Horror and magical realism aren’t really my favorite genres, but when they are in smaller doses I can be enticed to watch a few. Here are some that are part of the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival.
The Pearl Comb (20 minutes) directed by Ali Cook. This is a period piece blending horror and fantasy. A young doctor comes to visit his distant relative who is said to have healed a case of tuberculosis. She says it is a gift that was given to her late husband, a fisherman who encounted a mermaid. No one would believe that a woman could do such things. Yet everyone for miles around comes to be cured of everything. But there was a price to pay. A curse follows this gift. The young doctor knows there must be a scientific explanation. Soon, he will discover just how real the curse is.
The Quinta’s Ghost (16 minutes) directed by James A Castillo. This animated film is the story of Francisco de Goya’s Black Paintings—as told by the house where he painted the murals. The house is impressed by Goya from the time he moved in. But his melancholia and sickness lead to terrible nightmares that shape his art and his day to day life. It gave me a chance to discover these works of art (although we don’t really see them, but there’s always the internet). Here is a tormented artist. We see more of the torment than the art, which in this case creates a different kind of art.
Moving (9 minutes) directed by Nat Rovit. Carl is upset that his family is moving. His parents try to paint a rosy picture, but he knows that things will never be the same. As he blows out the candles on his birthday cake, he makes a wish that he’ll never have to move. In the morning when he wakes up, he is a statue. That is just the first half, but it may make you be careful about what you wish for.
A Bear Remembers (20 minutes) directed by Zhang & Knight. A village is plagued by a noise, a rhythmic metallic banging. A lonely young man seeks to find the source, When he plays a recording for elderly couple, they recognize it from their distant past. The young man and old woman set out to find the bear that used to dance with the village and who has returned looking to recover that joy. It is a somewhat melancholy story about connections between people and nature that are gone, never to come again.
Eeohtoh (7 minutes) directed by Michael and Nathanial Barber. This is really more of a final scene of a horror story. A mortally wounded woman sets out to destroy the monster that killed her family. It really has no set up of who she is or where this monster has come from.
