Fantastic Fest 2016: Short Film Lineup Gets Bloody and Weird and Wild and More

Curated by Peter Kuplowsky, a festival programmer who has contributed to this site in the past, the 41 short films that will screen during the upcoming Fantastic Fest sound ... fantastic.

It feels like cheating to use that word, but it's an accurate way to describe what's been programmed. Although I am by no means an expert on short films, it's impossible not to be impressed by what's been assembled from around the world. It's not just the expected bloody horror items, either, but a wild melange of influences and inspirations that should play out in very unexpected -- and short! -- bursts of madness.

Here's the official statement provided by the festival:

Fantastic Fest is excited to announce the short film line up for the 12th edition of Fantastic Fest, which runs September 22 - September 29, 2016 at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX.

Once more, North America's largest genre festival has gathered together a diverse range of the best and brightest, as well as the scariest and strangest, short-subject genre films across three distinct programming sidebars and a dozen pre-feature presentations.

Curated by veteran festival programmer Peter Kuplowsky, the 41 film lineup includes the US Premiere of a new Cartoon Network series (SUMMER CAMP ISLAND), an innovative take on the zombie sub-genre featuring a deaf cast (DAWN OF THE DEAF) and the return of the SHORTS WITH LEGS sidebar, which hosts and champions the unconventional and the eccentric, including the North American premiere of a new work from cult animator Sawako Kabuki (NOU NEN FEAT.UTAE). "Not only am I thrilled with the quality of this year's lineup, but I am also really happy with how diverse the roster is as well - there's a plethora of voices, both emerging and established, from all over the world." said Kuplowsky.

The complete lineup, divided by program, is as follows:

FANTASTIC SHORTS

This year's potpourri of short subjects once more run the gamut of fantastic cinema, from the funny to the freaky, from the emotionally affective to the poetic and introspective. Starting with a diverse assembly of animation that ranges from creepy to adorable, the parade of comic and dramatic live-action productions that follow include webslinger-inspired wrestlers, unusual vitamins, the benefits of a golden shower and the dangers of post-plastic surgery karaoke. You know, something for everyone.

THE ABSENCE OF EDDIE TABLE (pictured at top)
Norway, 2016
US Premiere, 12 min
Director: Rune Spaans
Love and leeches are the results of a wrong turn in a creepy forest in this immaculate animated misadventure penned by famed cartoonist David Cooper, creator of the titular cult character.

CLARA'S RAGE
Mexico, 2016
North American Premiere, 21 min
Director: Michelle Garza Cervera
A bite from a rabid dog condemns a woman to a claustrophobic cabin in this deftly directed dark drama that begins with beautiful charcoal animation before slipping into eerie live action. As her husband hunts the animal and its savage brethren, the woman grows to resent her imposed seclusion and becomes desperate to escape.

IMITATIONS
Canada, 2016
Texas Premiere, 10 min
Directors: Milos Mitrovic & Fabian Velasco
Introverted superfan Arnold undergoes plastic surgery to look like his pop idol Austin Kelsey (Astron-6`s Conor Sweeney). It does not go well, but it does go hilariously, and with an infectious earworm of a soundtrack to boot... or since it's Canadian should I say "aboot" (*programmer pelted with tomatoes*).

IRON SPYDER
Australia, 2016
World Premiere, 10 min
Directors: Chris Mitchell & Yoav Lester
A transfixing character portrait that compellingly blurs documentary and drama with a shade of comic book mythos as it poetically captures the mix of emotions a young wrestler experiences on fight night.

THE ITCHING
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 15 min
Director: Dianne Bellino
An extraordinarily visceral claymation drama depicting the touching connection that grows between a friendly rabbit and a sheepish wolf whose anxieties manifest as an obsessive and violent itch.

JUDY
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 8 min
Directors: Alex Kavutskiy & Ariel Gardner
A man opens a door to a robot that boasts exceptional ability and intelligence, but the man has only one thing on his mind. Practiced vulgarity that escalates to a darkly hysterical extreme.

SALESMANSHIP
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 11 min
Directors: Bruce Bundy & Helen Rogers
Two BFF stoners engage in an unusual routine to accrue the capital needed to sustain their lifestyle. An endearing slice of slackerdom, dripping with charisma and various hallucinogenic properties.

SOLID SILVER ANUS
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 2 min
Director: Dave Newberg
An animated adaptation of a voicemail received from EatableAnus.com that contextualizes the recording's ambiguous pregnant pauses to great comic effect.

SUMMER CAMP ISLAND
United States, 2016
US Premiere, 9 min
Director: Julia Pott
Talking pajamas are just one of the many anthropomorphic wonders that await you in the first episode of Julia Pott's forthcoming Cartoon Network series about the strangest (and most adorable) summer camp your eyeballs have ever had the pleasure to witness.

VITAMINS FOR LIFE
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 2 min
Director: Grier Dill
Adapted from a series of micro-fiction tweets by @quietpinetrees, this amusing pastiche of educational shorts illuminates the benefits and dangers of lesser known vitamins.

SHORT FUSE

Fantastic Fest delivers another sampling of the year's standout short-form horror in a program that promises to unnerve and disturb, when it is not serving up a healthy and hysterical splatter of crimson Karo syrup. Steel yourself for sinister stylists, scary slopes and spooky spaceships, but be warned you may develop a fear of pedestrian crossings. At least German ones.

90 DEGREES NORTH
Germany, 2015
Texas Premiere, 21 min
Director: Detsky Graffam
A man finds himself stranded on a malevolent traffic island in this clever Kafkaesque nightmare that collides compelling satire with creative splatter.

CURVE
Australia, 2016
Texas Premiere, 10 min
Director: Tim Egan
Precariously perched on the slope of a smooth monolithic structure that recedes into a horrifying abyss, a woman strives to escape sliding to her doom; a nightmare expertly sustained and expressed through visceral visuals and a haptic soundscape.

DAWN OF THE DEAF
United Kingdom, 2016
US Premiere, 12 min
Director: Rob Savage
Sporting a novel conceit that breathes new life into an oversaturated sub-genre, this network narrative of hearing-impaired protagonists unravels moments before the world gets a bad case of the undead.

DEATH METAL
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 5 min
Director: Chris McInroy
A heavy metal guitarist shreds sick licks on an axe spawned from Satan with gleefully silly splatstick results.

I WANT YOU INSIDE ME
United States, 2016
Regional Premiere, 13 min
Director: Alice Shindelar
An introverted teenager loses her virginity and her boyfriend in one fell orgasm; a sensitive portrait of adolescence that builds to one helluva FX gag that's both funny and frightening.

OVERTIME
Australia, 2016
Austin Premiere, 8 min
Director: Craig D. Foster
Ralph's long day at the office just got longer, but he really needs to get home before dark. A stylishly funny send-up of horror's most pressed-for-time monster.

THE STYLIST
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 15 min
Director: Jill Gevargizian
A gory story about a lonely hairstylist with a compulsion to take her work home with her. Literally.

THEY WILL ALL DIE IN SPACE
Spain, 2015
Austin Premiere, 14 min
Director: Javier Chillon
Fantastic Fest alumni Javier Chillon (DECAPODA SHOCK) returns with a gorgeous retro-tinged sci-fi chiller about the existential perils and ethical compromises that occur when space travel goes awry.

WHEN SUSSURUS STIRS
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 10 min
Director: Anthony Cousins
A terrifically gross-out body horror bonanza that recalls THE TINGLER by way of Frank Henenlotter as it unspools a tale of disgusting parasites and the hosts that love them.

SHORTS WITH LEGS

There are short films and then there are those unconventional collisions of sight and sound that defy definition. These are the SHORTS WITH LEGS: cinematic excursions into the experimental and eccentric. Born from the minds of both skillful provocateurs and outsider art savants, these unpredictable productions are guaranteed to endure in your mind as either awe-inspiring exemplars of absurdism or brain-breaking traumas of WTF-ery.

APE SODOM
Canada, 2016
US Premiere, 14 min
Director: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
A startling and sardonic satire of post-consumerist enlightenment that at one point features the voice of David Cronenberg narrating the life cycle of Jellyfish. The less you know, the better.

BARK
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 11 min
Director: Amanda Kramer
Impressively dilated performances and a keen command of tone ground an increasingly absurdist argument between two young women, which eventually curdles into an unsettling psychological breakdown.

I AM COMING TO PARIS TO KILL YOU
Canada, 2015
Texas Premiere, 9 min
Director: Seth Smith
Deliciously stylized neo-noir tropes get steeped in ethereal surrealist flourishes as a woman desperately vies to rescue a loved one. Bookended with an unreleased murder ballad from Timber Timbre and featuring some truly inspired experimental visual effects.

LEMONADE BY SOPHIE (Unofficial Music Video)
Canada, 2015
Austin Premiere, 2 min
Director: Kate Taeuschel
Anarchic video artifacting and savvy punnery collide throughout this decidedly lo-fi tribute to the electronic dance single by a Canadian teen filmmaker. Infectiously joyous stuff!

NOU NEN FEAT.UTAE
Japan, 2015
North American Premiere, 3 min
Director: Sawako Kabuki
A kaleidoscopic reverie of sexual encounters fluidly morphing to the jubilant beats of Japanese pop music. Delightfully animated by the cult animator behind such boundary-pushing works as ANAL JUICE and SUMMER'S PUKE IS WINTER'S DELIGHT.

PACO
United States, 2016
Texas Premiere, 12 min
Director: Catalina Jordan Alvarez
Paco wants you to bounce on his lap. A brilliant comic portrait of a catcaller choreographed with a non-professional cast and captured with disarmingly intimate 16mm photography.

THE PAST INSIDE THE PRESENT
United States, 2016
Austin Premiere, 12 min
Director: James Siewert
Ruminating on sexual anxiety and alienation, this experimental monochrome mixed-media allegory depicts a couple's attempt to renew a dying relationship via a decidedly analog means of recording and re-living better times.

THE PROCEDURE
United States, 2016
Special Screening, 2 min
Director: Calvin Reeder
A man is kidnapped and forced to undergo a cheeky but disturbing procedure. Cheeky as in butt cheeks. Among the finest permutations of this particular stratum of jokes.

SISTER'S FIRE
United States, 2015
Texas Premiere, 25 min
Director: Vincent De Ghoulie
An unhinged elderly woman moves in with her significantly younger drug-addled brother in this abrasive psycho-comedy from the filmmaker that brought last year's mind-melting MY JOHNNY. Exceptionally outrageous performances abound and escalate in eccentricity with each passing hilarious minute, and though De Ghoulie's aggressive experimental style has grown more refined, his aesthetics are still as provocative and anarchic as ever.

WORM
United States, 2015
Regional Premiere, 3 min
Director: Becky James
An imprisoned worm is eventually granted a bittersweet release in this understated but amusing bit of pencil-drawn absurdism.

PAIRED WITH FEATURES

ANTIDEPRESSANT
United States, Canada, 2016
World Premiere, 9 min
Director: Devon Bostick
Dean Norris portrays a sitcom showrunner whose incessant and indulgent laughter on set masks his darker disposition in this slick satirical slow-burn that builds to a devastating punchline.

CLUB POLICY
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 10 min
Directors: Ryan Dickie & Abby Horton
Fantastic prosthetics and hilarious performances complement this improbable parable about the choice a preppy young man makes after his girlfriend is struck with a debilitating condition as a result of not adhering to his country club's guidelines.

THE DOG
Norway, 2016
World Premiere, 10 min
Directors: Aleksander Nordaas & Hallvard Holmen
After a prepubescent cyclist informs a man that his neighbor has killed his dog, he impulsively resolves to get all John Wick on him in this amusingly austere pitch-black satire.

DON'T ACT DUMB
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 11 min
Director: Mark Sean Haynes
This finely tuned cringe-comedy effectively modulates bursts of genuine suspense as it plays out an adolescent nightmare, wherein an intimidating police officer interrupts the backseat hanky-panky between two inexperienced teenagers.

THE ETERNAL
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 15 min
Director: Daniel Stuyck
A ghostly transmission implores the help of an occult-savvy pizza delivery girl in this krautrock ghost story that packs its chilling trajectory with charming character beats and compelling supernatural mythology.

GIVERTAKER
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 11 min
Director: Paul Gandersman
A petulant teen conducts an ancient ritual to enact petty revenge on those who she believes have wronged her in this slick Austin-shot spook'em-up.

HELP ME FIRST!
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 9 min
Director: Mike Gasaway
Three pursuers of the paranormal make the bold choice to go with a blue night vision filter over a green one, and the terrible decision to investigate an abandoned asylum with a notoriously spooky history.

LIMBO
United States, 2016
Regional Premiere, 8 min
Director: Will Blank
An act of kindness to a supernatural creature affords a man of many regrets with a single wish. A stark but moving adaptation of a graphic novella by Marian Churchland.

THE MAN FROM DEATH
United States, 2016
US Premiere, 13 min
Director: Stephen Reedy
A silly, splatterific symphony of ludicrously action-packed mayhem pivoting around a magically prophetic to-do list and set in an anachronistic old west populated by gunslingers, martial artists and sentient bullets. Bound to confound, astound and cure any frown!

MEMORY BOX
United States, 2016
World Premiere, 11 min
Directors: Audrey Ewell & Aaron Aites
Mackenzie Davis and Shane Carruth star in this understated slice of speculative fiction concerning an actress working at a memory recreation facility whose client pushes her to go further with every session.

SAVASANA
United States, 2016
Austin Premiere, 10 min
Director: Brandon Daley
One man's particularly eventful yoga pose incites a midlife crisis that unravels and resolves over a sublimely deadpan series of deeply hilarious incidents and episodes.

TWISTED
Canada, 2016
US Premiere, 14 min
Director: Jay Cheel
Documentarian Jay Cheel (BEAUTY DAY) parses fact from fiction in this entertaining rumination on a memorable drive-in screening of the 1996 bad-weather blockbuster TWISTER that was interrupted by its namesake.

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