowed a glimpse into their reality. Lines are drawn, then crossed, and cheaters punished. A still-human bounty hunter arrives, and he’s all that stands between these ghouls, and their next round of whiskey!

8 min

Aidan 5

Written by Ben Bays, John Jackson, Tim Baldwin; Directed by John Jackson; Produced by Ben Bays, John Jackson, Shawn Likley

The City – 2064. It is a harsh future of legalized human cloning. Detective James Aidan stands on a city rooftop, looking over the corpse of one of his own clones. Under the body, he discovers a mysterious note indicating he is next to be murdered. It is the third time he has seen his lifeless face that day. How should one feel about the death of a clone? And who would want to kill all of him?

7 min

Alice Jacobs is Dead

Written/Directed by Alex Horwitz; Produced by Jacob Robinson

Dr. Ben Jacobs created a drug that allowed mankind to fight back against the Z-virus, which nearly destroyed civilization entirely. Now he’s trying to cure the last lingering strain of the virus. Working out of an abandoned, dilapidated hospital with George, his friend and assistant, Ben carries on with his research. But he harbors a secret at home. The last infected specimen of the Z-virus is Ben’s wife, Alice, secretly living in domestic quarantine. As Alice feels herself slipping away, Ben races to find a cure. George begins to suspect that Ben is hiding something, while Alice slowly becomes a monstrous Z-positive.

21 min

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Alternative Dragon (Orutana Doragon)

Written/Directed by Takehito WADA; Produced by Takehito WADA, Naoko NAKAMURA, Kohei ANDO 

Serena had just started to work for a door-to-door sexual service when she accidentally kills a customer who got out of hand. Sayama, her driver, treats this as an unfortunate business situation.

Out of panic, they cut the body into 6 pieces and load it in the back seat of their car. They decide to dump the body somewhere remote–the nearby woods.

On their way, they are stopped by basic human needs: food, washroom, and sleep. Each time they stop however, they encounter a new, annoying, and nearly surreal circumstance.

40 min

Attackazoids!

Written/Directed, by Brian Lonano; Produced by Erin Horsey

After escaping an onslaught of giant killer robots, one woman seeks refuge and comfort from a mysterious old man on a ghostly street in a world that isn’t what it seems. “Attackazoids!” is a science fiction nightmare combining live action, stop motion animation and bizarre sound to create a unique and haunting vision of an alien invasion.

6 min

Bad Mistake (Mauvaise erreur)

Written/ Directed by Xavier Hibon; Produced by Gérald Frydman

Sophie is not scared by horror movies anymore. One night, she’s kidnapped and she realizes that she is the wrong person. The kidnappers have made a mistake. The kidnappers are going to kill her, because they don’t want to have any witnesses. Sophie will try to escape and will kill one of them. But in fact, she kills her girlfriend’s new boyfriend who she was supposed to meet during the weekend. It was all a joke for her birthday party.

6 min

The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas

Written/Directed/Produced by John Wardlaw

The late Jonathan Harris (Lost in Space, A Bug’s Life) makes his final performance as “The Bolt” and is the narrator of this screwy parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Bolt devises a scheme to take away Christmas from every last Screw. Can Christmas be saved for the Screws of Screwville? Harris is joined by his former TV co-stars Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright, and Marta Kristen who portray the Ratchet family from a nutty scene from A Christmas Carol. The film also features the voice talent of Tress MacNeille (The Simpsons, Futurama).

7 min

Bottles

Written by Samantha Henderson; Directed/Produced by Jon Stout

Mira is a hard-working, divorced mother with a dark secret; when she gets angry, objects move and people get hurt. One day, coming home from a patient who has slipped into a mysterious coma, she notices disturbing items in her twelve-year-old daughter’s antique bottle collection.

Her daughter, Cheyenne, is hiding her own frightening capabilities. As Mira copes with her daughter’s budding talents, Cheyenne draws Mira, her father, and his new wife into a shadowy set of life-or-death choices. You have to be careful about what you collect.

20 min

The Breakup

Written/Directed/Produced by Elizabeth Dashiell

In 2004, Mattel announced the breakup of Barbie and Ken. Members of the media blamed Ken’s unwillingness to commit. Others questioned his sexuality. The years have passed, and Barbie has moved on—new life, new loves, new job. No one has ever bothered to ask how Ken is doing…until now. This short, dark, comedic fantasy features music from the award-winning musician and artist Voltaire. Ken imagines Barbie and her new lovers while planning the demise of those who supplanted him in ever-increasingly devious ways. Rated R for excessive violence…to dolls.

7 min

By Her Hand, She Draws You Down

Written/Directed by Anthony G. Sumner; Produced by Anthony G. Sumner, Alan Rowe Kelly

Based on the short story by acclaimed author Douglas Smith, a creepy and suspenseful tale of a boardwalk portrait artist who struggles with a powerful dark hunger, and the man who, through loving her, must come to grips with his own inner demons. A haunting variant on the vampire legend with an understated and brutal ending.  A beautiful, compelling, horrifying and ultimately tragic film brought to life on the desolate beaches of an off-season Jersey Shore.

26 Min

Bygone Behemoth

Written/Directed/Produced by Harry Chaskin

A day in the life of an unemployed B-movie monster, a lingering personified special-effect of the 1950s. Presented as a series of vignettes, “Bygone Behemoth” follows the title character as he putters around his house, laments being out of shape, calls his agent about work, reads the want ads, and contemplates the obituaries.

In an age where computer graphics are all too prevalent, “Behemoth” is a nostalgic tribute to the work of Ray Harryhausen, Willis O’Brien, and numerous other forgotten wizards. Like the Behemoth itself, the film needs stop-motion to exist; it seeks to capture the ephemeral quality of a dying art form.

5 min

Charlie the Breast Fed Hamster

Written by David Haynes, Jeremy Rubin; Directed/Produced by Jeremy Rubin

Charlie, a cute, unsuspecting, little hamster ventures out to play on a bright sun-shiny day. He comes upon his friend Franco, a squirrel, eating lunch. Unfortunately for Franco, Charlie’s dark side gets the better of him when Franco declines to share. Charlie’s twisted aggressions are satisfied just in time for dinner from his big-breasted, human mother.

5 min

Chase Thompson, a film by Chase Thompson

Written/Directed by Vincent Lin; Produced by Caleb Medders, Matthew D’Amato, Vincent Lin

When up and coming filmmaker Chase Thompson is hired to direct a lackluster romance film, the foolhardy director takes it as an opportunity to fire the crew and turn the film into his own zombie slaying masterpiece, starring himself. When studio executives notice their film isn’t the one being made, Chase must decide which film is the one he truly wants to direct.

12 min

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A Complex Villainelle

Written by Jonathan Goldstein; Directed by Bart Ovaitt, Howard Cook, Nathan Billington, Rebecca Forth, Ryan Porter; Produced by Howard Cook, Tripp Vroman

Before he became the overweight obsessive sadsack of his later years, the Penguin was a poet and a dandy, who threw lavish parties and told complex villanelles and was an expert at umbrella flight. Looking for love, he is introduced to a lovely nanny, Mary Poppins, who also prefers travel by umbrella. The results are not as he had expected; his hopes dashed by a mysterious stranger in a black cape.

8 min

Conventional Wisdom

Written/Directed/Produced by Kenney Broadway

In 2008, I took a camera crew and a list of questions with me to Dragon* Con in Atlanta, Georgia on a mission to gain a better understanding of why everyday adults would travel from all across the country and spend outrageous amounts of money just to dress up in costumes and act silly for four days straight. What I found more often than not was that the costumes did not transform these enthusiasts, rather their fantastic outfits allowed them to express something fundamental and real about their personalities. As I came to understand their mutual respect for one another I realized they were more than a community. They are a family.

23 min

Cornerboys

Written/Directed/Produced by Jamieson Ridenhour

“Cornerboys” is collaborative effort between writer Jamieson Ridenhour, artist Ali LaRock, and composer Kevin Smith. The short film tells the dark fairy tale story of Jennifer Lynn, who searches the night streets for home but finds only the rat-eyed and restless Cornerboys. Inspired in equal parts by Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, the fairy tales both of the Brothers Grimm and of later practitioners like Tim Burton and Brian Froud, and the gritty urban Gothic fantasies of the 19th century, “Cornerboys” began life ten years ago as a long poem published in the now-defunct horror ‘zine Whispers from the Shattered Forum.

11 min