John Skipp’s Favourite Weird And Horror Short Films From Festivals

Hello hello my Christmas friends, let’s all dance and sing, with joy and stuff and stuff and things and all stuff in between.

While at Bizarrocon, horror author John Skipp had a showing of his favourite short films (or movies, if you want to be all American about it). However a more accurate title for this post should be ‘some of John Skipp’s favourites’ because the showing lasted two and a half hours and I’ve picked out the ones I liked best, and I couldn’t find the full movies of Einstein-Rosen by Olga Osorio or The Honeymoon by Ruth Pickett.

I’ll start with the silliest first. You might recognise the Lovecraftian rapper as Cody Goodfellow, one of the authors who sat with me on the Weird In A Post Weird World panel. Other bizarro authors pop up too, along with Rose O’Keefe, the owner of Eraserhead Press.

Baby Got Bass from Eli Dorsey

The next is a sci fi short most fans of Black Mirror would probably appreciate, SWELL from Bridget Savage Cole

THE BULB from calvin reeder is weird, fun and a little bit gross

And finally Death Metal from Chris McInroy had us howling. Contains daft violence

Merry Christmas and see you next week!

The Voice Thief, A Surreal Short Film By Adan Jodorowsky

Merry Tuesday my little apple carts! I’ve got a lot of editing to do so I shall leave you with this wonderfully bizarre short film The Voice Thief by the criminally gorgeous Adan Jodorowsky, son of Alejandro, and featuring Asia Argento (also gorgeous), daughter of Dario. Toodle pip!

4 Short Weird And Experimental Short Films To Make You Go All Disturbed

Merry Wednesday my little stuffed toys in a jar disguised to look like pickled conjoined goat twins. I’ve some news: my surreal, bizarro, weird fiction (and whatever else) comedy novella 4 Rooms In A Semi Detached House has been accepted by StrangeHouse Books (thanks, StrangeHouse Books!) and to celebrate here are 4 short experimental and possibly disturbing films.

The Cat With Hands was made by Robert Morgan, whose short animation Deloused featured in The ABCs of Death 2 (which I much preferred to the toilet fixated original). He makes cool and grotesque things, you should have a look. The Cat With Hands is his most famous work.

As well as being an amazing music man with his own record label, Flying Lotus has now set up Brainfeeder Films. With his own feature length production making people sick and a short by David Firth (of Salad Fingers) on the way, I’m looking forward to what else will be released.

The charmingly titled FuckkkYouuu is by Eddie Alcazar, with soundtrack by Flying Lotus.

I’m sure you all remember Alan Tutorials, the youtube channel featuring daft tutorials such as how to pick up a chair, which slowly grew more and more disturbing (but always funny). The mind behind it was Alan Resnick, digital and visual artist and filmmaker. He’s done several things for Adult Swim, including the absurdist This House Has People In It.

Written and directed by Peter Capaldi (aka Malcolm Tucker, aka Dr Who), Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life was written in 1993 for BBC Scotland and won a Bafta and Academy Award. Starring Richard E Grant (Withnail, of course, like you didn’t know), it tells the humorous story of Franz Kafka’s attempt to write The Metamorphosis despite numerous interruptions.

Enjoy!

2 Hilarious Short Films Based On HP Lovecraft Stories

These short films found via The Lovecraft Ezine really, really made me chuckle, The Ordeal of Randolph Carter and From Beyond The Beyond.

They’re written, directed and performed by Chris Lackey, who also hosts the HPPodcraft, and comedy man Grieg Johnson. The first voice on the telephone in Randolph Carter is Andrew Leman of The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

Grieg’s Youtube

Enjoy!

Creepy Short Visual Art Films by David B Earle

Morning my little plum berries! I’ve been experiencing my usual lady health difficulties this last few days so I’m afraid this will be brief, but I’d like to share the work of an artist called David B Earle.

The first, titled Dining Room or There Is Nothing, is intended to play on an endless loop and is fairly well known for appearing on ‘creepy youtube films’ lists.

His site says “This short film flips back on itself. At exactly the midway point, the film begins to run backwards, and the sound repeats itself backwards with it. The character (Lea Porsager), speaks the three words backwards as the film goes forwards, so that they can be deciphered at the end of the film when they are played backwards.

When looped, there is no actual beginning or end, and no real sense of where the beginning and end actually are.

This piece was inspired by a personal paradoxical desire for empirical proof that there is nothing on the ‘other’ side of life.

I wanted to blur the distinction between the two states, and to state the paradox by showing someone who is coming back from life (or death), and denies its existence, thereby fulfilling the paradox.”

This one, probably a glimpse into my future, is called Deleted Scene (From An Imaginary Film):

This one, probably my favourite, was uploaded only 7 months ago, Getting Off:

10 Scary (Or Funny) Short Horror Films For Halloween

The time approaches! That night where you invade someone’s house and move things around while they sleep so they wake up all confused and call the local papers and they come round and it all becomes a really famous case of haunting and you can’t admit it was you because it’s all gone too far so you have to just keep doing it.

To celebrate such a wondrous event I have searched the internet for tales of terror or humour to share with you all, because I’m like that.

I have no idea what’s going on in this UAE (United Arab Emirates) based film, but I quite liked the atmosphere. Cold Feet:

Funny and clever, this is a very entertaining five minutes. The Sleepover:

I wrote about the making of this film for a magazine and got to watch a scene being filmed (the doctor’s office). I also attended the wrap party where zombies carried trays of brightly coloured cakes. Annabelle’s Tea Party:

For an added bonus here’s a making of documentary:

There’s more than a touch of exam anxiety in this Korean tale. The Function:

This was shown as part of a series of shorts on channel 4 in the UK called Random Acts. It’s not strictly a horror but I think genre fans will definitely appreciate the humour. The Ting:

This mischievous short was based on a story called The Open Window by Saki. Read it if you haven’t yet. Certified:

The puppet masters have created another disturbing tale of kid’s songs and innards. Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared 5, Food:

1987 gothic short from Czech stop motion animator Jiří Bárta. The Last Theft:

I remember this Irish short from a film website in 2004 and it stuck with me. The Ten Steps: 

This Mexican film has a surprise in store. Luna:

Amazing Stop Motion Animation Films – Zealous Creative

Alrightyroo (?) I’m off to Florence in a matter of days so I shall be leaving you for a week or two. In the meantime here are a few films by award-winning husband and wife Christopher Kezelos and Christine Kezelos, otherwise known as Zealous Creative. Find them on their website or their youtube channel and have a peek at the last two videos where you can help them out with their latest project. Adieu (or rather Ciao)!

The Maker

The Maker Behind The Scenes

Zero

Allure (a little upsetting but good)

Smooshies (web series)

Kickstarter for latest project

Teaser for latest project

5 Weird and Surreal Short Films

Good day! I’m in the middle of a crash novella writing month which is sucking out all the cotton wool from my little head. In the meantime here are a few weird films, the first three of which are watched and discussed in our latest Bizart podcast episode.

This is by Cyriak, a UK based animator whose work has appeared on Adult Swim. Baaa is joyous, silly and absurd:

Larry Carlson is a Vermont artist who makes A LOT of psychedelic videos. In Your Cube features a Ventriloquist’s dummy because… why not:

I might be obsessed with Scottish visual artist Rachel Maclean. Her world is the kind of world I want to live in: dark, weird and horrifically colourful. Here’s Lolcats:

Here’s a beautifully animated version of Kurt Schwitters’ Dadaist poem An Anna Blume, by Bulgarian creatives Compote Collective, or Vessela Dantcheva (Overlord), Ivan Bogdanov (Art Director) and Petar Dundakov (Composer).

At Land is a silent short made in 1944 by experimental film maker Maya Deren. Here a sea nymph explores land:

The Chelmsford Fling festival

Where can you make things out of clay, or sew your own toy, watch a two person short play and a monologue about the Marquis De Sade before toddling off to the Cabaret tent to watch burlesque? The Chelmsford Fling in Essex, that’s where! Have a look online here. And the best part? No children!

In the cabaret tent Desmond O Connor (who’s popped up as MC for Bizarre Magazine’s Ball more than once) serenaded us with increasingly rude songs on the ukelele and Ginger Blush engaged the crowds in burlesque bingo (like normal bingo but with corsets), all punctuated with lovely ladies dancing about and removing items of clothing. Oh, and one man, he was quite nice too.

Elsewhere in the Make Do And Mend tent you could create your own toy, or watch two professional actors in a short play in the Storytime tent. If that’s not enough you can make things out of clay or your own hat if you don’t mind looking really stupid, or watch experimental films whilst drinking refreshing smoothies in the Psychedelic Film tent. Oh yeah, and somewhere there was some live music playing.

Obviously it’s already happened this year, but make sure you get to the next if you can and buy advance tickets as the price goes up considerably on the door. Now here are some pictures to highlight the experience:

It’s me on a bench!

A play in a tent

Make Do And Mend!

The view from the screen in the Psychedelic Movie tent

The tent in action

Member of local burlesque troupe Hell’s Belles

A lovely lady who had apparently been on Britain’s Got Talent

A man on stilts – I liked him, he reminded me of a Neverwhere character

Random Acts: send your three minute short films

If you make films you might want to have a look at the Random Acts section of the Channel 4 website (UK).

There’s a big variety of stuff from the pretty to the silly to the unsettling, here are a few I quite liked:

A ‘Dandy punk’ travels through fantastical worlds in The Alchemy of Light.

Warning: The Ting contains violence, inner city slang and daft humour.

A trippy nostalgic video dedicated to Margaret Thatcher, Maggie’s Last Party.