Catching Spirits (2022)
Directed & Written by Vanessa Beletic
Starring Destiny Freidin, Brian Drake, & Justin Porter.

12 minutes

★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

There’s something so wonderful about films that are filled with culture, and Catching Spirits feels filled to the brim with Black culture, from all the dancing to the score. The story follows Destiny (Destiny Freidin), a young woman who wants to dance so badly but she’s always been told she has seizures if she dances, so she settles for watching outside a dance studio, admiring one of the dancers who moves beautifully without care. When the man notices her outside one day he invites her in and insists that she let loose on the dance floor. So Destiny gives it a shot, and everybody’s shocked by the results.

“Oh, mama can dance, can she?”

Catching Spirits references Lao Tzu, a legendary Chinese philosopher, with a quote in the beginning of the film: “If spirit were not unified, it would vanish.” The whole film is cloaked in a spirituality that feels like voodoo. Destiny dances in the mirror, or repeats the male dancer’s words until her voice morphs into a deep, possibly demonic tone. At one point, she floats above her bathroom floor while dancing in a trancelike state. When she mentions the so-called seizures to the male dancer, he replies, partly serious: “You sure it‘s not the Holy Ghost?” And on the dance floor, Destiny dances a duet with the man while her eyes go murky, becoming empty sockets. What happens next is, at least somewhat, left up to the viewer decide. Has Destiny cast a spell on everybody? Has she possessed the male dancer, the only person in the dance studio we don’t see again at the end? It’s up to the viewer. Catching Spirits is a fantastic piece of art that is both eerie and beautiful.

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Meadowville (2023)
Directed & Written by Phillip Clark Davis
Starring Sam Skolnik, Madeleine Burt, Jenn Booth, & Charley Rossman.

16 minutes

★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

Meadowville follows a photographer who ends up staying at a farmhouse when he has to make a pit stop in a small town. He’s invited into the farmhouse warmly by a man and woman living there. At nighttime, the man’s stay gets a little more unsettling. He has weird dreams involving a burning house and queasy eroticism. Later when the photographer gets back home he makes a discovery about the farmhouse and the town it’s in that shocks him to his core.

“This is the Bermuda Triangle of the Rockies.”

This wasn’t one of my favourite shorts at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival this year, yet Meadowville has one important element that makes it worthy of being part of this coverage: a sustained atmosphere and aesthetic that keeps the viewer on edge. Occasionally, Meadowville feels like a photograph, or a series of them, especially with shots of the farmhouse and later of the fire. There are also snapshots of what feel like memories. The aesthetic of photography almost plays into an overarching theme of memory, or of the past. And it’s only after the photographs are developed later when the photographer realises he’s back to reality. He sees only a burned farmhouse where he previously saw a beautiful home; the home he stayed in. He comes to find that Meadowville is a ghost town. There’s a wonderful statement within this short about photography and memory, but the plot doesn’t dig into it enough for it to feel complete (“Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore” could’ve been used to a greater extent since it has origins in slavery). Still, Meadowville‘s aesthetic and atmosphere will drag the viewer along, regardless of how they feel about the plot and story.

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The Influencer (2023)
Directed & Written by Lael Rogers
Starring Bria Condon, Laura Hetherington, Mackenzie Wynn, Deisy Patiño, & Peter McNally.

9 minutes

★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

The Influencer is about a young influencer who’s taking time out of her day to answer questions in a livestream. While she gives her cliche answers to her followers, we’re given a look at what she really gets up to with her coven of friends. A young man goes partying with the influencer and her friends but ends up in a terrible position once the party’s over. That doesn’t change the influencer’s life. She goes on smiling, selling products, and conjuring more online magic through her ghostly ring light.

“You all give me life.”

This short is a whole lot of fun. To say too much would really ruin it, but I do love the way Lael Rogers intertwines online popularity with a sense of witchcraft, as the eponymous influencer captures the hearts and EYES of her followers in a deeply horror film way. One gruesome bit at the end features what looks like a really excellent practical effect, too. The tongue-in-cheek nature of The Influencer is what sells it hardest. Horror is such a great tool of critique, and Rogers really gets at the darkness of online popularity in a unique way through a tale of witchy power. You want to LOL at the end, as the influencer eases back into the livestream questioning like it’s a regular ole day. Simultaneously, despite this story being fiction, it leaves you curious about how all these social media influencers are really drawing people into their brand and if some dark hypnotism is involved.