The Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal instigated a specially-selected series of diverse shorts to promote auteur talent, titled ‘Born Of Woman’, and has become one of the key picks of viewing for attendees. This year’s selection came from eight countries and, based on the evidence here, the horror genre has a new host of promising talents who will certainly uphold the classic form as well as creating and stamping their own trademark.
Classic horror was homaged and honoured, starting with Ida Jogler’s The Gaze, the tale of a female scientist prone to blackouts who also has a penchant for ESP. The influence of Brian De Palma’s classics Carrie and The Fury was also felt in Lucy’s Tale, directed by Chelsea Lupkin, which tells of a high-school female misfit, picked on a la Sissy Spacek, but who also holds a dark genetic secret.
Anybody who managed to survive the climax of Takashi Miike’s ruthlessly vicious Audition will feel the same way about Jiwon Moon’s Nose Nose Nose Eyes!, which tells of a one-child family and a father who is bed-ridden, whilst the mother holds strange feelings towards her husband while comforting her impressionable daughter.
John Carpenter’s Starman and his now-legendary remake of The Thing helped flavour Voyager, directed by Kjersti Helen Rasmussen, in which beings from beyond who have connected with the Voyager probe like Jeff Bridges’ alien alter-ego arrive at an Arctic station and make themselves comfortable.
Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People can be tasted in the Irish short Catcalls, directed by Kate Dolan, in which ladies of the night hold their own and have a desire for a catfight – literally!
This writer’s picks of the shorts were Petite Avarie, a French short directed by Manon Allirol and Leo Hardt. Although this one probably is as far from horror as you could get, it did provide an interesting reflection on modern relationships in the tale of a man who dumps his girlfriend after she is diagnosed with breast cancer, only to find that a woman scorned is not the way forward in personal development.
The other pick was Puppet Master, a Finnish short directed by Hanna Bergholm, a haunting account of a woman abducted by a marionette maker, soon discovering that his work likes to take him further than home.
The weirdest of the shorts had to be Who’s Who In Mycology, a USA/Czech co-production directed by Marie Dvorakova, which tells of a helpful man who takes a woman back to her apartment after she collapses. Unfortunately, he is entering a surrealist world where a bookcase holds dozens of books on the study of fungi, as well as all manner of physical oddities within the confines of her place. The style suggests classic Gilliam a la Brazil, as well as a dash of Monty Python. Strange, but strangely compelling at the same time.
The final entry was The Old Woman Who Hid Her Fear Under The Stairs, a British short directed by Faye Jackson in which an elderly woman living on her own decides to invest in an online programme to overcome her fear, thus creating a manifestation that she has to hide away as per the title.
Overall, the shorts were all competently created and directed, though some may take or leave what was on show. In summary, it was a passable watchable series of new visions.
