Mystery Horror Theater with Leif and Dubs Episode IV: A New Hope
It has been a hot minute since myself or Dubya has tried to scare the piss out of everyone with spooky tales and gore galore. The good news? You should have had plenty of time to get your soiled pants clean from the last time. As always, I believe I’m got some jarring, scarring, and downright memorable tales for you. Friends, welcome once more to the Mystery Horror Theater.
The Offering
The first, uh, offering this week is award winning short The Offering. There are so many damn awards for these kinds of thing that I couldn’t tell you which one it is or what it means, but I can tell you that A.) It sounds damn good as opener, and B.) It doesn’t matter because The Offering is a damn fine short regardless of what possibly made up awards it has won. The short begins with a father and son driving down frozen, wooded road in the middle of the night, their destination unknown. Things start to get a bit eerie when they begin arguing about forgetting “the meat” and once they arrive at their intended destination things only continue to escalate, especially once the thing that wants the meat arrives. The Offering isn’t terrifying, per se, but it does offer up a great atmosphere and a chilling display of human cruelty.
SHE
This next one, SHE, is a rough one. I think it’s generally assumed that these are NSFW, but I’d like to warn you that this one is EXTRA NSFW. Hell, I squirmed so much watching it that I might not even consider safe for home. SHE stars Fiona Dourif, daughter of long time horror hound Brad Dourif, as a woman who is in an abusive relationship with a dark haired clone of Deafheaven’s George Clarke. Needless to say, she winds up getting revenge in the most brutal and graphic of ways. SHE uses silence to great affect as the lack of dialogue only intensifies the scenes of abuse and serves to make her significant other appear that much more insolent. Between the subject matter and the watch-through-your-fingers finale, this film is easily the most unsettling of the group. Oh, and major props for the foreshadowing with the carrot.
Killer Kart
Everybody still here after that one? Okay, good. How about a little levity after such brutality? Our comic relief comes in the form of Killer Kart, a short film about, you guessed it, killer shopping carts. The entire thing is framed as an 80’s slasher film where the night crew of a small super market are terrorized by the very things placed within for consumer convenience. You may be asking yourself “Why are shopping carts killing people? That’s stupid.” Well Mr. or Ms. Know-It-All, it’s because shopping carts are sick of your bullshit and if you can’t see that then you’re part of the problem. I hope they get you first you inconsiderate bastard.
That’s all for this entry, folks! Please remember to treat all family members, women and shopping carts with respect or else you will die.
