Sinister Shorts Featuring: Slash (2018), Stay Quiet (2018), and Innards (2014)

January 8, 2019

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

With the new year comes a veritable ass-load of short fright flicks that fine fiends have asked me to lay my putrid peepers upon (or like three…but one man’s small amount is another man’s ass-load I never say…). So without further ado, here comes some bite-sized revoltin’ reviews!
 

 
Slash (2018): Callum (Michael Mowen) is just tryin’ to enjoy a sinister slasher pic, but his gal pal Sydney (Chloe Carroll…who also produced the film) is riding his ass like a cheap suit calling out every beloved stalk n’ slay trope and giving it a savage roasting that will have you wishing ol’ C-dawg would throw her out on her ear. Of course soon the tables turn, and Sydney finds herself in just the situation she so mercilessly took jabs at, but will she fare any better than the characters on the silver screen?
Running at a brief eight minutes and change, Slash is a great skewering of that one mother fucker we all know that is so full of confidence that they could do so much better than any given victim of a masked marauder. Carroll’s performance is especially choice as she goes from someone we can’t stand, to a believable terror-packed potential victim of the freaky fucker huntin’ her down like a scared rabbit.
Well shot and acted, and displaying a definite adoration for one of the tride n’ true genres of our beloved horror biz; Slash is well worth puttin’ your eerie eyeballs on post-haste!
 

 
 

 
Stay Quiet (2018): Lynn (Gabriella Piazza) just wants to make a lil’ pumpkin pie and check her mail (as one does), but the arrival of a noise-hating psycho (Jacob Pressley) kind of puts a damper on the day’s activities…hell, this maniac even pulls the pie out of the oven before it’s even finished and carves himself a big ol’ slice! Now if Lynn can stifle while in the presence of this nutter she may live to bake another pie…but that’ll be easier said than done!
Once again we have the involvement of Chloe Carroll, whom you may remember from the award losing review of Slash posted a few paragraphs ago…unless you have the attention span of a gnat, and after meeting some of you lot I wouldn’t say that is out of the question. Anyway, this time Carroll writes and directs, and I have to say, the idea of a killer that is affected by noise is a great premise…so great that I wish it was expanded beyond the confines of a six minute short! Piazza makes for a believable heroine, and Pressley plays the role of madman to the ultimate hilt!
So there you have it boils n’ ghouls…Chloe Carroll has a lot to offer the horror biz, and if the two shorts I’ve seen are any indication, her fearsome future in fright looks bright indeed!
 

 
To judge Slash and Stay Quiet for yourself, head to the Fear Crypt YouTube page, and tell them XIII sent ya!
 
Innards (2014): Darren (Jeff South) is a lovable loser; on the outs with his wife, hassled at work, and with a case of rot gut…he’s a real “everyman” type of protagonist for sure. So, our hero goes over to his girlfriend Martina’s (Pamela Mitchell) pad for a lil’ lovin’ and lasagna (not in that order), and it readily becomes apparent that something is dreadfully wrong with the couple…like Cronenberg level wrong…we’re talking finger nails falling off, fluids being coughed up…and a voracious appetite for pregnancy tests, tinfoil, flower arrangements, and air fresheners…all courtesy of the ingestion of some really, really bad apples! Will our couple make it through this culinary disaster intact, or will their appetite for destruction consume them both?!!
Director/Producer/Editor Bart Elfrink along with Writer/Producer Lainee Frizzo and  Writer/Executive Producer/Editor John Forrest have created one hell of a nauseating good time in the ol’ horror biz with Innards. This tale of produce gone bad, and the disastrous results thereof, is insanely timely and disquieting in this era of loser governmental regulations on what we consume on a daily basis…and I could feel my stomach turn multiple times throughout the film’s sixteen minute duration. Adding to the unsettling aesthetics are a great, unconventional score by Native Composer Laura Ortman (and you cats know how much that means to me) and a gritty/pseudo documentary visual style from Director of Photography Brant Hadfield.
If you are looking for body horror that brings to mind early Cronenberg mixed with street level realism, then Innards is the way to go…it’s disturbing, entertaining, and an all around puke inducing good time!
 

 


 
For more on Innards, visit the film’s website and Facebook!
 

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