FEWDIO Horror: Door 17

Honestly, I’m usually not a fan of erotic horror. Most of it is just rape fantasy. Maybe it’s a monster committing the rape. Maybe it’s a rape-and-revenge. Maybe it’s nothing but last year’s news with the names changed.

While Door 17 easily fits the category of erotic horror, the easy scare of depicting a sexual assault is avoided. A man visits a peep show and begins to negotiate with the performer about how much he gets to see. Since it’s a Fewdio film, he obviously gets far more than he paid for.

The finale was a nice twist ending with only one reservation. Personally, I would have found the video more disturbing if the supernatural element had been removed. It is, unfortunately, completely believable that people would do this sort of thing to one another and enjoy it.

You can check it out on Youtube. And if you want to support the people who make these films, consider picking up the DVD collection, Nightmare House.

FEWDIO Horror: Anniversary

Inevitably, as the films go on, they start to get longer. The characters aren’t quite so generic. The shock-scare or twist ending isn’t enough for the creators. They’ve learned the basic riffs of horror and want to tell more complex stories.

To be sure, six minutes is still a brief time to establish characters, background and escalation; but “Anniversary” is still twice as long as the longest episode to precede it. Arguably, some of the first minute or two (where our heroine is getting ready for her anniversary date) might have been trimmed; but there’s still that slow build. You can tell that something horrible is going to happen; but your first two guesses are likely going to be wrong. It’s a surprise ending that reveals character. And the image of her walking towards the tree at the four-minute mark conveyed character just in the way her back was bent and her feet were clomping on the ground.

You can check it out on Youtube or Fewdio. And if you want to support the people who make these films, consider picking up the DVD collection, Nightmare House.

FEWDIO Horror: The Laundromat

Honestly, if you watch this one first, you probably wouldn’t even get it. The Fewdio videos don’t actually have a continuity. It’s not like characters from one video appear in another. But there is a sort of mood that gets set from watching a string of them in a row.

And that’s why "Laundromat" works better if you’ve watched the earlier episodes before it. The suspense from these episodes comes partially from the fact that we know we’re watching a horror film, so we expect bad things to happen. This one has one of those surprise (not jump-scare, but one-eighty turn) endings that peek through from time to time. The look on Tom Proctor’s face in the final shot is just perfect.

You can check it out on Youtube. And if you want to support the people who make these films, consider picking up the DVD collection, Nightmare House.

FEWDIO Horror: Viral

This one actually has a bit more plot than the earlier ones; but it’s still sparse enough that it doesn’t get in the way of scaring you. Really, one after the next, the Fewdio videos are just great object lessons in how to present just enough plot to get the story moving without bogging us down in background trivia.

There’s a photograph of a killer called Albert the Carnivore. How many people did he kill? What did he say at his trial? What city did he live in? What are the names of the two men talking about him? It doesn’t matter. You get all the information you need to follow along. As with a lot of the Fewdio films, the title gives a clue to what’s going on.

You can check it out on Youtube or Fewdio. And if you want to support the people who make these films, consider picking up the DVD collection, Nightmare House.

In Defense of Red Sonja, Part I

I've posted the first of a three-part overview on the origin of Red Sonja on Black Gate. Check it out and let me know what you think.

FEWDIO Horror: Bedfellows

Another quiet piece with a jolt-scare ending. Normally, I like the monsters to stay concealed, showing only enough of themselves to let you know that they’re there. But the face in this one is so primal that the story would actually be weaker if you didn’t see it. In fact, it’s the face that Drew Daywalt and Fewdio would use as a de facto logo in much of their marketing.

One of the things that makes these short films work better than many feature-length horror films is that their brevity prevents a lot of boring exposition. We don’t waste thirty minutes “getting to know the protagonists” before the good stuff starts. We also don’t listen to corny explanation tying the monster to Native American legend or pop psychology gobbledygook. These are the lousy ninety minute horror movies with the lousy eighty-eight minutes taken out, leaving only that first visceral scene the writer had in his head before he ruined it by putting a dull narrative around it.

You can check it out on Youtube. And if you want to support the people who make these films, consider picking up the DVD collection, Nightmare House.

FEWDIO Horror: Creep

So after posting a brief review of The Easter Bunny is Eating My Candy a little over a month back, I began going through the rest of the Fewdio film catalog. Frankly, there’s enough content to post a review every day for a month … so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll be celebrating Halloween this year by posting a quick review of one of their nightmare videos every day this month. Many of the videos are only two or three minutes long, so it might actually take you less time to just watch them then to read my explanation of why you should watch them.

With all that said, Creep is a nice introduction to the series. It’s all shadows and quiet conversation. The empty passenger seat and lights from passing cars are tricks that Val Lewton would have used in his films. And at two minutes, it gives just enough slow-burn suspense to make the pay-off worth it, without dragging on for too long.

You can check it out on Youtube or Fewdio. And if you want to support the people who make these films, consider picking up the DVD collection, Nightmare House.