A rickety scientific expedition ventures down the Amazon River to a dark lagoon, in search of a mythic Creature! ¡Monstro! is a horror story. A love story. A ribald comedy!
Longtime Hollywood Shorts alum CHRIS ROMANO first screened with us during our very first year, with his hilarious short animation DREAMBOY.
Chris has enjoyed a warm welcome back to the festival world with his 3D masterpiece MONSTRO!, a throwback story with a monster from the watery abyss somewhere along the Amazon. The short features a great vocal performance by Emmy nominated entertainment TV reporter & actress Pili Montilla.
Chris created the animation in a collaboration with Side Effects Software, using their popular Houdini software. Read this great article on the making of the short.
Carlos Lascano is a multi-disciplinary artist and award winning animator/director based in Madrid, Spain. LILA is his second animation selected into the HOLLYWOOD SHORTS programming – A Shadow of Blue was featured in 2013.
Carlos’ Bio
Director, illustrator, writer, and animator. In the past few years he has developed a universe of his own, where all his different forms of expression merge together in creating a whole, personal world.
His restless renaissance spirit has always pushed him in the search of the improvement and fusion of every kind of visual art: owner of a very personal style, his mixing of digital tools and real objects brought a new organic aesthetic concept to animation, area in which his artistic activity has been successfully devoted to for the last few years.
His work alternates between commercial and narrative projects. Within his extensive résumé, a Goya Awards nomination, a Preselection to the Academy Awards, and over 30 international prizes are to be found, as well as a participation as a jury -presided by David Lynch- in the Animation Category of Vimeo’s First Festival+Awards, held in New York in 2010.
His ability to tell stories and arouse emotions in the viewer have contributed to the massive spread of his work, earning him international recognition and making him a reference point in modern animation.
In 2011, Carlos was chosen by Amnesty International to write, coproduce and direct the official spot for their 50th anniversary, project in which he worked alongside Oscar winner Hans Zimmer.
Later that year, the Coca Cola company summoned Carlos to direct the official animated commercial spot the brand presented at the 2012 Eurocup.
It’s our 2010 List of HO-HO-HOLIDAY Short Films! Grab your eggnog and enjoy our picks of awesome yuletide shorts that REALLY bring the Holiday Spirit! Season’s Greetings!!
A mischievous Christmas tree decoration has a hunger for some some milk and cookies!
We delve into the HOLLYWOOD SHORTS vault to include this classic Christmas animation. Just out of school, Aaron Rogers (then he was Aaron James Erimez) screened ORNAMENTS at the HOLLYWOOD SHORTS December 2000 fest. He has gone on to do amazing work on huge features and network TV, including “Monster House” and “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”.
CAST: Severyn Brodziak, Sam Goodstein, Elizabeth Bove, Selena Gonzalez, Christian Anderson
A foster child must find the strength to become the hero of his own story… and maybe save the girl.
Our special Holiday 2010 screening of DASH CUNNING has now concluded. Please email William Saunders to request a password to see his wonderful short film on Vimeo.
One Christmas Eve, a young man is accused by a family of dangerous maniacs of being the descendant of a hunter who apparently killed and stuffed Santa Claus nearly a century ago.
CAST: Jonathan Torrens, Sarah Dunsworth, Lex Gigeroff
For trees, Christmas isn’t the exciting “peace on earth” that is experienced by most. But this Christmas will be different – the trees have had enough!
We know this short was the belle of the ball last Christmas, but we just had to include it in this year’s list. It is just so bloody good!! We love the YerDead team, and we can’t wait to what they do next!
It is high holy days for the Frightening, Gory and Hysterical horror films we love – HALLOWEEN!!! One of our favorite holiday traditions begins when filmmaker Adam Green and his production juggernaut at ArieScope releases their annual Halloween Short film every year. The ArieScope H’ween comedy bloodfest always arrives just around the same time as the great programming from Shriekfest and Screamfest, so we get to gobble up copious amounts of outstanding comedy horror shorts this time of year.
Our October HOLLYWOOD SHORTS program featured HOW MY DAD KILLED DRACULA, directed by HS member SKY SOLEIL a few years ago. Joe Wilson’s VAMPIRE MOB web series just keeps getting better and better – we screened the pilot episode at HOLLYWOOD SHORTS at our Comedy Film Nerds show this summer. It always just gets us in the spirit for some trick-or-treatin’.
Scroll down, grab yer candy corns and watch some of our favorite comedy Halloween short films!
JUST TAKE ONE from Adam Green
VAMPIRE MOB, Episode 1 by Joe Wilson
THE HORRIBLY SLOW MURDERER WITH THE EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT WEAPON by Richard Gale
Several key elements must occur for me to get into the holiday spirit – the arrival of the seasonal Pumpkin Latte at Starbucks, and the annual Halloween short film from the guys at ArieScope, led by horror film director ADAM GREEN. Coming off Adam’s new feature HATCHET 2, and all the media guff a few weeks ago when the much anticipated film was unbelievably yanked by theatres during opening weekend, they still made the time to put together another amazing Halloween short film. JUST TAKE ONE is their 12th annual Halloween short, starring Adam and Joe Lynch. The hysterical film features a nice cameo appearance from the JACK CHOP guy!
CAST: John Colella, Reamy Hall, Marcia Wallace, Kirsten Vangsness, Chris Mulkey, Elizabeth Beckwith, Andrew Cansler, Jim Roof, Cris D’Annunzio
Comedian/filmmaker Joe Wilson created and directs VAMPIRE MOB, a web series about a hitman who is a vampire. His mother-in-law is now moving in… for all eternity. Outstanding cast and laugh out loud funny. Season 1 includes 6 episodes, and they are currently beginning production on Season 2.
CAST: Paul Clemens, Brian Rohan, Fay Kato, Melissa Paladino, Mike Kacey
Three time Emmy winning filmmaker Richard Gale wrote, directed and produced the little film with the big name. HSMWTIW was clearly “The” Horror Short Film of 2009, grabbing 12 fest awards during its epic festival run. This film was everywhere, and has over 9 million views on YouTube alone. Oh… and it is really funny.
Veteran actor and filmmaker Sky Soleil’s HOW MY DAD KILLED DRACULA hit the festival circuit in 2008, and instantly became a Halloween classic. It went on to over 20 festival appearances, including Palm Springs Shortfest, Shriekfest, Chicago Horror, Cleveland, Florida and Rhode Island Film Festivals. HMDKD won the Audience Award for Best Family Film at the ’08 DC Shorts Film Festival
