DISCLAIMER:
The following reviews
contain SPOILERS!

Boyhoarder (2022)
Directed by Gabbi Carrubba
Screenplay by Tabitha Ashura & Gabriel Barreto
Starring Alexis Molnar, Liza Anne, Sky Lakota-Lynch, & Sean Harrison Jones.

13 minutes

★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

Gabbi Carrubba’s Boyhoarder is a refreshing punk rock smack in the face. The title comes from the band in the film, Boyhoarder, led by Alex (Alexis Molnar), who pretends to murder her fellow male band members each night onstage. It’s just art! Problem is, somebody’s out there calling herself Ammonia (Liza Anne), named after one of Boyhoarder’s violent songs, who’s been killing men. Alex just wants to play music, but soon, Ammonia is right on her doorstep looking for recognition.

“The lyrics, they really speak to me.”

Boyhoarder is just fucking cool. Say no more. But I must say more, so, I have to love an opening reference to the SCUM Manifesto, a radical feminist manifesto from 1967 by Valerie Solanas—the woman who, a year later in 1968, tried to kill Andy Warhol. The acronym SCUM, to many, means Society for Cutting Up Men (though Solanas herself denied it). Boyhoarder takes Society for Cutting Up Men to a whole other literal level, as Ammonia slashes her way towards Alex. Once Ammonia meets Alex, there’s a whole lot more cutting, though probably not exactly what you’re expecting. This little film is punk rock to the core, and I absolutely adore every second of it.

---

Smothered (2023)
Directed by Heather Luscombe
Screenplay by Shannon Sullivan
Starring Shannon Sullivan & Travis Albano

8 minutes

★★1/2 (out of ★★★★★)

In some short films, there’s not a whole lot going on, yet they’re elevated by how a director approaches the subject, and in other shorts, like Smothered, there’s not a whole lot going on and nothing in terms of direction stands out much above the rest, unfortunately. Heather Luscombe’s Smothered, written by one of the leads, Shannon Sullivan, is about Dani (Sullivan) and Slim (Travis Albano), a couple splitting up but trying to keep things civil. Shannon’s had enough of Slim’s attitude, telling him he’s a “fucking infection” and that their relationship wasn’t love, it was “a con.” At the same time, she tells him: “You still have this bullshit magic thing over me.” They can’t help but fall into bed together, at least once more. Therein lies their messiest problem.

While I didn’t love Smothered, I do love the end, from the surprising macabre finish to the reaction of Sullivan’s Dani as she looks up into the camera, breaking the fourth wall to register her terrified surprise at what’s just happened. The end’s not entirely worth the build, yet I do love that last moment enough that I’d sit through this again. Sometimes a short film, no matter how literally short in length, just needs… je ne sais quoi, something more… to make it rise above the rest of the pack. That being said, I still included Smothered here because its finale is more memorable than even some generally better short films out there.

---

Leaving Yellowstone (2023)
Directed by Kayla Arend
Screenplay by Kayla Arend & Trent Olsen
Starring Angela Wong Carbone & Sean Ricciardi

23 minutes

★★★★1/2 (out of ★★★★★)

Leaving Yellowstone depicts a couple headed to an isolated cabin for a romantic getaway. Tessa (Angela Wong Carbone) is thrilled to see Yellowstone National Park with her new beau Mark (Sean Ricciardi). Things go fine until the evening when Tessa and Mark are in bed. She starts to notice an unusual aggression in Mark. She then stumbles onto horrific secrets about Mark and his uncle’s cabin. Tessa initially anticipated a wonderful weekend, but starts to accept the gruesome reality before her and faces the possibility of never making it back home alive.

The slow build up to the reveal of Mark’s terror is anxiety in distilled form. Anybody can put themselves in the place of Tessa, imagining what it’d be like to find out something horrifying about someone they love, however, women will no doubt find Leaving Yellowstone more chilling because of their own unsettling experiences with dangerous men. Tessa starts to see red flags when her and Mark are in bed and he reacts angrily after she tells him to stop being rough with her. But there’s no way she’d be able to anticipate her next discovery of bloody photographs featuring women’s corpses. The ending is beautiful in a horror film way, after Tessa has fought the beastly Mark and made it away. She looks up and sees a mountain lion. She doesn’t move, nor does the mountain lion move. They just stare at each other, a look of recognition—they’re both survivors of the wilderness and its brutality—then the lion walks on again. Leaving Yellowstone is a dreadful experience, and that’s a compliment when it comes to horror. This short is a long one, but it uses every sliver of its time to create an atmosphere of unrelenting dread that pays off big time.