Manos is truly a legend in horror history – made for a paltry budget of $19,000 by director Harold P Warren, it’s the result of a bet between Warren and a friend after he claimed that ‘making a horror film was easy.’ Forget the fact that HPW had no formal filmmaking experience, mostly used theatre actors rather than screen actors, had most of the crew working for free initially on a profit-share deal and the whole thing had to be shot 32 seconds at a time because of the limitations on the rented cameras. It sounds as though the shoot was anything but easy, and ultimately Manos absolutely disproves Warren’s point rather than proving it. Sure, he made a horror film, but unfortunately it’s one of most laughable, lamentable horror films ever made – in fact this one would probably not have anywhere near the infamy it does but for the popular Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode that brought it back into the public eye.

The story – such as it is – follows Michael, Margaret and their daughter Debbie as they search for a hotel evidently located in the middle of nowhere. Completely lost, with dark closing in, they reluctantly accept shelter at a creepy shack in the middle of nowhere with a guy called Torgo. I say guy – he’s apparently supposed to be a satyr, although apparently the prop legs he was supposed to wear were on backwards throughout the whole shoot and nobody ever corrected it. You really couldn’t write this stuff.

Anyway, Torgo keep referring to ‘The Master’, who has a marvellously creepy portrait in the house and a veritable bevy of wives that sleep in a very weird ceremonial circle, with Michael and Margaret seem nowhere near as perturbed by as one would expect when they discover it. The rest of the tale is a borderline nonsensical escape story, with Michael, Margaret and Debbie pursued by Torgo, The Master and his now-woken wives, They attempt all sorts of tricks to get away, most of which don’t make very much sense. In fact I found it so hard to follow in places I think I must have started zoning out, even though it sounds ridiculously simple in its conception.

Manos well deserves its reputation as one of the worst films ever made – the editing is atrocious, the acting is poor at best, there are all sorts of scenes that simply don’t relate to anything, the music is overbearing and horribly grating, the story – which should be impossible to make a hash of really – winds up feeling like it’s all over the place and worst of all, it’s just boring. That makes it unique among the ‘best worst’ movies that I’ve seen so far – even things like Black Devil Doll From Hell and Troll 2 you could laugh at the pure ludicrousness of and wring some enjoyment from. Unfortunately that’s simply not the case here – in fact I think Manos may be even worse made than those two.

I ummed and ahhed about whether to review this movie – after all, it’s only a 12A, and is anything from the most extreme thing you’ll see (and nowhere near the most extreme thing I’ve seen, rest assured). But I felt as though this one deserved the Film Gutter treatment because of its unique place in horror history and the cult reputation it has gained. Trust me, it’s not an experience that I took on for the fun of it…

RATING: 0/10. I’m not in the habit of dishing out bottom marks very often, so Manos: The Hands of Fate joins the elite club with Chaos and Unrated: The Movie in achieving nil points. Everything here is so horribly inept that you could only even set out to watch it out of morbid curiosity, just to see what all the fuss is about. With that said, it’s not anywhere near as much fun as some of its neighbours in the ‘worst movies ever’ club. Let this be a lesson – horror films are not easy to make, and it’s ever harder to actually make a good one, something Manos fails in spectacularly.
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As well as curating the Film Gutter series of reviews Alex Davis is also the organiser of some of the best writing based events in the UK such as Edge-Lit, Sledge-Lit and Other Worlds.  We have teamed up with Alex for a chance to win a pair of tickets to this years Other Worlds to be held on 

Saturday, October 6 at 9:30 AM – 6 PM at ​Nottingham Writers' Studio, 25 Hockley Lane, NG1 1FH Nottingham, United Kingdom

Click here to enter the competition 

Ah, Japan. Where would Film Gutter be without Japanese cinema, eh? There's every chance we'd have run out of material but for the proliferation of the strange, experimental and gruesome that has spawned out of the country over the years. Of course, that's not to say that there aren't many very fine Japanese films across all sorts of genres, but there seems to be a specialism in the underground and the extreme for sure.
 
Which brings us to Anatomia Extinction. One of the great things about there being such a welter of Japanese gore and splatter cinema is that almost everything is a surprise, barring a handful of particularly famous (or should that be infamous?) entries. So there's very little expectation one way or the other, which means that you can watch nice and neutrally and just take the movie at its own value. And at large, I rather enjoyed this particular shorter film.
 
Anatomia Extinction is set in a near-future Japan where there are huge problems with overpopulation and overcrowding, and our lead is pretty much an everyman (who remains unnamed) suffering the various stresses and strains of existence in that sort of environment. That is until he sees a dead body on the floor in the back corridors of the subway and then finds himself pursued by a dark entity that has a very special mission for him...
 
I say 'dark entity' because basically I'm still not eminently clear what the thing is. It's kind of a robot, and kind of a demon, and goes under the charming moniker of an 'engineer'. When the being catches our lead, he recruits our hero to be one of these engineers, with the goal of reducing the population. The backdrop of climbing murder rates, presented through a variety of news pieces, leaves little doubt as to how he is supposed to go about this. The implant given to him not only makes this quest impossible to ignore, but all too easy to carry out.
 
It's hard to ignore the inspiration taken from the likes of Akira and Tetsuo the Iron Man in the angles of dystopian future Japan and the fusion of human and machine, but there's enough that's likeable here in its own right that it stands up just fine on its own. The rat metaphor that runs throughout was an interesting one, highlighted by some research our lead does on rat behaviour in extreme circumstances. The visuals were generally fun – with some great fantasy/dream sequence moments – and the lead actor is pretty convincing in the journey from regular, mild-mannered guy to murderous, cyber-enhanced lunatic. The effects aren't always great but there's a degree of invention in here that appealed to me, and the central concept was interesting enough to perhaps have carried something a bit more substantial than just short of an hour. The time did whizz by watching this one, which isn't always the case even for something this slim. Sure, you can see it's low budget, but it was enough fun and had enough meat to it to carry it along nicely. It's not likely to live hugely long in the memory, but if you're looking for a decent way to spend an hour you could certainly do much worse.

RATING: 7/10. A pretty enjoyable surprise – some of these Japanese splatter films don't look great these days, some in having not aged well, while some others are simply terrible in conception and execution (see my review of Entrails of a Virgin as a reference there). Sure, this is a bit later than some of the swiftly and cheaply made movies that jumped on mid-80s Guinea Pig bandwagon, so maybe it's entitled to be a bit better. But for me there's a bit more going on beneath the surface that some of its ilk, and there's a bit of creative flair and imagination alongside a little splash of worldbuilding too. I wouldn't consider it an essential – I couldn't stick it up there with the likes of Audition - but it's a solid film for sure and should offer something for regular readers or regular viewers.

Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with this movie. I actually missed a review week because I was making an effort to pull apart the surreal, twisted cinematic canvas that is Where The Dead Go To Die. I mean, I've watched plenty of films that have made me think and stayed with me long after the fact. But here I've just been trying to figure out what I can say within a review that would honestly give you an impression of Where the Dead Go To Die.

In hindsight, I should have been ready for something pretty bizarre given that director Jimmy ScreamerClauz was one of the team behind the utter mindf*ck that was Kuso. While that film was made up of a host of different components in a multi-part anthology, WTDGTD  links together three stories in Tainted Milk, Liquid Memories and The Masks The Monsters Wear with interweaving characters and a finale that makes some effort to explain the connection.

I suppose I'll just have to say it – I genuinely don't think anything I can say here will quite prepare you for this one. It feels like one of those nightmares that you wake up from that is so weird and dark that you just can't shake it for days, except that you're sharply awake and it lasts for an hour and a half. The visuals are so intense, horrifying and unique and can cut sharply to leave you completely confused and disoriented in trying to keep up with the plot threads, and the content of the three chapters themselves depict such depravity and corruption. 

Safe to say this is not animation as you know it.

I'm going to talk a bit about each of the three chapters, but I feel that I have to address two things that commonly come up in reviews of this one – the quality of the animation, and the voice acting. I've been considering this one pretty in-depth, and it's fair to say that the animation is often extremely rough and ready, the lip sync can be pretty off or simply non-existent at times and some of the voice acting isn't all that great. I don't think any of those are undue criticisms, but I was left wondering – would it make the film better if it was more polished, or created with a much bigger budget? Do you want this tapestry of night terrors to look like something Pixar spat when you fed it after midnight? And the conclusion I came to was no – in fact I think if you were to make the animation smooth and sharp it would very likely lose something. The raw oddness of the characters' movements and faces adds to the nightmarish quality of WTDGTD and is part of what makes it a movie you're likely never going to forget, for better or worse. And the animation in some of its more unorthodox moments is genuinely great – always original, often haunting and sometimes nothing short of nauseating. Having mulled it over aplenty I think even if you were going to remake this movie you would have to keep that style and feel of animation.

Anyway, the movie begins with Tainted Milk, where we follow poor old Tommy, whose parents are arguing incessantly while his mother is pregnant. He goes to talk to The Lady In The Well for advice, but finds someone else entirely. Enter Labby, a sinister black dog with red eyes voiced by Jimmy ScreamerClauz himself who is probably the star of the show. The way the lines are delivered was genuinely disturbing to me, a weird mix of human cadence and dog-like panting. Anyway, Labby tells Tommy his brother is going to be evil and that his mother's milk – and all mothers' milk – is tainted for the second child. Labby certainly exerts a powerful influence over the characters, and what follows is a hideous scene in which Labby rips out the fetus, kills the father and proceeds to – actually I won't spoil one of the most disturbing moments of the whole film. It's pretty infamous, and I'm sure if you read anything about the movie (or have seen it) you;ll know what I'm talking about. 

That's followed by Liquid Memories, our most psychedelic installment, which follows a mystery man as he drains the memories from people's minds in order to change them in the past, which can also alter the present. The plot is ostensibly him trying to save his dog Scruffles, but good lord do we go off the rails in this one. I doubt you'll see anything more visually crazy than this in all of your life – and any regular readers will know the kind of thing I watch on a weekly basis, so that's no mild statement. The plot is pretty loose here, but it is incredibly hard to take your eyes off it as we pinball from one sickening tableau to another.

We close with The Masks The Monsters Wear, and it's no hyperbole to say this is one of the most distressing half-hours of cinema I've ever had to sit through. This is right up there in the most harrowing endings stakes for my money. The story follows Ralph, who has the face of a dead conjoined twin attached to his head that his parents won't have removed because they still think it's alive. There's an upsetting scene at the dinner table where Ralph has to feed it, but that's just for starters as Ralph falls in love with Sophia, a young girl caught up in an abusive household and a child pornography ring. Some of the stuff in here really, really rattled me, I won't lie. Yes, it is animated, but still this was mighty hard to watch. Labby once again is there to guide Ralph to a grisly conclusion, and a cryptic finale that set me off thinking afresh about the whole film over again.

How to summarise? It's fair to say that WTDGTD won't be for everybody, and in terms of pure uniqueness and true shock factor it's probably right in there with the likes of Lucifer Valentine's Vomit Gore Trilogy. In many senses that's my nearest comparison – it's equally hard to compute, equally tough to watch and equally will likely sicken and turn off as many viewers as it will engage and fascinate. Similarly, despite all that, you simply cannot take your eyes off it – I was transfixed the whole way through, whether I really wanted to be or not. When I say it's entered the most disturbing film list I carry around in my head, that might give you some idea – I suspect a lot of viewers would struggle to handle this one.

Lucifer Valentine is one of those directors whose work you always approach with an element of caution. Having suffered through all four parts of the aptly titled Vomit Gore Trilogy (well, apt in terms of vomit and gore – four parts is obviously a bit more than your typical trilogy) as well as the short film A Perfect Child of Satan, I've been sharply aware for a while that my viewing collection of Valentine's films has been missing one, the 2012 documentary-style piece Black Metal Veins.

The story follows a cast of individuals involved in the Black Metal scene – although that's not really as much of a focus as the title might suggest – who are heavily into using heroin and other very strong drugs. As you would expect from this director, the movie is pretty unflinching and shows very frankly plenty of drug use and plenty of the negative effects of it. In fact, the film is presaged by a message to say that the film is not an attempt to glamorise the use of heroin, although I simply can't comprehend how that would be your take away from this bleak piece.

While some of the Lucifer Valentine touches are featured in the movie – the slowing down of images and distortion of sound among them – it's also a pretty different piece to anything of his previous work. I suppose ultimately it actually looks more like a film as you would recognise it – it has a clear plot and journey for the characters rather then being a host of surreal images and disturbing vignettes. When we first meet some of our main characters – including Doom and Raven – they seem to be relatively healthy and happy despite their continuous, excessive use of drugs. It's not initially presented as such an absolute horror show, although some of the tales they tell are pretty hair-raising.

It's when we cut to six months later that things take a darker turn, and it's immediately apparent that our characters – especially Raven – have suffered a pretty serious downturn in health, both physical and mental. It's also here that we encounter one of the standout characters, Autumn Misery, a colourful prostitute with a fine line in anecdotes told while vomiting into the toilet. The story closes with a pretty serious scene and a very dark image, although this is where we veer away from true 'documentary' – some of the footage, by Valentine's own admission, was made particularly for the movie. In fact, to simply film what transpires in the end would be mighty questionable – and some of what precedes it is questionable enough.

In the end, if you're a fan of the director's other work you might get something out of this, but it is a very different experience – it's simpler, it's more straightforward and it's less surreal and twisted. Equally if you're a bit nervous of approaching Lucifer Valentine's material, this one would be the place to start – it's no easy watch, but compared to the Vomit Gore movies it pales in comparison in the pure shock stakes. It's more a psychological than a physical range of torture on display here, and for me this was significantly easier to swallow. The plot is slim, and the pacing isn't the best – as a neo-documentary it loses pace here and there – but it's an interesting insight into a dark area of life nonetheless.


RATING: 7/10. Personally I don't consider this Valentine's best work – as brutally hard as the Vomit Gore films were to watch, they were simultaneously fascinating and have a kind of mystique that is going to be hard to ever replicate. Black Metal Veins is another pace entirely, and maybe from another director you would consider this shocking – maybe it's simply a matter that I've watched these in something of the wrong order! It has some strong and intense moments, but wanders around a bit too much to really reach the heights.

First up, I’ll just say don’t feel a need to go scrambling back through the old reviews for the Film Gutter take on Red Room. I’ve not seen it yet, but I figured it wouldn’t do a great deal of harm to watch this loosely-linked duology in reverse order. Besides, watching things in order is overrated anyway…

Red Room 2 was one of a swathe of splatter films to be emerging from Japan and the surrounds in the late 90s/early 200s, and to be honest these balls-to-the-wall gore films are not always my bag. But the concept of Red Room had always interested me immensely as a sort of Saw-esque concept, so I thought it was about time to get stuck in and check at least one of these films out.

The story centres on four characters thrust into the ‘King Game’ – there are four cards to draw, one of which is a king, and the player with the king in their hand gets to choose a forfeit for any other player – or players – to do. Although we start of relatively mild with the tasks being set, it’s not too long until things take a much more extreme twist, with one man having a toothbrush shoved deep into his nose being just a precursor. I must say what surprised me somewhat is how many of the tasks were more based on psychological than physical torture – one of the female characters has to stay silent while one of the male characters does what he wants in one tense scene, while there are two ‘timed’ sexual tasks that lend another unexpected slant on things. From what I know of the original, it was heavy on the gore and the brutality, but this one comes across less so. Sure, it’s uncomfortable viewing in several places, but I was certainly prepared for worse.

The main interest of the film for me comes from the cast of characters and the guessing and second guessing of who will win, who will form allegiances, who will win each hand, what will they do. Each character has a decent motivation – ostensibly a large amount of money, although each basically wants to be involved in the game for a different reason, which does give it a fascinating dynamic. I changed my bet a few times throughout the movie, which I certainly took as a good sign – I wouldn’t have given you a prediction with any confidence at any stage really.

So far that all sounds mighty positive, but it’s not a movie without its flaws. Some of the acting is pretty hokey, and the characters are pretty broadly drawn and stereotypical. Sure, there’s fun to be had with that in a number of places, but it might have been nice to get to know them a bit better. The flashbacks are OK but feel a little messy at times, and there’s no doubt that the whole thing is a bit cheaply made – limited sets, small cast – although I think generally it does make the best of that scenario. The ending is certainly very… interesting as well.

What this movie does have for all those flaws – and a word I often use – is a bit of verve. Everything is done whole-heartedly, no matter, how weird and wonderful, and while it might not necessarily live long in the memory as a masterpiece of extreme horror I was certainly entertained all the way through – and it’s hard to ask much more than that from any movie you put on.

RATING: 7.5/10. Most certainly more fun than I would have anticipated, with plenty of macabre humour and some pretty WTF moment features. While the acting may not be perfect, and the sets and camerawork is a bit limited, it does well within those limitations to create a story that is if not engrossing then at least engaging, and kept me wondering all the way through just how it was all going to play out. It’s certainly superior to several films in the subgenre that I could name – but of course won’t, because that would be rather mealy-mouthed – and has a little splash of panache that makes it a really enjoyable experience. Not likely one I’ll be revisiting but a perfectly fine way to while away about 90 minutes.

Of all the things in life you'd think it'd be hard to make a comedy based upon, it would be the rape-revenge movie. But it's out there in the form of Ron Bonk's She Kills, a loving homage to the grindhouse of the 70s and 80s and a pretty fun offering in its own right.

It's well-documented that the rape-revenge film is not typically my favourite – there are a handful that I have enjoyed by virtue of taking a slightly different approach to the old formula, but those are pretty rare. However it's fair to say the She Kills was certainly something different to anything exploring the idea than I've ever seen before.
 
The story follows an unfortunate young lead in Sadie, who is about to get married to strait-laced Edward, before the young couple fall foul of a gang by the name of The Touchers. It's only here we discover Sadie's terrible secret – she suffers with 'fire crotch', a condition which means her vagina has been claimed by Satan (a sentence I never expected I would type).The very sight of her naked drives the gang into a brutal frenzy, with Edward being eaten in a cannibalistic frenzy while Sadie is raped in turn by each one of the men in what is a pretty confusing scene tonally. The whole thing is kind of presented for laughs, but to me it just feels a bit uncomfortable to laugh at this sort of moment, no matter how it's presented. Sadie suffers yet more difficulties at home when her own father is drawn in by her condition, only for her brother to come to the rescue and defeat her dad in an extended martial arts conflict.
 
You're probably getting a sense from this that She Kills is a bit odd, and it feels like a very mixed bag as a whole. There are parts of the film that are genuinely funny, either when things become extremely overblown or with some very fun fourth wall breaks throughout. As well as the above it features cats and dogs being used as weapons, an attempted space vagina exorcism (yes, really), a man spitting out his own testicles and plenty more bizarreness besides. It's certainly quirky, and if you like parody you're likely to get something out of it. As someone who's never been much of a grindhouse expert it's eminently possible that some of the references have whistled straight past me, but there are times when I feel the movie is trying a bit too hard to garner a reaction. As I said, there were genuine chuckles in here, but some scenes just felt too over-the-top or too strange to really stick for me.

One of the highlights for sure is the lead performance by Jennie Russo as Sadie, who is really committed to it and plays everything in this slightly overblown way with great expressiveness. But in other cases the exaggerated facial expressions and reactions just don't quite stick, and that's probably indicative of my overall feeling about She Kills. It has energy and verve and some really fun stuff, but it just feels slightly confused and messy as a whole, moving in sections that doesn't always feel like they really hang together. It's good, but it feels like it could perhaps have been great.
 
RATING: 6.5/10. She Kills is certainly different and plenty out there, which often works and sometimes doesn't quite work. There are plenty of highs but a few lows as well, and a slight feeling that maybe if the movie were a bit shorter it could have been even better. Still, there is definitely some fun to be had here, and if you are very much into your grindhouse there's every chance you'll find plenty to like here.

 
If there's anywhere that we've frequented in Europe more than any other country, it would likely be Germany. With legendary extreme directors such as Marian Dora and Jorg Buttgereit emerging from the country, as well as many other individuals that divide opinion such as Olaf Ittenbach and Timo Rose, it's a nation with a proud tradition in the field and lots of quantity as well as a fair bit of quality. However it's fair to say that it's not a country that I would readily associate with horror-comedy, so it was a pretty pleasant experience stumbling upon this one. I've always rather enjoyed short films, so Forklift Driver Klaus – The First Day On The Job immediately spoke to me in many respects. And I have to add this was a pretty fun way to while away ten minutes of your time – especially if you've ever encountered the professional menace that is health and safety.

There were a few minutes in which I wasn't quite sure if I was just watching an educational workforce video, such was how it was shot. We're introduced to Klaus, who has just earned his forklift driving licence, and is bright and eager to get cracking in the new role. The reason it's hard to tell apart from an actual 1980s informational video is that the shooting is dead on – it has the cheesy acting, the terrible upbeat music, the chipper voiceover – it truly has it all. However the first day goes anything but swimmingly, as Klaus allows one of his colleagues to hitch a lift to a high shelf on the fork – with deadly consequences.
 
Of course that's the first of many calamities in his first day on the job, which do gradually scale up from that tumble to the concrete through to a man losing his hands in the machinery of the forklift's engine, to another employee being sliced clear in half by a sheet of glass through to a finale that is absolutely bloodsoaked mayhem – although still keeping the surreal humour of the whole piece.

Basically put, Forklift Driver Klaus is unlikely to live too long in the memory but it is good fun and there's a number of decent chuckles to be had throughout. The tone is dead on perfect – so much so that I wondered if I had just stumbled on a piece of 80s workplace video – and the performances are suitably wooden to go with that style. The effects are decent, if not spectacular, and if you're a bit stuck and want to kill a bit of time without launching into a long movie it's good entertainment. And I'll be checking out if these directors have done anything more substantial on the back of this little snippet.
 
RATING: 8/10. It's a bit too slight of a piece to really rate highly, but it's something that did make me smile and the gore effects are pretty fair. But it does wonderfully capture the absurdity of health and safety videos whilst in a strange way somehow driving home the value that they actually have. There's not a lot of flat out comedy to be had in this neck of the woods, so when it's done and done well then it does stand out nicely. For the first day on the job it's a very fine effort for 8/10. 

 
They certainly knew how to title films in the old days, didn't they? This one is (if memory serves me right) the oldest film we've looked at here at Film Gutter, and might well be one of the oldest we ever get the chance to look at, especially if you roll with the argument that 1963's Blood Feast was fundamentally the first gore film. This movie certainly has built up a cult following, and stars none other than Lon Chaney – the Wolfman himself, among many other roles – so let's take a look what it's all about.
 
The story follows the Merrye family, a strange band of children look after by their chauffer, Bruno. We begin with an intro telling us all about 'Merrye Syndrome', the rare psychological disorder the family suffers with, before we see the two girls of the family kill a mailman delivering them a letter.  That letter says that some distant relatives are on their way to visit the family, along with a lawyer, to see them again and check the kind of lives they are living. Bruno strongly encourages them to behave and be normal whilst all this is going on, but of course things do rather go horribly wrong when a normal element of society comes calling...
 
It's funny to think this movie is fifty years old, because there were many elements here than I had seen in much newer films. The concept of creepy or killer kids practically pervades modern horror, but was relatively new at this point in time, and the younger members of the family are certainly memorably portrayed (including a young Sid Haig in the role of Ralph). Chaney is also pretty likeable as the put-upon Bruno, trying to bridge the gap between the troubled kids and the real world that unexpectedly comes to their door.

But this was the 60s, and while there are moments that are pretty creepy and points that are somewhat disturbing, it's to no small extent played for laughs. At heart Spider Baby is a good horror comedy, playing with many of tropes and doing so with panache as well as love and respect from them – a lot of horror comedies, for me, miss the mark because their parody of the genre is too unpleasant and comes from a place of not understanding what it is that makes the genre great. Jack Hill's offering nods to plenty – including a couple of sneaky Wolfman references in honour of Lon Chaney – whilst having its own identity and freshness.

Overall, it's an enjoyable little film, although I was left with an overall feeling that it probably could have been creepier than it ultimately was. The start and the end deliver a good bit in terms of unsettling moments, but the middle focuses more on the comedy – which isn't bad, but it does feel slightly unsettled as a movie. If the horror and comedy were woven together a bit better throughout, I think I would have liked this even more. It has energy and it has some great performances but it's a little too disjointed to really hit the heights.
 
RATING: 7/10. Spider Baby is certainly quirky, and I can understand why it has built up a cult following over time – it's got a lot of good qualities to it, and it's hard not to like to at least some extent. Lots have liked it more than me from the looks of it, but it feels as though an unnerving opening and closing are bookending a central section very much focused on comedy. All those segments work, in their own way, but it leaves the movie feeling a bit odd in terms of pacing. So it's a very decent 7/10 for this cult favourite.

I've long been a fan of short films, and have had the pleasure of watching and reviewing some absolute beauties in my time reviewing at Film Gutter. Like short fiction, there's often a great deal you can say within a very limited scope of time and the truncated form can often pack quite an emotional punch. Which leads us to today's short entry, The Stylist.

Often with short films there are many unfamiliar names floating around, but director Jill Gevargizian is a talent who seems to be gathering a head of steam, and the lead role in this one was played by Najarra Townsend, who showed she was quite an actress with her role in Eric England's alternative zombie movie Contracted. Her presence as an actress also helped to carry this movie, and I expect to see more of her in the future.

In The Stylist, Townsend plays Claire, who is waiting for her last client of the day at the hair salon, Mandy. When Mandy finally arrives, she's a gregarious, go-getting, high-flying executive type who needs to look perfect for an office function – and when I say gregarious I mean she really talks. Claire sets to work, even offering Mandy a glass of wine as she unwinds. But of course the wine isn't just wine, and as the haircut goes on Mandy finds herself drifting into unconsciousness...

Unfortunately Mandy doesn't stay out cold long, and wakens to find that Claire has already scalped her, leaving her devoid of hair and skin on her head. That's an effectively shot scene, although how Claire silences Mandy in the end is a little hard to believe for me. In our final scene we see Claire getting home to her house, going down to the basement and trying on the 'wig' (IE skin and scalp) that she took from Mandy and spitting out a few of her wealthy, over-privileged lines of dialogue.

It's a short film that I want to like more than I do – Townsend has a great presence in the lead, although her only counterpart actress in Jennifer Plas is nowhere near as effective in her role for me. It's also slightly hard to discern what the aim or message is meant to be – maybe there's something about escaping into someone else's life for a while, but it's a fairly muddled message if that's the intention. It's shot well, the colour scheme throughout is great and there's a handful of really potent visuals, it just seems to somewhat lack the substance to go with the style.

RATING: 7/10. If a movie ever lived up to its name, it's this one – the director to this one is clearly a stylist and has a great handle on that side of this short film. However an unclear meaning for what we see, and a few other minor quibbles, mean I can't give this one top marks, despite all the promise that is on display. I'd certainly be interested to see what Gevargizian could do in the long form should she ever turn her hand to it, and I'm happy to give this one a 7/10.

 
Short film is a popular medium in horror, arguably more so than most other genres. There's a lot you can do in the space of 10 or 20 minutes in horror when it's done well. Extreme horror is no exception – and we've looked at great entries such as the impactful Cutting Moments, the nauseating Aftermath and the bizarre short films of Shaye St John. Today's offering comes from South Korea, which is certainly a part of the world to have produced many great films before. Human Form runs at only 12 minutes but for me creates a vivid dystopian world and is very effective in its short film format. Maybe there could be more to it, but in this case I'm not persuaded that a longer examination would help this one along – the sense of feeling slightly lost in a strange future world is captured excellently here.
 
Our lead here is In-Hyung, a South Korean schoolgirl who we see visiting a surgery clinic of some sort, where she's told she doesn't have the money to afford what she is looking for. It's only when we see the face of the person she is talking to that we realise something is pretty wrong – because the face isn't truly human, but a horribly plastic(?) facsimile of what a human face should be.
 
Now I'm not going to lie, this movie really got to me. It's not as extreme as many others I've had the good fortune of watching over the years, but that one visual of all the mask-like faces of everyone around In-Hyung really got to me. Only on rare occasions have I ever properly shouted at my TV while watching something – sure, I screamed at Thanatomorphose to 'please just end' and Vace de Noces saw me shouting at my lead to stop eating his stored faeces out of jars. Those are pretty rare moments, but with Human Form I couldn't help but vocalise just how bloody creepy and weird that image was. I have a bad feeling this is one that's going to rather haunt my dreams in the weeks and months to come.
 
Still, everybody around In-Hyung had the same look to them – her whole family, people on the street, her friends – and that's why she wanted the procedure so desperately. She'd love to have it done before her yearbook photo, but her family flat out refuses. On her way home one day, she sees an advert on the wall which (I think) offered an experimental form of the procedure. There's kind of a dream moment where she has the 'perfect' terrifying face which is rudely interrupted by a rapid sense of something going wrong...
 
In a wonderful final shot, In-Hyung comes to the dinner table in a hoodie, sits herself down and her family all look intently at her. We never see just what has become of her face – whether it is newly-made, or as it was, or something else entirely – which is a great moment to close on and one that perfectly bottled the sense of displacement and unease that runs throughout. It's a gloriously simple concept that is excellently delivered, with solid performances and a great sense of visual panache. It feels a bit of a shame to me that the director hasn't yet made the transition to feature films, with only one other short to their credit. If we could have had more in this vein I'd have very happily watched it indeed.

RATING: 9/10. A really powerful short, with striking visuals and a strong core theme and message all the way. It's a great glimpse into a strange future world in which looking the same as everyone else is seen as superior to looking different, which you could take as a metaphor for a number of things. Whatever you take out of it, it's very well made and certainly made an immediate impression on me – and I expect will leave something of a lasting impression to boot. A fantastic 9/10.