Shorts Review: Sideshow Pictures Collection

NIGHT OF THE PUMPKIN
Writer:Ted Geoghegan, Michael Gruosso, Frank Sabatella, George A. Tameras
Director:Frank Sabatella
Starring:Samantha Hahn, Matthew Watson, Steve Arons
Rating:

THE HOUSE THAT CRIED BLOOD
Writer/Director:Frank Sabatella
Starring:Damian Maffei, Andrea Bohlke, Ashlee Mundy
Rating:

CHILDREN OF THE WITCH
Writer:Frank Sabatella, Marc Schoenbach
Director:Frank Sabatella
Starring:Sara Barnett, Collin Buckingham, Manny Catechis
Rating:

Availability: All films available to stream or purchase at http://www.sideshowpics.com/



    Do you remember the flick Blood Night The Legend of Mary Hatchet?  This was a movie that looked right up my alley.  I love the sorts of slasher films Blood Night was paying homage to, so I was super stoked when I finally got the chance to see it.  Unfortunately, the movie ended up letting me down.  The film's director, Frank Sabatella, had his heart in the right place, and the film definitely showed a fair amount of style...It just didn't hang together well as a feature, and honestly felt like it would have worked better as a short film.

    Well, oddly enough, the short format is what Sabatella has embraced over the past few years.  He has crafted a trilogy of Halloween-related short films that in roughly 20 minutes a piece, managed to capture everything I wanted Blood Night to capture in under 90.  The first short, Night of the Pumpkin, begins at a campfire.  There's an old man telling scary stories to a group of uninterested kids.  He tells of a group of teens who perform a ceremony, and end up releasing a killer pumpkin into the town.  Though hampered by some dodgy CGI, this one was a total blast.  There's a nasty bit of gore, a gorgeous set of breasts, and a perfect Halloween atmosphere.  The use of lighting and colors brought to mind Trick 'R Treat in a way.  Blessed with a campy sense of humor, I absolutely adored this one.

    The next short, The House That Cried Blood, is a much more traditional story.  A young couple, after hearing about the legend of Old Lady Death, decide to enter her home, only to find out the legend was true.  This one has a fair amount of cliches, but since this seems more like a love letter to classic ghost stories than anything truly original, I wasn't bothered at all by the predictability.  It still looked fantastic, had some genuinely creepy moments, good gore, and most importantly, was just a lot of fun to watch.

    The final short of the bunch, Children of the Witch, is easily the best of the bunch.  A group of girls are having a slumber party, when a group of young children rise from the dead, and start taking them out one by one.  They were the children of a coven of witches, and they were killed as a message to the coven to put an end to their wicked ways.  Everything that made the first two shorts so much fun was here in top form.  From a visual standpoint, this one looks absolutely amazing.  The eye candy in front of the screen wasn't anything to complain about either.  The story is fairly original, and it does deliver some decent twists throughout its short run time.  This is easily one of the best Halloween shorts I've ever seen, and ranks alongside There's Something Following Me as the best modern example.

    I can't say enough good things about these short films.  Taken together, they would have made an excellent anthology.  Sabatella is able to capture the absolute essence of Halloween in these short films, and I applaud the visual mastery on display here.  The films all have a nasty sense of humor about them, and even the cast of young amateurs deliver very solid performances.  I'd love to see Frank tackle a feature again, because he has grown tremendously as a director since Blood Night.  They feel like lost relics of the 80s without being retro.  A little more skin on display would have been nice, but that's a small little nitpick in an otherwise excellent trilogy of films.

    Now, you can watch all the shorts for free on the Sideshow Pictures website, but I strongly encourage forking over a bit of money, and purchasing these on DVD.  They would make incredible party flicks.  The short format is a hard one to get right.  Sometimes they feel underdeveloped.  Other times, they try to do too much and become overstuffed.  Some absolutely perfect the format, and these are the ones worth applauding.  Frank Sabatella has created some real magic here, and if you love Halloween as much as I do, it'll be hard not to get swept up in it.

    Until next time, my fellow freaks and weirdos...