This is a 19-minute short, first released in 2021 and currently doing the festival circuit. In fact, it was due to the occasion of it being featured in the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival that director Joe Badon contacted me and asked whether I wanted to run something based on the film. A quick look at the trailer and I picked up on a vampiric element.
The film itself is a surreal, and in places disturbing, montage of imagery and concepts that serves as a prequel to an upcoming Badon project entitled the Wheel of Heaven, and this film is bookended with, at the head, the director being asked what his film is about and talking, at the end, with an actress about her character.
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| opening |
Following the opening question, the film uses plastic dinosaurs to recreate their extinction event before we go to the public broadcasting service kid’s show “Uncle Bobbo’s Christmas Kwanzaa Happy Hanukah Winter Solstice Annual Sacrifice Holiday Special!” Uncle Bobbo (Vincent Stalba) is truly disturbing and played to perfection by Stalba. But the strangeness does not end with the show and there are so many wtf moments but the viewer is drawn in despite it all.
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| Grandpa Univerese |
So, why inclusion here. When Uncle Bobbo is explaining what oil is and how we suck it out of the ground, offering the creepiest sucking sound since… well ever… we get the appearance of a puppet character called Grandpa Universe (John Davis), whose form is based on Count Orlok. He appears for a short period (reappearing again later, just for a moment) and it is the fleeting visitation that has lead to this honourable mention. Overall, Joe Baddon has managed to create something unique and truly uncanny and it is worth a watch if you can get to see it. The imdb page is here.
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