Spoiler-Free Shorts Reviews: HAND and OK/NOTOK (FilmQuest 2025)

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November 20, 2025

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Film Festivals | Foreign | Horror Comedy | Movies | Reviews | Short Films

Written by Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is the Film Festival Editor for Horror Fuel; all film festival related queries and announcements should be sent to him at josephperry@gmail.com. He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Gruesome Magazine, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right. A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.

Hand

Synopsis

A heart-broken college student ignores a grotesque hand infection as she develops an obsession with stains on her carpet.

Review

Writer/director Jennifer Winterbotham combines body horror, psychological horror, and dark humor in her short film Hand. The story finds Amber (Sharlene Cruz) navigating her recent breakup with freshly ex- boyfriend Justin (Dario Vazquez) — a fully understandable move, as viewers will see. She had pricked her hand on a cactus needle when the pair were in the desert, and now it is swelling and causing surreal episodes. Hand is a riveting blast of a watch that keeps viewers off balance along with Amber. Cruz is terrific in the lead role, and Winterbotham helms with aplomb.

OK/NOTOK

Synopsis

OK/NOTOK is a genre-bending love story set in the very near future with a darkly comic edge. Loretta, a working-class British Asian woman, struggles to navigate a turbulent world, a new stranger in her life and unskippable adverts. The film imagines a future that is just a click away. A tale about a world where rising loneliness sells and even our emotions are up for trade.

Review

Tubeway Army gave the world the song “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” in 1979, and in 2025 writer/director Pardeep Sahota gives us the U.K. science fiction romantic comedy OK/NOTOK. Loretta (Bairavi Manoharan in a fine lead role) and her romantic partner Zane (Jay Taylor, providing solid support) are having issues, but not the type viewers might expect. Let’s just say that things between them are in need of an upgrade. Whereas the aforementioned song dealt with futuristic alienation in a dark manner, Sahota tackles the topic on a lighter note. Alas, this vision feels like it is approaching all too quickly.