Saturday, February 17, 2007

Honourable Mentions: the short films of Rebecca Groves

If you pop over to The Fright Site, you’ll find three independent short movies by Rebecca Groves, all three with a vampire theme and all three available for free in either windows media or quicktime format.


In “Fangs Very Much”, dentist Dr Newman (Elliot Beimel) is called to his office for an emergency appointment. Evelyn (Amy McClanahan) has been having dreams of a hairy, smelly man visiting her at night and biting her neck. After the last dream she slept through the day and when she awoke she discovered she had fangs and couldn’t close her mouth. Dr Newman recognises it as a rare dental condition, but is it…


In “Kiss of the Vampire”, Amy McClanahan plays a woman who lives alone with her dog. The dog is barking at the door and then she realises that someone is in the house. She turns off the lights and hides in a closet but he says he can see in the dark…

In “Don’t invite him in”, college girl Donna (Sarah Kenoyer) is talking to a chat room contact who calls himself Count On and Off (Adam Groves). She tells her friend Jane (Kimberly Pidd) that he claims to be a real vampire and wants her address and an invitation to enter. The lights go off and a vampire drops from within a cupboard, but it is a sorority haze by Leona (Amy McClanahan) and her friend (Sarah Therrio). To get revenge Donna gives him Leona’s name and address.


With this short I want to spoil things a little as I thought it very clever. The Count claims he lives in cyberspace and after Donna gives the address he types you forgot to invite me in. She does so and he emerges from the computer screen to get her – why he needed the address then was unclear and was probably down to mind games and making her think he was just a regular, obsessed person.

These are low budget, independent shorts but you’ve got to appreciate the effort put in and the fact that they are available for free. I have to say that, whilst the twist in “Kiss of the Vampire” was obvious, the twists in the other two were nicely done and put some films available to buy to shame.

Definitely worth your time for a quick look-see.

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