Short Film: The Witch’s Bargain

The Witch’s Bargain is a short film that was the featurette on week 1 of the 2021 Killer Valley Horror Film Festival. Running since 2007, it was a new one on me but running online and featuring horror shorts it was well worth checking out.

The film itself was around 30 minutes and focuses on Scarah, Damsel of the Doomed (Sarah Webb) – the witch of the title. Scarah is a character developed as a horror host, from what I can gather, for HorrorWeb Productions and there are a series of 5 fact videos, looking at various horror films, entitled Tub of Terror in which Scarah presents from her bubble bath filled tub.

at mother's grave

This is a professionally drawn short and sees Scarah visiting her mother’s grave. Mom died without finding what she always wanted, a spell of longevity. Scarah is determined to find the spell for herself and knows where to start – her mother's old grimoire. Mother hid it, when Scarah was a child (we see this in flashback) and so Scarah knows where it is. She digs the occult tome up.

Chance Jones as the demon

Following this she performs a ritual, from the grimoire, to summon a demon – Barbas (Chance Jones); she has a specific (and convoluted type of) virgin’s blood to trade for the spell. Barbas informs her that there is no such spell, he does however give her a way to achieve her desire – handing her a map and a key in exchange for the blood.

Corey Trahan as Orlock

Following the map Scarah gets to a castle and once within and having explored for a short while she finds a coffin, beyond a door with a large bat motif on it. The coffin is empty but we have seen a creature, shall we say rather Nosferatu like and called Orlock (Corey Trahan), following her silently… What will happen? For the answer to that you’ll have to see the short. However it was impressively shot for an indie piece and Sarah Webb carried the short with confidence – being the primary focus throughout (with the exception of the flashback scene).

The imdb page is here.

from the micro-short

Bonus Bit: As well as showing shorts the KVHFF also added micro-shorts into the running time of the festival. One saw a soldier, during a battle, take shelter in some sort of barn. A vampire is in there, feeding on another soldier and turns his attention to the first. And that is it. Blink and you miss it, with no name for the micro-short, nor credits to report, I thought I’d mention it here as it was on the same block of films as The Witch’s Bargain.