SHORT FILM SHOWCASE

Photo credit: GILDA - Directed by Matty Ride-Smith

SHORT FILM SHOWCASE TWO

As part of its long-standing tradition of spotlighting emerging voices, FrightFest unveiled four short film showcases, featuring premieres spanning horror, sci-fi, and thriller. As always FrightFest audiences have been treated to a series of fascinating, quick glimpses into horrorscapes from psychological chillers and surreal nightmares to splattery comedy-horror.  Nina Romain gives us her standouts from Showcase Two. 

GILDA

****

Directed by Matty Ride-Smith.

Starring Kylie Ann Ford.  

World Premiere - Psychological Horror, UK,  2025, 10 min.

This British 10 minute, single-character short features a timeloop where an unsuspecting wannabe actor, Gilda, enters a deserted community centre at night, where she sees future versions of herself. No other characters feature, just different versions of her future self and no vision of what she’s actually up against – her own delusions? It’s an excellent psychological slasher, with very little explicit gore but an atmosphere of unsettling, unseen paranormal evil, with overtones of TRIANGLE. Ford gives a likeable-abrasive, nicely comedic central performance, which turns dark very quickly. 

Director Matty Ride-Smith weaves in just enough subtle foreshadowing to keep the audience questioning what’s real. His attention to detail plants unease throughout, and makes you hope the whole nightmarish scenario is a hallucination however there could be something far more sinister going on.  

MY BEST FRIENDS

***

Directed by William Willoughby.

Starring Paul Ginns. 

World Premiere - Comedy-Horror, UK, 2025, 13 min

MY BEST FRIENDS starts as the tale of an apparently downbeat loser who is baited by strangers in the park as he walks to collect a dinnertime takeaway for close friends over for dinner. At the table, too much dinner-time teasing leads him to lash out and give them a literal taste of their own medicine, with horrific circumstances. This horror comedy short will put you off talking to strangers in the park as well as dinner with friends, and probably turn viewers into vegetarians on the spot.

THE MAN THAT I WAVE AT

***

Directed by Ben Stephen Hyland.  

Starring Sam Pamphilon, Marek Larwood, Rebecca Shorrocks.  

London Premiere - Psychological Horror, UK,  2025, 11 min.

This surreal take on looks at what happens when someone starts to believe they’re being followed. A man waves at a stranger on the street, and then starts thinking, with Edgar Allan Poe-esque overtones of monomania, that the stranger is pursuing him in his daily life to wave at him. Is he going mad, or is something more disturbing happening?

NO ONE IS COMING TO RESCUE YOU

***

Directed by Ruth Platt.

Starring Ema Cavolli, Arseniy Cassidy, Joseph Pollock, Jasper Jacob. 

World Premiere - Comedy-Horror, UK,  2025, 9 min.

Director Ruth Platt creates a seemingly idyllic summer picnic which descends into bloody revenge as it becomes the garden party from hell. The nine minute short’s backstory slowly reveals the secrets lurking behind the sugary snacks, and indicate that the one of the guest’s repressed rage and revenge is – literally – the icing on the cake.

Nina Romain