short films

I haven't seen alot of them, I'm afraid. And I probably remember even less. And some of them will have been animated, so I dunno if I should even put them on this page.

Let's begin...


Dark Tales of Japan
IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes

Actually I get the impression this IMDb link is for a larger collection called "Tales of Terror"... I don't know, the user comments mention 8 stories, but the actual credits only seem to list the five that are on the DVD I watched. And I'm afraid I can't find any other links for this. Anyway, I don't think any of the stories were terribly scary, but I guess they were interesting.

In the first one, The Spiderwoman (Kumo Onna), a couple of reporters for a magazine investigate an urban legend about a woman who turns into a... spiderwoman... at night, and attacks people. Can't think of anything really to say about that. Then there was Crevices (Sukima), in which the manager of an apartment building or whatever has called the friend of an occupant who's been missing for a few months. And so the guy finds a video of his friend, who had taped up all the crevices in the place, and was freaking out about being watched or whatever. And he disappears, but the video doesn't show exactly what happened. And then the same thing happens to his friend, and while we still don't see much, at least we see a bit more of what was going on. It's weird.

The third story is The Sacrifice (Onamakubi), and I liked this better than the first two. A woman had turned down this guy at work who had asked her out. And she and another coworker talked about another woman who had turned him down some time before, and then stopped showing up for work. And the rumor was that the guy had cursed her. Anyway, now weird stuff starts happening to this woman who's just recently rejected him. And then her mother falls ill, so she goes to see her mother and father for awhile. And there's a story about how when this woman was a girl, her mother had been sick and then got better, and her grandmother died that night, apparently sacrificing her life for her daughter's. And now it seems the mother is doing the same thing for her own daughter that the grandmother had done for her. To fight off the curse from this coworker. Can't really explain any more than that, but it was probably my favorite of the five stories.

The fourth story is Blonde Kwaidan (the Japanese title is "Kinpatsu Kaidan," I couldn't tell you why the English title is only half translated, I feel it should be "Blonde Ghost Story"). This is the one I liked the least. Some Japanese guy is visiting California. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, I think he's house sitting for an executive director of the company he works for, I'm not really clear on that. But the guy who owns the house is apparently on vacation with his wife (a blonde woman, I take it), and the guy who's staying in the house has a thing for blondes. And um... nothing much happens. The viewer can sort of see that someone has passed by another room while the man is in bed, but it doesn't seem like he could have seen anything, though perhaps he sensed it. Later he has what seems to be a dream of a woman's foot rubbing his in bed, then he wakes up. Then he gets a phone call that the executive director has killed himself. So he's going to leave for a hotel instead of staying in the house, but... you know, weird, creepy blonde ghostly stuff happens.

The last story is Presentiment (Yokan), which is probably my second favorite story. A man is supposed to go on vacation with his wife and daughter, but instead he steals valuable information from his company, and he's going to meet a mistress, apparently, who is threatening to kill herself if he's not there by the time the last train leaves, or whatever. But he can't make it in time, because he gets stuck in an elevator with three other people... who may not really be there. One certainly gets the sense that he can see and talk with them because he's about to die. When he finally starts figuring things out, he gets really freaked. And I won't say how it ends, but it's interesting.

And that's about it. Not sure what else to say. Also not sure I feel the need to ever watch any of this again, though maybe someday I wouldn't mind rewatching "The Sacrifice" and "Presentiment." Or not. It isn't really important. I'm glad to have seen this stuff once, anyway.

Little Red Riding Hood
IMDb; Movie Tome; Wikipedia

This was in black & white. It starred Christina Ricci, who is one of our very most favorite actresses. It was a very bizarre, freaky, sort of kinky version of the classic story. I liked it. Dunno what else to tell you. I should watch it again sometime so I can describe it in more detail.

Wallace & Gromit (claymation)


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