Through The Looking Glass
Directed by Craig Griffith
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
This movie starts off with two strikes against it right off the bat. Im not a huge fan of psychological horror and it also features an artist that paints abstract art. I HATE abstract art. Having said that I went into the movie open minded and tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. The movie is about an unnamed artist that receives a mysterious mirror at his doorstep. As the days go by he looks at the mirror and slowly …

Tied Up
Directed by Jeremy Rubin
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
Literally one of the most annoying movies I’ve ever seen. I know one of the criticisms I probably would get from people that like this movie, is that im too old (36), and I dont get the point of the movie because I cant relate to these kids. Yeah the kids are annoying, and I’ll get to that later but its so much more wrong with this movie than that. The editing, the story, the actors and dialogue also annoyed the hell out of …

Livestock (2009)
Directed by Christopher Di Nunzio
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
Its movies like this that make indie horror seem like a joke to some people. I’ll be honest even as recent as 5 years ago I didnt like indie horror at all. I used to laugh at all the straight to dvd and indie horror that littered the shelves of  the local Hollywood Videos and Blockbusters. It seemed like everytime I would give in and take a chance at a movie it ended up being utter shite and a huge waste …

Ashes (2010)
Directed by Elias Matar
Starring Bryan Krause, Kadeem Hardison, Joel Bryant, and Sierra Fisk
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
Ashes was the winner of the Shriekfest 2010 best horror feature length film. And for a damn good reason. I had no idea when I started the movie that it won the award, but by the time I finished I wasnt surprised at all to find this out. The only thing I knew going in was it was some type of virus outbreak movie so I was prepared for another run of the mill, “been …

Monster of Mad Mooney’s Lake (2010)
Directed by Greg Hanson
17 Minutes
Well another damn cool movie short. The story is about two young men that dump some chemical waste into a nearby lake, and when they get caught, the shoot the man dead and dump him into the toxic water, thus creating a blood thirsty monster. In the meantime two friends Brian and Harry, two recent graduates content with hanging around their town doing nothing with their lives, go on a search to find one of their friends and to find out …

Cockpit: The Rule of Engagement
Directed by Jesse Griffith
www.cockpitthemovie.com Winner of 9 awards
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
This is my foray into watching a sci fi short. Lets just say I was pretty impressed. It was professionally packed and was also a blu ray! Thats a first for a short. To be honest though Im not sure if it took advantage of it. It looked fine enough but dont expect crystal clear HD. Anyways getting to the movie. Its about a soldier thats flying back from a botched bombing run and he’s desperate to get back to …

Survivors
Directed by Soham Mehta
Reviewer: Brandon Ennals
Survivors is a zombie short film directed by Soham Mehta. The film begins with a woman running, tryingto find the location of a person firing at zombies. She finds the man on a rooftop and convinces him tolet her into the building. The building turns out to be a bar and the man tells her she can only have onedrink and then she has to leave. She removes the bullets from the gun she has when he turns his back,and she threatens to …

Love Me Tender
Directed by Matthew Morgenthaler
Reviewer: Brandon Ennals
The story begins by showing a girl named Emma, she is drawing a picture for this other boy namedKevin. Emma is finished when she notices another girl give Kevin a Valentines card and give him a kisson the cheek. Emma is not happy, so she goes to Kevin and says “You said you would be mine didn’tyou Kevin? You didn’t lie did you?” Kevin says he didn’t lie and look uncomfortable. Emma asks him ifhe knows how to French kiss and …

Undying Love
Directed by Stanley Ray
Reviewer: Brandon Ennals
Undying Love is a short film submitted to Shriekfest. It is shot through the eyes of a visitor that has been invited to a house by a woman trying to reconcile their relationship. It is suggested that both of the participants in this movie are immortal. The woman invites the visitor into the house and leads the person to a table. She tries to make conversation but is not successful. She becomes irate and mentions that they haven’t talked in years. She angrily pours …

Ela 
12 min
Directed by Anna Taborska

The Sin
21min
Directed by Anna Taborska
I got another batch of movie shorts to review this time from Polish director Anna Taborska. The first short is titled Ela and its about a lonely teenage boy who is longing for the girl he loves and he accidentally summons the ghost of a little girl that was shot and killed by Nazi’s. This one was kinda cool. It was very stylistically done with weird camera angles. Anna shot a lot of the movie from afar with trees obscuring the view …

The Graveyard Shift
Directed by April Wright
www.april9entertainment.com
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
Wow, what a fast moving short. Its only 9 minutes long but its so well done, the next thing I knew the credits were rolling. Here’s the synopsis which unfortunately is also spoiling it. Its this security guards first night working the graveyard shift at a parking garage. He encounters a woman in her car that’s in need of immediate medical attention. When he goes to call for help she jumps off the top level of the garage. When he runs after her …

Kirksdale (2007)Directed by Ryan Spindellhttp://www.kirksdale.com/Reviewer: Horrorphilia JasonI’m starting to really dig these horror shorts. A lot of these are bite sized movies but with a full meal taste. Damn that sounded lame. Anyways this is another cool little short that was sent our  way. Its an award winning short by Ryan Spidell about a deputy sheriff that is on his way to transport a teenage girl to the local mental hospital. At the hospital one of the patients have escaped and all hell breaks loose. I dont want to give away too …

Salvation By Blood
Directed by Devin Mikolas
Starring Jonah Young, Tina Krause, and Lisa Difiore
Run time 37 Min
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
A simple yet effective tale of a young couple that gets caught up in the trappings of Satanism. Matt and Teresa are your average white couple until they decide to visit Teresa’s aunt that is into the occult. At first they scoff at the idea then they decide to pursue and research it further on their own. As they get more involved they begin to change and follow the dark path until it reaches the pinnacle, …

Dinner Date
Directed by Paul Von Stoetzel
Run Time 12 min 42 sec
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
http://www.killingjokefilms.com/?page_id=196
What a fast moving short. Its basically about a woman that goes to this man’s house for a blind date. Upon arriving you quickly find out there is more to their meeting then just a get to know each other date. To be honest with you I pretty much guessed from the title of the short what the big twist of the movie was about. At this point I just had to review it based on the acting, which …

Gitchy The Clown
Directed by Thomas Norman and Lenny Rivera
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason

Heres our first short review by referral from shriekfest.com and its a doozy. Its a horror short titled Gitchy the Clown. Its about David and Kimberly, two siblings whose parents recently died in bed by heart attack. David is having visions that his parents died by being tickled to death by a giant fat ass clown named Gitchy. Also there is a mysterious character thats lurking around their house. Is he part of the plan or does he know the secret to …

The main goal of www.shriekfest.com is to help support independent film, independent filmmakers, and screenwriters in the horror/thriller/scifi/fantasy genres
 

The 11th annual Shriekfest, the Los Angeles International Horror/Thriller/SciFi/Fantasy Film Festival and Screenplay competition is currently accepting submissions for it’s 2011 festival to be held October 2011.
  Festival Director Denise Gossett says “the festival is dedicated to screening and recognizing the works of filmmakers and screenwriters in the often forgotten genres”. Superior screening facilities, parties, and panels make this a wonderful networking experience for all. Awards will be given in most categories …

Us
Screenplay written by Jaylon KurtReview by Brandon Ennals
The screenplay starts by introducing us to two characters, Darry and Rachel, who are medical students attending Harvard. They have a romantic relationship and their one year anniversary is coming up. Rachel would like to do something for their anniversary, but Darry already has plans to go hiking for the weekend. Hiking is his release from the pressures of going to medical school.
Darry makes his way to a house in New Hampshire for his week of relaxation. As he familiarizes himself to …

Here is our first Shriekfest related review that we are posting. The screenplay Risen was a semi finalist at Shriekfest and it did win the 2010 Horror Screenplay Contest, sponsored by Cherub Productions. They are shopping the screenplay around Hollywood, and it is currently under review by two production companies.

RisenScreenplay by William D. PrystaukReviewer: Brandon Ennals
Admittedly, I am not accustomed to reading screenplays. I’ve read a couple screenplays before, but they were screenplays of movies I had already seen. So when I was approached to read this screenplay I was …