[Event Review] Brooklyn Horror Film Fest Short Film Blocks Review - Laugh Now, Die Later

Comedy and horror can be the perfect combination - building up and paying off tension for both scares and laughs. While comedy-horror features are on the rare side, there’s a wealth of short films in the subgenre, and a fantastic selection has been collected in BHFF’s “Laugh Now, Die Later” block. 

Comedy can of course explore some serious themes beneath the jokes, and several of the films here look at the sometimes horrifically absurd pressures of everyday life. 

Mom Vs. Machine explores a strained relationship between a mother and son - he feels stifled, she feels replaced. This has some justification, as he’s bought a 3D replicator that can even cook her signature biryani. It comes down eventually to a physical battle between woman and machine - the robot itself a tremendously uncanny bit of creature design.

The societal pressure to start a family invades the carefree lives of the thirty-something couple in Special Delivery. This takes the specific form of a nightmarish stork; a kind of demonic Big Bird hellbent on getting them to procreate at any cost. The frenetic pace and excellent puppetry give it a genuinely scary feel despite the broad comedy moments. 

Parenting doesn’t look much easier in Meat Friend, which shows a young girl, Billie, getting to know her new friend, who grew from some microwaved hamburger meat. The titular Meat Friend immediately starts schooling Billie on the finer points of prison shivs, “accidents” that can befall enemies, and the true cost of being a snitch. Odd but also oddly entertaining, Meat Friend might cause you to look twice at your burger.

Cruise is a one-room micro-short set in a small, dingy, windowless office. On pain of death, a series of people must convince a stranger over the phone to accept a free cruise - 3 strikes and you’re permanently out. It’s a pleasingly bleak film that will elicit shivers of recognition in anyone that's worked a phone-centric job.

Also tackling the theme of work woes is You Are Trash. A freelancer’s home-working environment becomes overwhelmed by the sheer amount of rubbish he’s accumulated around him. A clean-up mission proved futile when the trash refuses to be binned and turns the tables on its creator. Featuring some convincingly menacing garbage, the film could almost be a traditionally unnerving public service reel. 

One of three retro delights in the block, Wild Bitch features co-directors Kate Nash and Rebekka Johnsonas a harried local reporter and her interview subject, a woman who encountered a coyote in her home.  Scenting a larger story, the reporter agrees to an arduous trek through the woods. The two women clash, bond over shared frustrations, clash again but then reconnect via werewolf-related killing. Wild Bitch is a sharp, fun comedy with great lines and some phenomenally volumatic 80s hair.

The block has something of a double feature of disastrous retro proms, which have gone horribly wrong for very different reasons. In Prom Car ‘91, a teen couple plan to consummate their relationship in what looks to be a Renault Espace. They become accidentally embroiled in a murder spree undertaken by some familiar suspects and embark on a fight for survival. This charming film shows that all you really need to survive both prom night and a small massacre is true love, and some kung fu videotapes. 

Baby Fever takes on some classic teen drama themes - pregnancy, abortion, broken friendships, rivalry, no-good boyfriends - and gives them an outlandish retro horror spin. Donna Hartman is the popular girl in class and a shoo-in for prom queen - until a lunchtime dalliance with her boyfriend Trip gets her pregnant. She’s soon projectile vomiting slushies on her friend and getting the feeling that she’s got something very strange growing inside her. When Donna shows up at the school dance to claim her crown, there ensues a prom revenge frenzy on a par with Carrie White’s but much more bizarre. Baby Fever is an excellently balanced film, with retro flair and a creature (or host of them) that sits perfectly on that horror-comedy border between the grotesque and the strangely adorable

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