[REVIEW] WE ARE THE WEIRDOS - SHORT FILMS PART 2 • DIS/MEMBER

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THE LADY FROM 406
(Dir. Lee Kyoung-mi) South Korea

“Hello. How do you do? I’m your neighbor from 406.”

The Lady From 406 features a woman who is going mental because she thinks her downstairs neighbor is smoking. It’s coming through the ventilation, and it’s, in turn, having her fall apart at the seems. However, when she confronts the woman, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Lady From 406 was such a mind-bending and unexpected experience. It starts off so normally and subtle. You almost expect it not to be a horror film because it’s just a normal domestic situation. The neighbors from downstairs open the door, and once they do, you go on a trip with incredible perception shifts as you figure out what the story truly is. The Lady From 406 tells the story of grief and the unexpected ways of dealing it. It’s acted beautifully and softly, but still gives you shivers as you watch.

#EATPRETTY
(Dir. Rebecca Culverhouse) UK

Anna lives her life as a product photography. She captures moments that people find beautiful. With stilled images, we get a glimpse into her mind and what she does to make everything perfect. #EATPRETTY captures something that we see a lot of in our social media-obsessed world: some people strive to be perfect. They strive to capture perfection in images and the desired lifestyle that is great only in photos. Behind the door, these things can be dangerous to your physical and mental health and the relationships around you. It’s not only about that. It’s also about being hungry to achieve that perfection as well. #EATPRETTY is gorgeous in its curation with still images that really show the lifestyle desire but leaves you with an unbelievably uncomfortable feeling throughout that really lays down what this short is about.

Goodnight
(Dir. Diane Michelle) USA

“Billy.” “Who’s Billy babe?” “The man who sleeps under my bed.”

BILLY is the MAN who LIVES UNDER MY BED….

After putting her daughter to bed, a mother starts to become frightened when she thinks she hears someone upstairs in her daughter’s bedroom. First off, Goodnight is all types of fucking no, but goddamn was it done well. The tone was so gut-wrenchingly creepy, not because of the fact that this little girl might have someone underneath her bed, but because of something way worse. Billy isn’t only the monster that lives under her bed; he’s the monster that’s in her life as well. The fact that the monster consumes her mum just to get to her is downright horrifying. You’ll immediately need to watch something wholesome after this. However, the effective storytelling of this film is designed to make you uncomfortable and want to protect this little girl from her monsters so much.

Hair Wolf
(Dir. Mariama Diallo) USA

“There’s something fucking strange in the neighborhood…”

This one feels like an exploitation film at its finest, but with high production and beautiful cinematography to match a brilliant story of taken culture. Hair Wolf is about a black hair salon that gets overrun by the enemy: white women who want to suck the life out of black culture. Hair Wolf was like Get Out mixed with Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It was a combination of two things that just work so well together that end up mixing a clever story.

Mariama Diallo tells a story of what it’s like for your culture to be taken away from you. The story of black women trying to still be who they are is so great within this short film. However, as much as I loved this story, the ideas expressed were a little outdated in its thinking, especially when the white girl comes in and steals the black guy away from her? It rubbed me the wrong way as someone who’s been in interracial relationships. The narrow ways of thinking about it and some of the aspects really bothered me. However, it’s still a great story with so much to say, especially in the realm of being proud of your race and who you are.

Each of these short films will be shown during the Final Girls UK event We Are The Weirdos, which serves to showcase international women in horror. This is the second We Are The Weirdos tour, and a full list of dates and venues can be found here.