OTV Guide | Frights and Delights
Boo!
It’s me, Henry Hanson. I’m the filmmaker behind the OTV short films Bros Before (writer/director) and Black Pill (producer).
Thanks to the OTV team for inviting me to unwrap the treat they’ve prepared for all the queers knocking at the studio door this spooky season. This year they’re offering us a plastic cauldron full of short films titled “Frights and Delights,” which tastes like a rainbow sour belt if some of the sugar crystals were actually made of glass: it’s fruity, it’s tangy, and it’ll make your throat bleed.
When Rasheed first reached out to me about writing about the Frights & Delights October Collection, I thought I would slowly digest the package of films over the course of a few weeks. But as with most good bags of candy (and most projects with deadlines) I found myself binging them all in one night.
But regardless of whether you devour them in one bite like me or delicately sprinkle them on top of your October feature films, I invite you to savor the full spectrum of chills, thrills, humor, and all-too-real terror wrapped in this drop.
Zooming In: Top Two Watches
If you know me you know I usually ride hard for low budget movies but in this batch I felt the most drawn to two of the apparently better-resourced productions Spookable and The Garden of Edette. While each delightfully unique in their stories and settings, both movies shared a few key ingredients: witty dialogue, fun practical effects, great production design, classic supernatural tropes in contemporary settings, and just the right dollop of camp. Most crucially, though, they both gave me teen TV show vibes.
Jonathan Andre Culliton (director, co-writer, producer), Marval Rex (co-writer)
Spookable is a whimsical horror comedy centering around two (extremely, ahem, conventionally attractive) T4T leads in a quintessential will-they-or-won’t-they BFF dynamic. Imagine the gang from Scooby Doo getting a little frisky at the afters. Imagine Buffy with full frontal werewolf nudity and a green screen cum cave (don’t ask, just watch it).
Guinevere Thomas - Director; Lauren Rausaw - Producer; Guinevere Thomas, Chiara Campelli, Melisande McLaughlin - Writers; Matt Kleppner - Cinematographer; Sam Vallone - Editor, Jolien Louis - Production Designer
The Garden of Edette is a gorgeous PG-13 dark fairytale about a bright-eyed college student eager to connect with her Creole roots and a lonely old woman doomed to tend her carnivorous garden. I went back and forth between feeling like I was watching a Halloween Disney Channel Original Movie from my childhood in the early 2000s and a slightly more wholesome episode of American Horror Story: Coven. I was equally impressed with the bright purple flesh wounds and the familiar witch tropes crafted into an authentic story with complex characters. Even as it consistently entertained, this movie deftly tackled the meaty (no pun intended) themes of grief, alienation, and heritage.
Zooming Out: Themes
I’m writing this blog post in the midst of The Days of Awe, the period in the Jewish calendar between Rosh Hashanah (the new year) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement). It is said that this is the time when the book of life is open, when the veil is thinnest between this world and the next, when the human is closest to the supernatural. This to me calls forth a fitting sense of cosmic horror imbued with a certain gothic glamour.
On the other hand, I’m constantly filled with horror over the rise of the militarized police state, a genocide happening in my name, my neighbors being kidnapped, and the rollback of civil protections for my community. These things are all decidedly unglamorous, ugly, repulsive. Such sociopolitical horrors make me feel disgusting for finding any pleasure in the concept of “horror” in general.
How then to reconcile the idea of horror as something seductive, alluring, even beautiful with the idea of horror as something we must fight to keep away from ourselves and our loved ones? I actually have no idea, but I really appreciate that this grouping of short films includes works with both valences and more.
also thinking about…
Julia Morizawa (writer, producer, director)
Probably the single best encapsulation of the aforementioned contradictory feeling is Dragonfly, an animated piece about the WWII Tokyo bombing through the eyes of a child. The cutesy art style made the naked atrocity all the more bone-chilling.
dir. Nace DeSanders
Sharena Sigmon - Writer, Director; Angellic Ross - Producer, Alexis Ward - Lori, Kenneth McNeil - Daniel
Speaking of contemporary insanity, Hello Sickness and Mason both found their spookiness in the blur between reality and hallucination. While quite different, they each had an idiosyncratic off-kilter style that felt well suited for the sort of extremely-first-person-to-the-point-of-POV, sociopolitical-yet-trippy psychological horror vibe. I already feel crazy so much of the time, so I might as well enjoy it with a dash of gore, beautiful scenery, and hot actors.
Conclusion
I don’t have a good conclusion. I don’t know how to neatly sum up 10 different stories that each tackle age-old questions of human existence in less than 1,000 words. I have no idea what to do with myself most of the time. I don’t even know what I’m gonna have for dinner.
But what I can say is that if we are drawn to stories of horror for catharsis, then this slate of films certainly delivers on that promise spiritually, socially, politically, and, yes, erotically. All we can do in the face of terror is organize ourselves, stand in solidarity with each other, maybe punch a cop or two, and continue to pursue love and enjoyment
May we all be inscribed in the book of life.
May Palestine be free.
May transsexuals inherit the earth.
May the people thrive in the absence of borders.
@degeneracy_now on most platforms
My website and blog: henry-hanson.com
Stream Dog Movie on Vimeo on Demand: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/dogmoviebloo