Connect with us

News

Horror Short Film Review: ‘Post Mortem Mary’ is a Snapshot of Young Fear

Published

on

Written and directed by Joshua Long, Australian horror short Post Mortem Mary has been creeping through film festivals all over the world – including Australia, Mexico, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Norway, Romania, Korea, Scotland, England, and several festivals across America. Clearly, Mary is not one to settle, and it’s paid off.

Post Mortem Mary has nabbed awards for Best Foreign Short Film at Atlanta Film Fest and Idaho Horror Film Fest, and Best Short Film at the prestigious Sitges Film Festival in Spain.

The short is a crawling gothic horror set in 1840’s Australia. We follow young Mary (Stella Charrington) and her mother (Melanie Zanetti) who run a post-mortem photography business together. Mary is – naturally – a bit uneasy around the recently deceased, much to the frustration of her mother.

Their work brings them to a small farmhouse where they meet the devastated mother of their newest subject. As they prepare, Mary’s mother must step outside to comfort her – inconsolable in her grief – leaving Mary alone to confront her fears and get the job done. Mary must do all she can to make the very dead daughter look alive.

via Screamfest Film Festival

Clocking in at just over 9 minutes, the short uses the stillness that’s naturally found in this small, rural setting to slowly build tension. It’s the type of fear that sneaks up on you and squeezes tight.

A driving force in this tension is the string-heavy score by Jesse Breckon-Thomas. The low, humming bass pulls the action forward as frantic, pricking violins push the audience back. It’s a powerful dance that flows well with the cinematography by Ben Nott (Winchester, Jigsaw, Daybreakers).

Post Mortem Mary is shot from the eyeline of its young star, bringing the audience down to her level in order for us to connect with her fear. Mary’s role is one of passive reaction; as a child (on a job, no less), she’s stuck without any real agency. She only has one line of dialogue – a line of fearful protest.

Long plays on that idea of our childhood fears and how they can seem to be justified, even when they’re completely irrational. But unlike a monster under the bed, Mary has good reason to be terrified. She’s working alone with a dead body, which itself is a scary situation, though logically she’s perfectly safe (though anyone who has ever watched a horror movie will recognize that that’s not necessarily true).

via Adelaide Film Festival

Along with the musical score, sound effects play a memorable role when combined with the FX work by Chad Atkinson (Hostel: Part II, Planet Terror, Emmy Award winner for The Pacific). The special makeup effects are so subtle that they blend right in to look – and sound – completely natural.

We’re quite fond of short horror films here at iHorror. A well-made horror short is the perfect appetizer for the full course of a feature; they’re an excellent way to set the tone. A theatre in Brisbane played Post Mortem Mary before a screening of Hereditary, which  – thematically speaking – is a fantastic pairing.

So in that vein, think of this as a “level up” for your movie marathon nights. Before you watch your frightening feature, pre-game with a scary short film that fits the mood. And if you’ve got the chance to see it, Post Mortem Mary is definitely one we’d recommend.

Post Mortem Mary will screen next at the Terror Molins Film Festival in Spain. For additional screenings, you can keep an eye on their Facebook page. You can view the trailer and poster below.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

on

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

on

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

on

Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading