Smash Cuts! Super Sci-Fi Shorts Fest

Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.

Subsurface

Trapped and alone, a young man must confront the pain he's ignored when he finds himself face-to-face with consequence.

Citric Acid

A young artist is stalked via the internet by a mysterious online celebrity who harshly criticizes their artwork.

The Long Walk

An animated short based on a scene from "The Long Walk" by Stephen King

Billy Boy

A former football star turned real estate broker meets with rich, spoiled young Billy to close a deal on a mansion, and nothing goes according to plan.

The Dog of Sarandi Alley

In this 57-second short film, a dog-like doll faces another doll. It begins with an innocent, playful tone, but quickly turns dark and unsettling. Bach’s classical music adds a heavy, melancholic mood to the scene. The Dog of Sarandi Alley is a strange and brief story about violence, loneliness, and the secrets hidden behind the simple faces of toys.

House

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

Fine

After a period of time where her hearing begins to overtake her sight, Casandra searches for the cause of her problem, isolating herself from society. She starts having visions that remind her of the past and promise an apocalyptic future.

The Paralysis

After waking up with amnesia on the beach, the protagonist is pursued by the police to face the consequences of an unknown past. This soundscape uses tension as a tool to explore how uncertainty, anguish and urgency mobilize a body that would otherwise remain paralyzed in time.

Toxic Mango

Guima and Aras are star-crossed lovers in this sardonic tale of fruit and global genocide. One day, a black mango suddenly appears in Guima and Aras's tree. To eat or not to eat: that was their question. Toxic Mango is a silent, black-and-white film that ruminates on a dystopian future where the effects of the oil spill tragedy have reached nightmarish proportions.

A Love Letter to Cinema

An experimental sampled film which shows the pleasurable art of movies about movies through scenes inside of theaters.

Bei Ewald

A man sits at the table and eats his meal...with rather unusual effects.

Voyeur

Omen

“Omen, a dark and timeless traveler, emerges from the belly of a gutted sheep and finds himself in an unknown void. In this tormented space, a disturbing encounter awaits him: an Enchantress. Through silent revelations and hidden omens, a haunting and supernatural journey begins, in search of meaning beyond appearances.”

Wodo

"A vampiric Elf awakens in his eerie dwelling, where the arrival of disturbing figures through a mysterious portal unsettles the atmosphere. An enigmatic and mystical journey into the unknown."

GRIS

Drizzle in Johnson

A scientist obsessively seeking the answers of the universe is thrust into a mind-bending odyssey of grotesqueries and genitalia.

Experiments in the Dark

A mysterious figure explores the uncanny and terrifying space between light and darkness.

Don't You Feel Lovely Today

Why wouldn't you? Is there any reason not to? We've got so much at our disposal, so, why don't you? Won't you tell me? Won't you please tell me? To have you down is simply unacceptable. Just look at this; or this; at all these hallmarks to guide you and convey to you the prime ways to feel lovely. Just follow them and you'll be set. So, I ask you again... Don't you feel lovely today?

Moving Matter I

Moving Matter is the culmination of a material-led process with artists from dance, costume design and film that began with a study of old kitchen flooring about to be discarded. This flax-based material enters our orbit in the 1950s, where a measured homelife and prescribed domesticity offered a reassuring antidote to bomb scares, political turmoil, and paranormativity. Stability topples as the flooring becomes entangled in the lives of those who don the material as garments and shelters. This film was made through Moving Matter, a long-term research-creation project that offers a methodology for rethinking the dynamism between raw materials, garments, and the body. Moving Matter steers the locus of choreography and wearable design away from human hierarchy to instead support truer collaboration amongst all moving materials, both human and non-human, in this case… linoleum.

Saint Catherine

An orphaned girl is rescued from a satanic ritual and taken to Saint Catherine Institute for homeless youth. There she will learn new skills while facing demons that stalk her.

Curve

Clinging to a smooth, curved surface high above a sentient abyss, a woman tries to cover the few feet back to safety without losing purchase and falling to her death.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Victor Frankenstein is a promising young doctor who, devastated by the death of his mother during childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. His experiments lead to the creation of a monster, which Frankenstein has put together with the remains of corpses. It's not long before Frankenstein regrets his actions.

Dead of Winter

A fledgling actress is lured to a remote mansion for a screen-test, soon discovering she is actually a prisoner in the middle of a blackmail plot.

Vicious

When Polly receives a mysterious box, it comes with one rule: place inside something she needs, something she hates, and something she loves. If she doesn’t obey, it will consume everything—and everyone—she’s ever known.

Spring

A young man in a personal tailspin flees the US to Italy, where he sparks up a romance with a woman harboring a dark, primordial secret.

Black Box

After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.

Your Monster

After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming, monster living in her closet.

Look Away

A timid and socially alienated 17-year-old high school student's life is turned upside down when she switches places with her sinister mirror image.

The Resurrected

Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.

Dementia

In a shadowy world stitched from nightmares, a young woman's harrowing journey in a seedy hotel unveils her traumatic past. Haunted by violence and stalked through desolate streets, her psyche unravels as she confronts an abusive husband and unsettling memories.

The Wailer

On their way to Mexico, six students are stranded in a small town where years before a tragedy took place.

The Dreadful

In medieval England, Anne and her domineering mother-in-law Morwen struggle to survive on the outskirts of society. But when a man from Anne's past returns from war, a curse begins to take shape through a mysterious knight and threatens to destroy them all.

Alice in Terrorland

A recently bereaved teenage girl goes to live with her aunt in a secluded woodland house, unaware that sinister forces lurk within.

Southbound

The film contains five stories set on desolate stretches of a desert highway. Two men on the run from their past, a band on its way to a gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister and a family on vacation are forced to confront their worst fears and darkest secrets in these interwoven tales.

Locked

When Eddie breaks into a luxury SUV, he steps into a deadly trap set by William, a self-proclaimed vigilante delivering his own brand of twisted justice. With no means of escape, Eddie must fight to survive in a ride where escape is an illusion, survival is a nightmare, and justice shifts into high gear.

Hypnotic

A young woman seeking self-improvement enlists the help of a renowned hypnotist but, after a handful of intense sessions, discovers unexpected and deadly consequences.

Porno

When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.

The Asphyx

Hugo is a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question... what is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects?

Frankenstein

Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster.