Over the Garden Wall

Over the Garden Wall at IMDB

This is a cartoon mini-series that was made for Cartoon Network. It is in ten parts of ten minutes each. The story has a very traditional feel to it, and it keyworded "folk horror" at imdb. Think Brothers Grimm as another "folk horror" subject.

My daughter (who shares a first name with the bluebird) requested it on DVD last year, and while she watched it when it was new, I've only just watched it.

Two brothers, the elder one morose, and the younger one indefatigable, are lost in "The Unknown" (a place name we only get from title cards). This location has the stock characters of folk tales, starting with a talking bluebird and woodsman who warns of a beast in the woods. One episode has a meta subplot where a group of stock characters in a tavern try to identify which stock characters our two brothers are. The elder is first pegged as the Simpleton.

It also follows conventions similar to traditional long oral stories: it has a frame story with smaller episodic bits that don't necessarily have a fixed order, but do slowly reveal aspects of the characters worlds, pasts, and motivations. As one very minor spoiler, the blue bird is a girl under enchantment who is questing to break her spell, which has also affected her family.

It is suitable for all ages and quite well done. Seven frogs out of seven in a seven piece riverboat band.

Kung Fury

Kung Fury (2015) watch it on youtube (31 minutes).

This is a kickstarter financed short from Sweden that mocks / pays hommage to a vast amount of 1980s pop culture. It's over the top in that it is paced more like a modern film than an 80s movie or TV show -- it's not clear which this was trying to be. It's also suffering from a CGI crew with a bad case of horror vacui.

There's an arcade game that transforms into a robot, Hitler, time travel, dinosaurs, vikings, a cobra "spirit animal" in GI Joe cartoon form, and a Hasselhoff cameo. Based on that you probably know if you want to watch it or not.

Thirty shots without reloading from a handgun that holds maybe ten bullets.

It also features "epic pecs". So there's that.

"Movies Starring Movies: HORROR MOVIE"

Youtube video link

Five minute short animation using DVD cases to stand in for actors (and in a few non-character parts, like the coffee cup with the box design for Coffy on it, or the graveyard with Tombstone tombstones.)

This is episode five in a series, I've not watched any of the others, but this was certainly worth the five minutes.

This might be the goriest short starring DVD boxes ever.