SHARP SHOCK SHORT: SWEET HOLLOW

Another week, another fantastic short film.
Short films work best when they portray uncomplicated stories with a punchy narrative, preferably one that builds until one key terrifying moment — much like an urban legend.
As a relatively young country much of the United States' folklore comes from apocryphal campfire tales and ghost stories. As the US is home to easily the biggest filmmaking industry in the world, it seems a perfect melting pot — creepy folklore presented via the ideal medium of short films.
Recently, Sean Lee took on the tale of Long Island's most infamous haunted highway, Sweet Hollow Road — and the short has been taking plenty of prizes on the festival circuit.
Is this a trip worth taking? Or is it a road to nowhere?
Read on...

SWEET HOLLOW (2015)

Dir: Sean Lee
Starring: Alice Kremelberg, Ryan Vigilant, Sean Patrick Folster

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: This is a short so I'll try not to spoil too much here, but continue at your own risk.

Emily (Kremelberg) is on her way to visit her sister out on Sweet Hollow Road. As she drives along the leafy stretch she suffers the misfortune of a flat tyre. Luckily, as she waits on the dark roadside, a Good Samaritan stops to assist. James (Vigilant) is a handsome, charming, if rather intense gentleman, who changes the wheel before sending Emily on her way.

However, shortly down the road her car loses the new wheel, leaving her stranded once again.

Shortly afterwards James drives by once more and, after revealing that he's also headed to her sister's home, offers Emily a lift.

She gets into his car and off the pair set into the darkness. On the drive James explains how lucky Emily is that he came along, especially considering the dark and spooky history of the road.

As he recounts just two of the scores of supernatural tales attached to the road, Emily finds herself starting to feel uneasy.

Is it just his ghost stories... or is it James himself?

WHY IT WORKS: What is it about a late night drive along an isolated rural road to chill the blood? Director Lee is obviously familiar with the inherent scares of the scenario and he mines the premise for every drop of tension. The story, written by Lee, is simple but all the more effective for it, drawing the audience in through some well-played, startling twists and turns.

Sweet Hollow was actually produced at the Tisch School of Arts, but that doesn't mean that it suffers from amateurish production values. Instead it is a highly polished and impressive work, assembled by a keen and talented young team of up-and-comers.

The film looks far more expensive than its modest origins might suggest. The cinematography by Henry Zaballos is impressive and accomplished, playing up the deep shadows and using a muted blue colour palette to heighten the unsettling atmosphere.

What's more, the film utilises plenty of extreme close ups, cleverly heightening the claustrophobia of the confines of the car and ratcheting up the tension.

This works especially well when focusing on the faces of our leads, especially the intense, brooding glare of Vigilant, or the wide, panicky eyes of the stunning young Kremelberg.

Of course, it certainly helps matters that the pair are such excellent actors. Kremelberg has a wealth of experience in film and TV and it shows, she carries the bulk of the film on her shoulders, drawing the most sympathy from the audience. She's undoubtedly very pretty, but she's also very talented. Her reactions to the increasingly nightmarish events around her are believable, her responses natural and convincing. She nails everything asked of her. Great work.

On the other side of the coin, we have the charming, but unnerving Vigilant. He is also very convincing, never overplaying a role that could easily descend into an overly broad caricature. He's a good-looking guy, so you can understand how the character of Emily could have been drawn to him (especially considering her predicament by the roadside), yet he is able to give James a subtle edge, a frosty brittleness beneath the warm smile. He's superb and makes for an excellent foil to the earnest Kremelberg.

With a simple but spine-chilling story and some top-notch performances bringing it to life, Sweet Hollow would have enough to recommend it, even before you add in the very clever touch of utilising the real-life ghost stories of a genuine paranormal hotspot.

The use of the Long Island folklore is seamless — in fact the short seemed very much like an extended sequence from TV's Supernatural — and, let's be honest, fictional events do become that little bit creepier when you know they're based on stories that plenty of people believe to be factual.

Lee and his crew were also clever enough to shoot the film in Melville, New York, only about a mile away from the actual Sweet Hollow Road. The location really works in the film's favour, it's an unnerving setting and (obviously, considering its proximity) is entirely believable as the short's fabled namesake.

In short, this is a gripping little film that delivers on all fronts — a sterling cast, a cool premise, some wonderfully atmospheric and disturbing visuals, not to mention a great soundtrack. 

If this is any indication as to what the new wave of horror filmmakers are going to be producing, our beloved genre is in safe hands.

SO WHERE'S IT AT? Sweet Hollow is in the midst of an award winning festival run. In the meantime you can check out the trailer here.



Sweet Hollow Trailer from Sean Lee on Vimeo.

For more information on the film and where you can see it, check out its official Facebook page. Give it a Like while you're there too, I'm sure Lee and his cast and crew would appreciate it.

10 WORD WRAP-UP: Real life ghost stories add to an atmospheric horror short 

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

SHARP SHOCK SHORT: THE SMILING MAN

I've said it before and I'll say it again — horror shorts rock.

What's more, there are plenty of extremely talented filmmakers plying their trade in short films right now, so film festivals are showing plenty of shorts of an incredible calibre.

One such film that has been extremely well received on the festival circuit recently is AJ Briones' The Smiling Man.

Luckily the very talented Briones was kind enough to grant me access to the film.

Would I be grinning after watching it? Or is this one nothing to smile about?

Read on...

THE SMILING MAN (2015)

Dir: AJ Briones

Starring: Abbi Chally, Strange Dave, Melissa Chally

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not to spoil too much here as this is a short, but continue at your own risk.

A cute little girl (Abbi Chally), home alone watching classic cartoons, comes to realise that she may not be by herself after all.

Innocently following a trail of floating balloons throughout her house, the little girl draws ever closer to the nightmarish Smiling Man (Strange Dave) — and the dark source of his insane amusement...

WHY IT WORKS: Simplicity is often key when it comes to making an effective short. Without the additional runtime that a full-length feature affords, a short film needs to be leaner and punchier — it should be able to get in there, grab you fast and hit you hard before the end credits roll.

Director Briones understands this and boy does he deliver!

Arguably the film's biggest strength is its gripping and imaginative visuals. Briones may have built a career in visual effects (his work includes serious heavy-hitters such as Avatar; Iron Man 2; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Tomorrowland) but he also shows a fantastic talent for framing and composing a shot. Cinematographer David Holechek ensures that that each and every scene looks beautiful — this may be a short but it looks every bit as a polished as a big studio feature. There is a wonderful use of colour throughout — the innocent bright hues of the trail of balloons make a striking contrast to the darkness of the story and the shadowy hallways of the house. Through subtle but effective camera trickery and some nice set dressing and props (not to mention the decidedly spooky black and white cartoons on the girl's TV) Briones is able to transform what should be a lovely family home into a maze-like warren that descends deep into the bowels of Hell. 
Briones takes a pretty simple premise — it could quite easily be an extended scene from a longer film — but through skilful camerawork and assured direction he is able to wring the scenario for every single drop of suspense.
Of course it doesn't hurt that the adorable Abbi Chally is such a sweet little child — you can't help but care about her. She shows some great acting chops for such tender years and even though she isn't given much in the way of lines to deliver, her reaction work and physical acting is top notch. She's a small girl and the use of some clever camera angles just heightens the sense of her diminutive stature. 
These camera angles are also used to great effect in keeping the titular Smiling Man just out of frame for as long as possible (the scene in which young Chally's body is used to block the Smiling Man on the stairs, instead revealing just his creepy, skeletal hand is especially effective), building the anticipation and dread as it does so. An overhead view shot late on is another standout, giving us the briefest of glimpses of Strange Dave's monstrous villain.
And it is the extremely strange indeed Dave that plays a huge part in the success of the film. Part ghoul, part psychotic clown, The Smiling Man is a truly nightmarish creation. Dave's performance is spectacularly creepy — quiet and childlike yet bristling with malevolence. He combines fluid, graceful movements and gestures with a hunched, twitching bestial posture, to maximum unnerving effect. From his darting eyes to the extravagant manner in which he applies his 'make-up', every single gesture and tic is used to imbue this hideous creation with just a little more demented character. It's a show-stopping turn and, combined with some brilliantly effective prosthetics make the Smiling Man instantly iconic.
Ultimately, the only problem I had with The Smiling Man was that it left me wanting even more. Here's hoping that Briones and Dave can join forces once again to give us more of this magnificent movie monster in the future. But for now, this is a superbly executed and lean exercise in carefully cultivated fear. With a great cast, some superb effects work and an assured confident director who knows how to shoot horror, The Smiling Man is an absolute must-see.

SO WHERE'S IT AT: The Smiling Man is still knocking audiences dead on the festival circuit. Check out the list of upcoming screenings at the film's official web site here for more information on how you can catch it.
Alternatively check out the short's official Facebook page for news. Give it a Like while you're there too, show some love!

10 WORD WRAP-UP: A simple, lean and fantastically executed exercise in gripping terror

If you haven’t already, do please check out and like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House@HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay.

FILM4 FRIGHTFEST SPECIAL – SHORT REVIEW: BAD GUY #2

The shorts showcases at this year's Film4 FrightFest were at a very high standard indeed. One area in which a lot of shorts have worked recently is deconstructing stock characters, turning them into more sympathetic and well-rounded characters.

First Torturous did this with the masked, grunting human butchers in a Hostel-like Torture-P0rn film, then Invaders turned the spotlight on the enigmatic and violent antagonists of Home Invasion flicks.

And now we have Bad Guy #2, a look at the role of a crime boss' senior henchman, the guy destined to be made an example of should the kingpin's orders to destroy a hero not be successfully executed.

So is this short film boss? Or is it more of a number two?

Read on…

BAD GUY #2 (2014)

Dir: Chris McInroy

Starring: Kirk C. Johnson, Will Elliot, David Maldonado, Sam Eidson, Chrissy Shackelford, Andrew Hoke

SPEEDY SYNOPSIS: I'll try not spoil too much here as this is a short, but continue at your own risk.

As several flunkies stand around looking nervous, the Kingpin (Maldonado) messily demonstrates what happens when a chief henchman fails in his duties. Under the cold and calculating gaze of the imposing Right Hand Man (Eidson) the remaining henchmen are sent on their way. But one of these 'heavies' (Johnson) finds himself slowly travelling up the ranks  as his insane boss' rage whittles down his superiors moving him inexorably closer to the cross-hairs.
What motivated him to take up the henchman job? Does his ambitious girlfriend Donna (Shackelford) really have his best interests at heart when she pushes for him to advance his career? And what will befall him when he reaches the poisoned chalice of a position that is Bad Guy #2?

WHY IT WORKS: Bad Guy #2 is absolutely hilarious. The dialogue is superb (especially that of the bonkers Kingpin regarding his very specific proclivity for a particular intimate act) and the characters are surprisingly well-rounded.
Chief among these is Johnson's Bad Guy #2. Likeable, amiable and gently dorky, he reminded me a lot of Zach Braff's Dr Dorian in Scrubs, a character you can't help but root for, even if you know that sheer terrible luck and clumsy moments of stupidity mean it's probably a lost cause. He's a guy who fell into a job (aren't so many of us?) and has become stuck in a rut, using this job to pay the bills while he tries to finish his long-delayed novel.
Nagged by his dominating girlfriend and terrified of his bullying boss, he's a loveable slacker that just happened to fall into a job where the manager asking you to stand on some tarp or pass him your handgun is never going to go well.
Desperate to impress and popular with his colleagues (if not his superiors) Bad Guy #2 is a character who could just have easily appeared in comedies such as Office Space, except instead of stationary invoices he's dealing with chainsaws, vats of acid and a rusty hacksaw.
As I've said before, humanising stock characters we've seen dozens of times is a witty way to examine the tropes of genres we love (in this case, the faceless villains in action movies) and have a little fun with them along the way. 
This story (written by director McInroy) does a fantastic job of making these characters seem human in a deeply flawed and fallible way that provides plenty of humour in scenes that would otherwise be pretty damn horrifying. Remember those earlier references to chainsaws and vats of acid? Yep, we get to see them used with some absolutely fantastic practical splatter effects. Trust me when I say that Doug Field's effects work is really excellent and provides some stomach-turning moments that would fit in perfectly in the middle of a serious horror flick. With all manner of grue, gore and splatter onscreen, it's a real testament to the work of the supremely talented cast that the audience is guffawing instead of gagging.
A meekly apologetic Johnson doused from head to toe in blood as he dismembers enemies and former co-workers alike is uproariously funny, and actually even helps us to feel a little more sympathetic towards our lead.  
As well as the superb Johnson, Maldonado also impresses, managing to be both terrifying and side-splittingly funny, often at the same time. He's clearly having a ball with the character, infusing him with a bristling, seething deranged fury that is all the funnier when it comes into contact  with the dim but well-meaning incompetents in his employ. Among these Elliot and Hoke are probably the standouts among a supporting cast of very talented individuals.
At 10 minutes long McInroy's short has plenty of time to string together some memorable set pieces and tell a pretty compelling (and very, very funny) story without wearing out the joke. That the film looks so great as it does so — with some assured and visually arresting cinematography by E.J. Enriquez — is just a delightful bonus.
Surprisingly, the biggest strength of this short film about vile villains is how much fun it is. With plenty of goofy humour and characters that are likeable and entertaining — even though the story is a very clever indeed, it's the heart, not the brains, that really elevates it into must-see territory.

SO WHERE'S IT AT: Bad Guy #2 is still touring the festival circuit, but I've been informed that the film will be made available to watch online this December. In the meantime the very talented McInroy is gearing up to shoot his next film, Death Metal, a splatter comedy about a metalhead and his mystical guitar. COUNT. ME. IN.
In the meantime, to find out more about Bad Guy #2 head over to its official Facebook page. Give it a like while you're there too!
To find out more about Death Metal, check out the film's Facebook page right here.

10 WORD WRAP UP: Plenty of gore and laughs galore in this witty short

Read my previous Film4 Frightfest special reviews for Suspension here, The Nightmare here, Wind Walkers here, Stung here, Night of the Slasher here, Invaders here, Crow Hand!!! here, We Are Still Here here, Demonic here and The Lazarus Effect here.

If you haven’t already, do please check out and Like the Hickey’s House of Horrors Facebook page, which you can find here. It gives you a nice quick link to any new posts on this blog, plus regular news updates from around the web. I check the Internet so you don’t have to! Alternatively, follow me on twitter: The House @HickeysHorrors

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed your stay.