New York to Host the “Best of the Best” of Short Horror
L.A.’s Screamfest, Edinburgh’s Dead by Dawn, Korea’s Puchon, Montreal’s FanTasia-horror fans know these as world-class showcases. But now you don’t have to leave New York to experience some of the best short films that such events have to offer.
On October 22 at 9:00 p.m. New York City’s Pioneer Theater will present 90 minutes of eye-popping and breath-quickening international releases at DAGGERS, The Short Festival of Short Horror. Then the entire program will repeat at 9:00 p.m. on October 23. For tickets, address, and other information about The Pioneer Theater, please visit http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/.
“Every October pop culture fans and moviegoers are besieged by horror offerings from various mainstream media,” points out DAGGERS founder and programmer, Peter Gutiérrez. “And while being too highbow would work against some of the genre’s pleasures, is it completely unreasonable to expect our scares to be served up with-dare I say it-art?”
“The goal of DAGGERS,” continues Gutiérrez, a film critic for Firefox News among other outlets, “is to present the breadth of the genre’s possibilities with a program that satisfies both hardcore fans and those who test the waters only at this time of year. In doing so, we’ll feature the entire spectrum of terror, from ghostly ‘quiet horror’ to screaming-loud full-assault, from old-school pulp-flavored tales to cutting-edge animation.”
The lineup…
From acclaimed artist Vincent Marcone and short-form maestro Rodrigo Gudiño comes THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF MISTER HOLLOW, which this year won Best Short at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival and Best Animated Short at FanTasia. We can pretty much guarantee that you haven’t seen animated images that are so barely “animated” and yet so arresting at the same time. Imagine Chris Marker and Ken Burns teaming up to create a macabre mystery told in purely visual terms and you might get a sense of this film’s startling originality.
CRITICIZED by Richard Gale (whose new short just won an audience award at Fantastic Fest) has been honored at over a dozen festivals, including FanTasia, Dead by Dawn, and NYCHFF. This ultimate meta-movie about horror filmmaking pits a deranged director against his harshest critic and features sequences that you’ll never be able to forget. (Please note that CRITICIZED, easily the most intense film in the lineup, will be screened last; that way, patrons who find its thrills unbearable will be able to flee to their homes without missing the rest of the evening’s aesthetic excitement.)
Phil Mucci’s silent THE LISTENING DEAD, which has taken home prizes at Fantastic Fest and NYIIFF, is a marvel of black-and-white horror poetry. It’s a period piece that very well could pass as a previously unfilmed Poe short story-indeed, its otherworldy beauty recalls the classic HOUSE OF USHER silents of the 1920s.
Paul Campion’s sinisterly gorgeous EEL GIRL, which features mind-boggling effects by New Zealand’s Weta Workshop, manages to be straightforward and yet haunting. You may think you’re unfamiliar with Campion’s work, but if you’ve seen THE LORD OF THE RINGS or SIN CITY, to name just a couple of the movies that his paintings grace, you’ve already appreciated his exquisite visual sense.
Web sensation Fewdio, the subject of a story in November’s Rue Morgue, is screening its films this fall at such noted venues as Screamfest, Fantasic Fest, Toronto After Dark, and the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. DAGGERS is proud to host the East Coast premiere of this alt-collective’s work by featuring VIRAL, CREEP, and THE TALE OF HAUNTED MIKE. The latter tells the story of a shady curio dealer on eBay, and perfectly illustrates the Fewdio sensibility: an old-fashioned emphasis on character and situation updated with contemporary humor and settings.
TRANSREXIA is a work of stop-motion animation by the multi-talented Voltaire, whose music, artwork and videos (for such clients as the Sci-Fi Channel) have long thrilled those who hunger for creativity of the darkest order. Winner of Best Short Short at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival and Best Experimental Animated Film at DragonCon, TRANSREXIA manages to work light horror, romance, irony, paleontology and personal confession (as well as a touch of the perverse) into a running time so brief as to not be believed. We promise that after viewing this film, you’ll never look at museum-issue dinosaur bones in quite the same way.
Finally, DAGGERS is proud to present OUR PUPPY, OUR FAMILY, which Subway Cinema hailed as the “best Korean film of 2007,” period. You wouldn’t think that high-octane visceral revenge would come in the form of a cute little canine, or that a harrowing black comedy would emerge from the everyday soil of domestic drama, but this is a film to confound-and exceed-all expectations. If you missed this extraordinary work from brothers Park Jae-Young and Park Soo-Young at the New York Asian Film Festival earlier this year, here’s your chance at redemption.
For further information, please visit http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/.
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