Funny Frights & Unusual Sights Short Film Reviews – Blood in the Snow Film Festival 2024

Posted on by Kate DeJonge
Funny Frights

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Billed as “A collection of Canadian shorts premieres, covering a bit of unusual, the surreal, and the lighter side of horror!”, the Thursday night line up at Blood in the Snow Film Festival 2024 was a fun ride, featuring everything from potty humour to the animated reimagining of Dante’s Inferno. Some shorts stood out more than others; here are the ones we chose to review. 

Midnight Snack (2024)

Midnight Snack

“Hunger always strikes in the dead of night.”

Midnight Snack is a 1 and a half minute commercial for toothpaste disguised as a horror short. The opening shots and accompanying eerie music make us believe we’re settling in for a real horror film. Writer/director Sandra Foisy uses the predator’s POV to enter a home in the middle of the night and approach a woman sleeping in bed. The screen goes dark, we hear slurping noises, and when the lights come back on, the “Freshingly Fresh Paste” logo flashes on the screen. It’s a silly little short that feels like a prank, but it’s well executed.

Gaslit (2024)

Gaslit

“A woman goes to dangerous lengths to prove she wasn’t responsible for a fart.”

The premise of Gaslit is hilarious, but when you watch writer/director Anna MacLean’s short film, it slowly becomes less funny and more terrifying. I’ve never seen anything that more perfectly describes the relationship between a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and their favourite type of partner (kind, caring, accepting). Lou (Kirstin Hall) is watching tv with her boyfriend Ed (Bob Mann), and when she gets up to fetch more beer, she farts. Ed calls her on it, but she denies it, and pulls out a Ouija board to prove she didn’t do it. The whole thing is ridiculous, with Ed continuing to make innocent jokes, trying to lighten the mood, and Lou obsessively focusing on the Ouija board to provide her defense. As the scene progresses, though, the obvious humour devolves as Ed realizes something isn’t quite right. Lou transforms from her normal self into a demon, and finally into a full monster, hovering over Ed while he sobs on the floor. When she finally has him under her control, she makes him confess to the fart, and apologize. 

Anyone who has suffered through this kind of relationship will be emotionally affected by Gaslit, empathizing with Ed and recognizing the monstrous transformation of Lou in their own previous partners. Personally, I hope this short helps people who are stuck in an abusive relationship like this one to see what’s really going on around them and get to safety. Anna MacLean, you’re a genius.

Bath Bomb (2024)

“A possessive doctor prepares an ostensibly romantic bath for his narcissistic boyfriend, but after an accusation of infidelity, things take a deeply disturbing turn.”

Bath Bomb (2024) is not necessarily a “funny fright”, although there is some black humour included in the short film. Grant (Daniel Henkel) is a young man who thinks very highly of himself. He’s dating an older man, Dr. Jordan (Anders Yates), who dotes on him in what appears to be a very nice home. When Dr. Jordan runs a bath for the two of them to share, Grant believes he is about to receive more indulgence. Dr. Jordan presents him with a very large home-made bath bomb and tells him to get into the tub while he gets ready to join him. Grant doesn’t even have a chance to lay back in the tub before Dr. Jordan brings up the younger man’s new intern, stating that he’s seen him. Grant tries to conceal his panic, lying to his boyfriend while the camera shows an underwater view of the bath bomb fizzing. The tension builds, Dr. Jordan’s true intentions for the evening are revealed, and revenge is had. 

Director Colin G. Cooper masterfully choreographs the camera shots with the background music, carefully concealing any full frontal nudity until the dick pics start to fly and then all bets are off. Whatever he used in the final blender shot looked very realistic, both before and during the actual blending. Henkel and Yates are both phenomenal actors, able to impart their characters’ inner thoughts with subtle eye movements and fleeting facial expressions that do not distract the viewer, leaving us fully invested in the careful timing of Cooper’s reveals. 

This is an excellent example of how to tell a big story in just a few minutes, with style and precise timing. 

Any Last Words (2024)

“A crook trying to flee town is paid an untimely visit by some of his former colleagues. What would you say to save your life if you were staring down the barrel of a gun?”

I don’t know what I’d say, but I’ll tell you what Damian (Nate Colitto) said: “If you shoot me, you have the tiniest dick in the world!”. And so begins the showdown, not between Damian and the gangsters he’s trying to part ways with. No, these boys will kill each other before admitting to having the smallest dick in the world. 

Bossman (Daniel Christian Jones) has demanded that one of them kill Damian, but all of his men shy away after the traitor’s “last words”. They go from insulting one another to physically fighting, to bro-hugging and supporting one another during emotional confessions of erectile dysfunction, all while Damian remains on his knees waiting to learn who is going to kill him. The Boss eventually demands that they all “whip it out” so that he can see for himself who has the smallest dick, and more jokes ensue about cheating to make it look bigger. Bossman finally chooses one man, based on the size of his package, and tells him to kill Damian. There’s a quick plot twist, one more gag, then Damian bites it. 

The humour is juvenile, but it will appeal to most men because it will remind them of their own prepubescent conversations with their male friends. The acting got better as the film progressed, but nothing about this film is supposed to be classy. It’s stereotypical dialogue in the beginning, totally turns head when the focus leaves Damian and becomes about penis size, and ends somewhere between the two. Check out Isaac Rathe’s Any Last Words if you enjoy penis humour.

What the Hell (2024)

“Dante’s classic Hell is falling into oblivion. Charlotte, a sharp-witted Harpy, navigates the chaos and sets out despite the odds for a new life and destiny.”

Written, directed, and animated by Valerie Barnhart (with co-writer S.A Michaels), What the Hell is a cute story about Charlotte (Valerie Barnhart), a harpy who wants to leave the ten circles of Hell (the 10th is Administration) for a better life on Earth. She recently broke up with her demon boyfriend Asterion (Jean Bernard) after laying an egg and eating it before he could find out, and the ground is literally crumbling around her. Unbeknownst to her, Asterion has been spying on her, and shows up on the day she finally decides to apply for her travel visa to help her get it. Charlotte does make it to Earth, but after crawling out of a corpse’s mouth, she finds that the planet has been scorched. She loves it, waxes poetic, and flies off into the sun to enjoy her new life among the flames. 

Dante’s Inferno is an allegory that can be interpreted in many ways (religious, political, philosophical). Barnhart flips the story for modern viewers, reversing Dante’s downward voyage through the circles of Hell through Charlotte’s determination to fly upwards from the bottom and emerge back on Earth. Hell is being destroyed from within as the humans above no longer judge one another based on canonical Christian moral laws. Hell has become boring, and no longer needs to exist. At the same time, humans have torched the planet and turned Earth into what Hell previously was. 

Barnhart is a multi-talented creator with her finger on the pulse of the current state of humanity, and the dark wit to deliver a serious message through clenched teeth and a smile. 

Out of the Hands of the Wicked (2024)

“After a harrowing journey home from hell, old Pa boasts of his triumph over evil, and how he came to lock the devil in his heart.”

Writer/lead vocalist Benjamin Hackman and director Luke Sargent joined forces to bring us Out of the Hands of the Wicked, a southern gothic puppet musical that is sure to stand out this festival season. Shot entirely in black and white, Kristi Ann Holt’s beady-eyed puppets are creepy to look at, especially posed as they are around the front porch of an old farmhouse. When Pa breaks out into song, though, we leave creepy and enter a place of nightmares. 

We’re definitely given Devil Went Down to Georgia vibes as Pa slowly approaches the house, and they’re confirmed when he sings about letting the Devil into his heart. The creators could have left it at that and had a tidy little horror musical, but where’s the fun in that? Instead, they fed Pa some crazy beans, wound him up, and let him go absolutely nuts as his song progressed. Imagine Animal from The Muppet Show dressed as a southern rural pastor in a 1950s dust bowl, doing his Animal thing, screaming and running around in the middle of a song, and that’s what you’ve got here. It goes from toe-tapping blue grass gospel to complete chaos, and I am here for it! 

The technical aspects of this film are all very well done, but it’s the creativity and the memorability of Hackman’s performance as Pa that are going to win this short some awards. If you enjoy it, check out Hackman’s other songs on YouTube, on The Holy Gasp channel!

We watched the Dark Visions block of shorts at Blood in the Snow Film Festival 2024

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