The Stranger With My Face Film Festival is an annual festival in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia celebrating female directors working in horror and related genres hoping to highlight bold new work by independent filmmakers. Now, we're going to take a look at the short films that were screened at the 2017 version of the festival.
The Man Who Caught a Mermaid (2015)
Directed by: Kaitlin Tinker
This fifteen-minute effort, about an elderly fisherman who managed to score the ultimate trophy, is quite an intriguing offering. Continuing to expand upon Australia's cultural fascination about mermaids, the scenes of him out on the docks with his rod-and-reel or in the shed with the captive creature and his attempts to keep it sedated enough not to alarm others of its presence, speak nicely to their beliefs regarding their existence and how the creatures' existence is just a fact of life more than the general shock about the legends being true. With some nice touches of comedy sprinkled in here, some nice make-up effects on the creature and a solid twist, this one proves rather enjoyable overall.
What Happened to Her (2015)
Directed by: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
An absolutely engaging feature, this half-mockumentary, half-expose on the plight of actresses who appear in cameos as dead bodies on TV shows and movies, is a thoroughly engrossing look at how exploitative the who endeavor really appears to be. Featuring plenty of quick-shot stock footage from crime-docs and investigative shows while having a narration that makes it read like what the experience to play that part would really be like, the continual forcing upon the viewer images of the mutilation that occurs on dead bodies in the media makes for a rather uncomfortable experience as the scenes get far more gruesome and disturbing, all the while the narration focusing on the work done in real life to look like that adds to the harrowing nature of it all. This was quite a disturbing effort.
Pendulum (2017)
Directed by: Lauren Cooney
By far the longest of the shorts here, this effort showcases how a teen in India copes with the end of the world also ends up being one of the few disappointments. Despite an intriguing premise and an absolutely stellar look into the typical reactions most would have in that situation, this is still a rather dull experience as it features the friends mostly just acting crazy in the jungle on the way out of the city or how their lives have changed once they make the journey. Being visually striking and having plenty of well-shot scenes doesn't hide the fact that there's no real point to anything here and nothing is ever really explained in the end so it ends up being an exceptionally beautiful-looking nothingness even with those other positives.
Gardening at Night (2016)
Directed by: Shayna Connelly
A briefer entry, about a dying woman who finds the resolve to fight through by planting a garden at night, is again another rather bland effort. Despite the strong central performance here as she really manages to effectively convey the stress of the situation dealt her, there's just not a whole lot really going on here. The gardening scenes are done at night which makes them pretty hard to see, her hallucinations to the past at the swimming pool don't make any real sense in the context of what's happening and while there are some eerie shots throughout here when it tried to, overall there's not a whole lot to this one.
Blood Sisters (2017)
Directed by: Caitlin Koller, Lachlan Smith
Another brief short, with two sisters who dabble in light black magic which has bloody consequences, was a far more effective entry. That this one goes for the typical cliche set-up of the best friends who unknowingly conjure up far darker forces than they expected after engaging in a light round of black magic party games, turns rather fun as the situation gradually turns worse with the incorporation of some rather gruesome occurrences and some nice touches of comedy sprinkled in as well as a nice twist at the end makes this a rather fun and simplistic piece.
Mouse (2016)
Directed by: Celine Held, Logan George
A rather intriguing offering, about a drugged-out couple believing that they can scam the institution after a horrifying experience, instead falls apart rather quickly. While the situation itself is rather creepy and chilling, the couples' decision-making skills in this one which is so backward and wrong if they're attempting to get away with their plan which really does lower this one. Otherwise, there's not much else to this one as it's quite enjoyable beyond their constantly wrong rationale.
Doll (2017)
Directed by: Jia He
One of the standout offerings, where a woman working in a house finds that a nesting doll harbors evil spirits, ends up being exceptionally creepy and chilling. Not only exploiting the concept of the evil doll which is a fun concept on its own, the fact that it utilizes plenty of solid suspense tactics here in such a short amount of time is a great outcome for this one, making it seem like the perfect opening pre-credit sequence to a proper film. Being fast and quite chilling, this one is a definite highlight even with its brevity highlighting some cliched moments.
Hi Stranger (2016)
Directed by: Kirsten Lepore
The overall shortest effort, where a claymation figurine speaks directly to the audience, offers quite an interesting thoughts and ideas that is lost in the fact that you're watching a claymation figure, and that makes this quite intriguing more than anything.
So, overall this one brings together a really enjoyable and varied set of features which offered quite a lot to enjoy overall.
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