Peekers

I don't really like to think about Peekers. It's the stuff of nightmares and it makes me afraid to interact with stairs and doorways. It's also funny, and it has a great initial hook, but its chief achievement is headmess. I'm not convinced that the latter half of the film lives up to the first (possibly more a failing of the original short story than the film), but it doesn't have to; by the time the pudding is over-egged, the damage is done.

Director Mark Steensland's The Ugly File is apparently showing at DbD 2009, and it sounds... unsettling.

Watch Peekers online

IMDb entry

Carlitopolis and Far West

Far be it from me to drone on about comparisons between the work of Luis Nieto and Winsor McCay's groundbreaking Gertie the Dinosaur from 1914, so I won't. Carlitopolis and Far West are both performance pieces, very clever and very funny and probably best seen live but still very effective on the screen. Carlitopolis is the real showcase but Far West leads up to its money shot with remorseless efficiency; you have just enough time to figure out what's about to happen and start hoping that it won't, and then it does.

If you enjoy fun you can have hours of it poking around Nieto's official site, horrible Flash-based monstrosity though it is.

• Watch Carlitopolis on YouTube
• Watch Far West on YouTube

Nose Hair

Nose Hair is a great little film but searching for it as a title on YouTube is not for the faint-hearted. There's not much I can say about Nose Hair without spoiling its impact, but as it's only 3 minutes in length it would take you longer to think about whether or not to watch it than it would to actually watch it, and in fact you could have watched it twice over in the time its taken you to stumble through this appallingly constructed and seemingly endless sentence. Also, check out James Sharpe's other films via his YouTube profile in the link below.

• Watch Nose Hair online, it'll shut me up
• IMDb entry

Mime Massacre

Mime Massacre is one of those films where the title pretty much tells the whole story, like... well, I suppose that's quite a rare trait. But it isn't detrimental, because the glory of Mime Massacre lies in its execution, and I choose my words very carefully for once. Here you will see mimes massacred. If that doesn't appeal to you then I don't know what else to say. This was a big hit at DbD 2007; it's a crowd-pleaser. The director, Colin Decker, is a busy stunt/sfx guy, and his experience in both areas pays off here.

Online, you have a choice. It's on YouTube, and there's also a download on the official site that will cost you a couple of American dollars if you'd like to support the mime-killing arts.

• Official site (with download)
• Watch Mime Massacre on YouTube
• IMDb entry

Hollow

Not so many laughs, by which I mean no laughs at all, in my favourite short from 2008; Paul Bickel's Hollow is haunting, harrowing and heartbreaking, to use but 25% of the words I know beginning with H.

Features Anya from Buffy on the offchance that blows your kilt up. All misplaced levity aside, Hollow is a punch to the gut and it still hurts a year later.

• IMDb entry
• Official site
• Watch Hollow online

The Fifth

Kicking off with my favourite short film from Dead By Dawn 2007, Ryan Levin's The Fifth. This is a killer short that I was delighted to find (officially) online after a year or so of recommending it to people who had no chance of seeing it. Sharply written with some great gags and a fine mix of under/overplayed performances, it makes me very keen to see Levin's 5-minute writer/director follow-up, Tour De Fright, which also features Robert Beckwith and Sam Lloyd from The Fifth (Levin, Beckwith & Lloyd are also Scrubs veterans).

• IMDb entry
• Watch The Fifth online

Mission Statement

Zombie Finger Puppets! by Archie McPhee Seattle: CC 2.0

Hello! Dead By Dawn Shorts is an attempt to blog up the many varied and wonderful short films submitted to Edinburgh's annual Dead By Dawn film festival, with links to view them online where available.

Dead By Dawn's What You Make it and Cutting Edge short film competitions attract some fine talent, and it's great when you can get back full of enthusiasm and suggestions and send people to an online version rather than tease them with a glowing review of something they'll probably never get to see.

With DbD 2009 a couple of weeks away my goal is to get the cream of the last two years' festivals (the ones I've attended) up before the next batch arrives. When 2009's shorts have been dealt with I'll start to dig into the earlier years, which will be new to me and no doubt full of hideous delights.

If you're a DbD veteran feel free to suggest earlier classics. If you'r a relative virgin like me, chip in with your own favourites from recent years. And in both cases I'll hopefully see you at the end of April for the next round.