We are moving stories

“I’m a great believer in fighting for what’s right and not letting the world dictate who you are. For instance, I refuse to let the times we live in dampen my fire for telling the stories I need to tell. And the stories I need to tell involve transformation and transcendence - so, the personal and the universal are pretty much one and the same for me.”

“This is not a film that shouts for attention - it is a ‘quiet scream’. My wish for this film is that it quietly unsettles the audience - almost imperceptibly, its fingers should start to curl. Not a horror per se but hopefully a subtle shock or jolt - enough to challenge your perception and open a conversation about loneliness and alienation, dreams and madness.”

“This film has been bubbling in me in some form or other for over 20 years, since I first picked up Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a kid. Reading about the losses in her life, her miscarriages in particular, I started imagining Victor Frankenstein as a creator of life with a uterus, and this naturally led me to wonder how her relationship with her body would play into her scientific process.”

“This short is for the strange. It’s about people trying to connect in an unusual and perhaps a bit unsettling way. It’s not for the squeamish. SKIN will leave you something to wonder.”

“The nightmare was about getting my hair cut at the beauty salon and as the hairdresser kept talking and talking she started cutting off my fingers and my ears and my eyes without really noticing.

When I first wrote it up as a short story, I realized the dream was about my relationship with my mother and her desire for me to be more pretty and girly and interested in things that I felt were shallow social constructs of what it meant to be a woman.”

“I’ve seen upwards of 80 film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, and with the ironic exception of FRANKENHOOKER, not one has addressed the feminist themes in Shelley’s novel. I wanted to pay homage to her strong female voices. Also, FRANKIE’s a prequel conveying the origin story to a feature-length screenplay I’ve written and aim to direct.”

“Black Holler is a very silly movie, but there are messages of the importance of tolerance, diversity and acceptance in the film. I’m very proud that Black Holler’s lead is a beautiful, African-American female (very rare for a horror movie!) and that we feature actors and actresses of all shapes and sizes along with several LGBTQ+ characters and actors.”

“Taryn Hough and Thomas Norman, the writers and directors of Old Mrs. Jenkins, are huge fans of 80s horror. We love the campiness and lightheartedness of horror from that decade, there was always something fun about the films. The kills were deliberate, you were laughing and cringing at the same time, and they just had a fun vibe about them. We wanted to recreate that with Old Mrs. Jenkins. We wanted to create a new monster/urban legend that hadn’t been done before, telling the story in a setting that was new and fresh but still harkens back to a time of better horror cinema.”

“The film has been selected for over 100 festivals so far and won multiple awards...During screenings I always listen for whether the audience laugh at the climax of the film. There’s no right or wrong response for me, but it nearly always gets a different reaction. The overall tone of the film is definitely not comedic, but it has a dark humour that seeps through. Some people get that immediately and some have told me they find the story quite sad. I wonder if some people feel that they’re not supposed to laugh?”

“My narrative films feature isolated women plagued by ghosts. Horror cinema in general fascinates me, but specifically grief, death and trauma – the things that haunt us – are the subject of my films. My obsession is with haunted states and trying to exist in the space between absolutes, the way a ghost straddles the natural and supernatural world.”

“You should watch this film because you are going to laugh, you are going to be visually stimulated – there’s so much eye candy – you are going to be thoroughly entertained, you are going to have fun, and you are going to feel for these women. If you’ve ever been the underdog you can’t help but love them. They’re murderers sure, but they have huge hearts, mean well and it’s not really their fault, is it? The universe keeps dealing them shitty cards!”

“When you’re an adult the world can become predictable AF. We know what coffee we’ll order in the morning, what route we’ll take to work, and what we’ll do with the majority of our day, every. single. day.

Personally, nothing snaps me out of that ‘predictable adulting life’ faster than truly being surprised or amazed by something. Blow Out is a little dose of surrealism that hopefully wakes people back up to their imaginations and that sense of ‘anything is possible’ that they had when they were a kid. Oh, and of course it’s a comedy, and I think EVERYBODY needs a good laugh, on a regular basis.”

“It’s different. It was my effort to blend comedy (my true love) with drama and horror and somehow it also turned out kind of sweet at the same time.”

“Audiences should come to this film expecting a very silly, goofy movie that really embodies the childish nature of high school kids trying to find their way after graduation mixed with some comedy-horror elements. Anyone who appreciates the filmmaking process and really wants to get inspired to make his or her own film should also watch it. Our hope is that people see our film as a kind of proof of concept that no matter what your budget, who you know, or what kind of equipment you have, you can go outside and shoot a film for as little as $2000 and make something that’s fun and exciting for people to watch.”

“I was seven months pregnant with my first child when the first Covid lockdown happened. When my son turned six months old and started to be aware of the world around him, I worried that we’d always be locked away in pandemic mode and worried he’d never have any friends. This got my wheels turning about being a parent during life’s most challenging times, and the risks we’re willing to take in order for our children to have rich, fulfilling lives.”

“I love horror and I love comedy, especially when it’s driven by women characters and creatives, and if you’re in the audience, that’s why I imagine you’re watching as well. However, the subject at the heart of this film, phone scams on the elderly, is becoming more ubiquitous, and I find audience members often have family members who’ve been victims of these kinds of scams, and they see their own experiences reflected.”

“Livescream - my first feature film - is the film of my heart. Rather than utilizing the physical resources around me to build a low budget feature, I utilized the resources inside of me. Not only was Livescream built off my love and passion for gaming and horror movies, it was also built off my vast knowledge of Let’s Play culture and horror gaming history.”

“Dark Circus is the type of film that is rarely shot nowadays - it is s collection of weird and original characters playing themselves as other bizarre characters in a different place and time. a full parallel universe of magic is waiting there for you. You might find some new erotic fetishes inthat world as well highly aesthetic settings and rich costumes.

it is the type of cinema that is influenced by the 1970s, by directors like Alejandro Jodorowsky and Kenneth Anger that used their films to transport a certain understanding of magic to the screen.”

“To be able to share my film with audiences is a huge honour. Every single person is going to have a unique relationship to a piece of work, because of their own perspective and life experience. So no matter what type of feedback I receive, I take it with the knowledge that art is subjective and am happy that this film generates a dialogue after viewing.”

“Last but not least, it’s hard to ignore society’s increasing dependence on technology and addiction to social media, and as artists, we felt like this subject was ripe for lampooning in the most tongue-in-cheek way possible. The result of all this was Detox.”

“As a queer filmmaker I identify with diverse gender themes. I prefer to spend less time convincing others of the perception I have of them vs. accepting their self-actualization. For example, I may identify as a gay man and my word about that should define who I am to the world, not a birth certificate. The theme of gender identity touches all of our lives because the sooner we begin to accept others for who they are, the sooner we may begin to tell larger and more engaging stories.”

“Harmful Sensations is an immersive experience, a swirl of color, sex, sensuality, and brutal violence, but with a lot of humor. Harmful Sensations is a cautionary tale that bristles with surreal imagery and emotion. You’ll laugh, you’ll be scared, hopefully it stays with you and haunts you.”

“I think for Poe fans and horror fans, the elements are there for it to be something they would enjoy. Lots of blood. Some really tense moments. Some laughs. And did I mention the blood? There’s lots and lots of blood. But I think there’s something in there for everyone. If you’ve ever had a bad day at the office, Heartless may be the right film for you.”

“Personally, I’ve always found empty theaters and auditoriums naturally spooky. I think there’s a universal feeling of uneasiness in empty spaces that are overtly sterile and feel fake. Furthermore, even though I’m not a musician, I think many people who try and create art feel this outside pressure and judgment of the work that is taken personally and I hope that subtext is apparent both in the short and the feature that we’re developing.”

“I do a lot of singing and performing myself, so I know what it’s like to worry about losing your voice, but more universally, I think we all worry about our bodies failing us in some way and what that means for us.”

“I first had the idea for the story during the summer of 2017. It was a time when a lot of legislation was being put forward in a number of states to try to restrict women’s right/bodily autonomy. Much of that legislation was being proposed by men, who could never be put in the same situations they were comfortable crafting laws to regulate women for. I thought it would be interesting to see a man be put in a similar situation. And I love a good body horror movie.”

“I’ve never met a human being who can commit fully to their convictions in every single moment of their lives. So we tried to make a short film about that feeling.”

“It has an underlying message about the bond between a human and his most loyal companion. The question is will the resident be able to return home to his dog and a normal life? I wanted to make this a central element of the film.”

“After being accepted in 140 film festivals including SXSW and winning over 35 awards and being listed as #1 Horror Short film of the year in several publications... I can’t complain.”

“I wanted to make a short film in the tone of my favorite slashers of the 80s/90s/00’s, but set today. I work in the food service industry and one night I was packing up a DoorDash order when realized that a food delivery app would serve as a great plot point for a modern slasher.”