Review by Mari Lynne Rupp
Puzzled
This ten-minute offering by Blood and Guts production is just enough to get your nerves jangled, and set you up for a full-length freaky feature. Directed by STephen Corron, produced by Shane Michaels and Stephen Corron, lonely widow Emily is shown abandoning her television, and meds for completing her beloved puzzles. These puzzles, it seems, have taken place of her life companion which she may have recently lost, judging by the longing looks she gives the empty spot at the dining room table.
After finishing her latest puzzle, a mysterious donor leaves another puzzle at her door, one that Emily has never seen!
Eager to finish, she brings it in to the dining room, and completes it, which gives her a nasty shock and gives the audience a gory surprise. Everything about this film seems authentic. You can almost smell the cedar coming from the old closet Emily rummages through. Madge Levinson does a wonderful job giving Emily her character.
The music through out the short is absolutely charming, up until the moment we realize something is...off...about the puzzle Emily is poring over.
All in all, this short is a great example of doing a lot with a little and is definitely a credit to producers Stephen Corron and Shane Michaels.
Third Degree
This is a short I had the pleasure to catch at its first screening at "Fright Night Film Fest" in Louisville. Produced, written and directed by Joe Lewis, we are first introduced to "Beth" a young woman who wakes with no memory, but bound and gagged in a small, non-descript room. A pair of hands removes Beth's gag, and insists she tell the unknown assailant "everything she remembers", but unfortunately, Beth remembers very little, not even her own name. As the assailant (a woman) tortures memories out of Beth, we the audience are left on edge, and uncomfortable. You never see the face of Beth's captor and torturer, putting us in the unfortunate Beth's position. As Beth, under much duress, remembers and blurts out everything in her nondescript life, we see others, supposedly victims in the same position, in the same way....Near the end the assailant tells Beth her emotions are interesting. Not her...Her emotions.....So we're left wondering, what did she really want?
The information?
Or the emotion of helplessness?
Beth was portrayed by Jo Elswick and the assailant, (who's face I only saw later at the fest!) portrayed by Mr. Lewis' charming wife, Christy, who would've given Mother Firefly a run for her money in creepiness. Give this man a budget, I'd love to see what he comes up with next!
Puzzled 8/10
Third Degree 7/10