And finishing off volume 1 of the BFI’s ‘Short, Sharp Shocks’ set is ‘The Errand’ a film that very strongly reminded me of the work of Norman J. Warren for some reason…only, without the sensationalist streak that made me appreciate Warren as a film maker.

The plots pretty standard. It’s another ‘runaround’ Short featuring a soldier sent by his officer to retrieve a note from a discreet location, on arriving he’s met by a sheepish woman who nervously hands him the letter, but on leaving the location both the woman and a man wearing goggles and black face jump him and leave him for dead.

What follows is 10-15 minutes then of our soldier slowly dying and the tension is in whether he can still deliver the letter AND figure out what’s going on.

And…its fine…a little dull honestly…but fine. I liked the direction, cine and tone of the piece. But the script and performances really let this one down in a big way. With an ending that’s both predictable and uninspiring…one I may revisit in future as it does have some compelling direction. But far from an essential watch.

As for Short Sharp Shocks volume 1? It’s a difficult one honestly, a lot of these films don’t deserve to rot away in an archive somewhere. Some really DO deserve to be seen! But I feel like this set is a bit misleading as a lot of these films barely have any sharp Shocks…most of them arnt even really that Short either…but then, I think a boxset called long, conveluted, sleeping aids wouldn’t have sold as well…hopefully volume 2 picks up the pace and meets the brief.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-errand/

A slightly grubby offering from the short sharp Shocks boxset, ‘The Sex Victims’ is a fine enough way to kill 37 minutes…but it’s not only one of those movies where, if you think about the ending for more than a minute, the whole film falls apart. And it REEKS of toxic masculinity.

The plot follows a 70s truck driver, looking to get his end away who, while on a new route, gets accosted by a gorgeous naked woman riding a horse.

Our driver thinks nothing of it, until the next time he runs the route it happens again. And this time the woman seems to know his name and act a little inviting.

Our driver (who can also ride horses) decides to find the nearest stables to the route and, if you couldn’t have guessed the owner of the stables is non other than our beautiful naked woman…now fully dressed and in ‘professional’ mode.

And what follows is a near enough 10 minute ‘prey being stalked by big macho man’ runaround in the woods, as our lady turns up in lingerie and our man becomes ever hornier. With a twist you’ll probably get almost immediately honestly…

Kind of predictable and a little icky by 2024 standards, I don’t really have any flaws perse for this one…its just kind of average for the 70s…though, it did give me a great idea for a horror movie called ’70s man’ in which a stereotypical chauvinistic sexist 70s man is transported to the modern day and chases women for ‘nookie’…a genuinely haunting concept.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-sex-victims/

Another entry for the ‘Short Sharp Shocks’ collection. And this one’s probably been the strongest entry so far (or, if nothing else, the one that actually fits the remit of the short sharp Shocks set)

The plot follows a young couple fresh out of university, who’ve bought a house in their childhood village, with the aim of renovating it and turning it into a family home.

However, while they were at university, the previous owner went mad, murdered his wife, children and all the livestock on the land, and then vanished.

While celebrating with a picnic in a nearby field, the couple begin to realise things may not be as serine as hoped…

I won’t say this one is anything remarkable, for 70s contemporary horror it’s pretty standard fare. But it does manage to create a real sense of ominous foreboding and while I think your milage may vary. The resolution is just unsettling enough to leave a lasting impression. I enjoyed this one…I could see it playing ahead of something like ‘Don’t Look now’ or maybe the original ‘Evil Dead’ as a kind of palette cleanser.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-lake-1978/

Disc 2 of the first volume of the ‘Short, Sharp Shocks’ set opens strong with ‘Twenty Nine’ a VERY 60s psychological thriller of sorts, following one Graham Baird, a 29 year old chap who wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment, with no memory as to how he got there. Slowly, as he explores the apartment he finds mementos that help him piece together his night, eventually leading him to his worst fears.

This was really well put together in my opinion, a very stylish production, that, while maybe not the best written in the world from a dialogue standpoint, was fantastic at leading the audience through its plot lines in a way that keeps you guessing right up to the end. The twist itself is satisfying and while I wouldn’t exactly say this was a ‘sharp shock’ its a slow burn piece that pays off satisfactorily.

The direction and cine are superb, the soundtrack is poppy with football chanting littered throughout giving a white noise effect.

Colour me impressed! It was an enjoyable half hour or so, and I look forward to rewatching it in future and seeing all the more subtle moments I missed that give the game away ahead of the formal reveal.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/twenty-nine/

The Short,Sharp, Shocks keep on coming as we reach the end of disc 1 and ‘Death was a passanger’ a short film that opens in the 50s before flashing back to wartime occupied France as a secret agent tries to escape the gestapo.

I…didn’t much care for this one. It was really more of a thriller…and a pretty mild one at that. The twists and turns wernt exactly revelations and I was left feeling like my time almost certainly could have been spent better elsewhere.

That being said, it’s inoffensive, it looks nice, the story it is trying to tell works about as well as any…I have no grief with it…I just wish it was a bit more interesting.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/death-was-a-passenger/

Another one from ‘Short, Sharp Shocks’ this one, if anything more a humorous tale with a (somewhat) shocking, but kind of unpredictable twist.

We essentially have the same issue here as we did with ‘Lock your door’…there’s only so much ‘atmosphere’ can do for your production if the speaker just doesn’t seem interested in the tale he’s telling…this is even better lit than the last one, which kills even the chance of a bit of moodiness…I wasn’t a fan.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-reformation-of-st-jules/

Another entry from the ‘Short, Sharp, Shocks’ series and this one is essentially an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ in which an English painter butt’s heads with a Spanish bull fighter culminating in him insulting the fighter by painting a striking portrait of him.

He swears vengeance, but how will he do it, from beyond the grave?!?

This one was fun, a little farfetched on the wrap up, but it was decently paced, had a fun story and seemed a bit more alive and with it than other shorts on the set so far.

I’d recommend checking this one out if you can find it, it’s pretty well made and leaves an impression!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/portrait-of-a-matador/

I’m slowly working my way through the ‘Short Sharp Shocks’ set and up next was a telling of the Edgar Allen poe classic.

Quite atmospheric with a decent emotional range. I thought the lighting was perfect for this piece, even if the performance did border on campy a little bit. I liked this one! While I wouldn’t say it delivered a ‘short, sharp, shock’ it most certainly did make a tense atmosphere. Which I for one really appreciated.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-tell-tale-heart-1953/

Essentially a quite dry 15 minute monologue describing the curious tale of a young lady who, as habit always locks the doors of rooms she’s staying in, and the terrifying night that she forgot.

Is this atmospheric? Absolutely. Will this terrify modern audiences? I’ve had more scary bathroom visits.

I struggle to imagine this scaring people even at the time, especially considering this came out in 1949. Maybe 10 years earlier it would have more effect. But as it stands, it’s a story told quite well. In an atmospheric tone…but that’s about it. I was hoping the resolution was a little more unsettling…but it plays more as a cautionary tale than a short, sharp shock.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/lock-your-door/

A staple of early 2000s ‘Cartoon Network’ and probably the last Christmas special I’ll watch for this year. ‘Grandma Got Run Over By A Raindeer’ is the…unusual end product of someone saying ‘Hey everyone loves that hokey christmas novelty song, why not animate it and see what happens!?’

Well, i’ll tell you what the end result is…strangeness and a kind of incoherent story that may or may not be fleshed out with tracks from the album that the titular track came from (I havent got the volition to search it up…its 4:30am as I type this)

The Plot jumps around in time a little bit but basically covers the ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ of the events of the song. With the film opening establishing that ‘Grandma’ is in fact the owner of one of ‘Cityvilles’ most loved and longest established general stores. Grandma is an old time store owner and is more than happy to offer regulars store credit to get through hard times…Much to the annoyance of ‘Cousin Mel’ who wants Grandma to sell up the shop to a local land tycoon whos willing to offer the family millions to sell the shop so it can be demolished and replaced with…something? the…the special doesnt really say I dont believe.

Anyway, cousin Mel decides to try and force the issue by spiking some of Grandmas fruit cakes with ‘something bad’ in the hopes that it’ll drive customers away and eventually force the sale of the store…But before that can happen, Grandma heads out on christmas eve night to get her medication from the store and winds up getting run over by Santas sleigh. with the only witnesses being Grandmas Grandson (who may or may not be the narrator)…and Grandpa.

The family naturally dont believe the tale…But when Grandmas body cant be found, and she isnt at the usual places, concern begins to set in…Meanwhile Cousin Mel takes the opportunity to weedle a ‘power of attorney’ placement out of Grandpa, and in turn begins the negotiations to sell the store. With time fast running out, Its down to the doting grandson to piece together the clues, find Grandma and get her back up and running before the stores closed for good!

I have somewhat nostalgic memories catching this over the years on Cartoon Network…But watching it now…it…has not aged well. Cash in is about as good as I can muster for this one…an attempt to revive interest in a novelty record that was a little stinky the year it came out, letalone 16 years after it got a release…

The scripts all over the place, with act structuring and pacing thats inconsistent, it cant quite nail the tone of humour it wants to go with swinging wildly between being semi serious to ‘Scrubs’ style ‘pop aways’ into sequences of Cousin mel conga dancing with her lawyer, or Grandpa thinking hes Elvis.

The humours so scattershot that it got a chuckle more for how surreal and all over the place it was really than anything it intentionally tried to do. The act structurings all over the place, the characters have next to no depth. and the ending is quite underwhelming even for the low bar this special set.

The animation is semi consistent, but I cant lie, I personally find it a bit ugly…the promotional materials seem to have been done in a slightly different art style, which DOES look pretty okay…But the animation itself is a little too mixed on style, they’re all in vaguely the same ball park, but characters are *just* different enough style wise to create an unsettling contrast.

Not helped either by the fact they recycle chunks of the special BACK INTO itself for the music video breaks…OR that they even HAVE music video breaks here…

The voice acting is fine enough, not great…but gets the job done and the score swings WILDLY between frankly terrible and genuinely bizarre in the best possible way.

I still get quite nostalgic about this strange little special, but 21 years of film making, a degree in media and film production and theory and 7 and a half years of working in film journalism/criticism REALLY does not go in this films favour. I dont think its very good ultimately, and i’d say unless you were nostalgic for this (having seen it when it first went out) OR if you like bad holiday specials. I dont think you’ll really get a kick out of this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/grandma-got-run-over-by-a-reindeer/