Honourable Mentions: The Code

Directed by Mark Blitch and a multiple winner at the 2011 Splatterfest short film festival, the Code is one of those rare beasts – a very short, short that manages to get all it needs into its approximately 5 minute running time. It does this by playing with genre tropes in a familiar and yet, at the same time, refreshing way.

It begins with a night time date, Vanna (Tamara Voss) and Chad (Daylon Walton) have laid the blanket on the ground and are sipping wine. She’s never dated a porn star before and he’s never dated… well he can’t actually remember what she does but their date is about to be heinously disturbed by… zombies.

zombies

Any hope of escape is cut off because, from the opposite direction comes a masked killer with a gardening tool. Unfortunately they aren’t both meant to be there and zombie leader Shaun (Taylor James Brandt) reminds masked killer Carl (Todd Terry) that they were meant to swap killing days – an event Carl was convinced was due the next week.

Neil the vampire

Neil (Ben Cody Rogers), a vampire, appears – though it seems he is generally disliked by the zombies. He confirms that, having been at the meeting, he thought the swap was in a week’s time. Well, when all else fails they need to turn to The Killing Code – rules by which to slaughter… Of course they might have forgotten about a certain trope concerning blonde girls out at night…

This was great fun – though Neil is a minor part of a very short film, he was still part of it, hence the honourable mention. By the time bigfoot comes along, and we see the gorilla costume used for the creature, we couldn’t care because we are sucked in to the film and the costume faux pas is a deliberate part of the movies this film skits with a knowing and genuine smile. You can catch the film on Funny or Die, its Facebook page is here and the IMDb page is here.