The Fewdio line of short horror has proven to be a spectacular run so far, with most of its shorts being of the highest quality.  But not all of them are good–frankly, I’d be downright terrified if they WERE all good–and I’ve found another one in the bunch that’s of lesser quality.

This one’s called Marie, and it’s an eleven-minute short about a hit man who discovers the unpleasant truth behind a target’s last words.

It’s hard to call Fewdio out, because I remember how much amazing stuff they’ve put out, but really, Marie is not one of them.  The buildup is actually derivative of several other stories I’ve heard, and worse yet, the ending was completely incoherent. In fact, it almost seems like a necessary chunk of the movie illustrating how we got from one part of the ending to another was removed–it’s just that abrupt.

So no, Marie is not one of Fewdio’s best, and that’s all right.  Can’t win ‘em all, you know?

Sometimes, in their own weird way, monsters can do good.  Especially when they go after other monsters.  And to see this concept illustrated plainly and simply, try the Fewdio short The Prey.

In this one, a group of gangstas (and yes, I mean that in every sense of the word) will believe they’ve hit the jackpot when they hear about an elderly crippled man who always seems to have a large stash of gold jewelry for sale when he needs cash.  Thus, they set out to rob him, but what they find when they get to the poor old man’s apartment will be much more than they bargained for.

It’s a standard Fewdio horror short, with an interesting twist at the end, as usual.  For a six minute movie, it’s going to pack in a couple high-octane surprises, and chances are good that if you’ve like any of the others I’ve pointed you to so far, you’ll love this one too.

When Fewdio announces that it’s doing a “tribute to H.P. Lovecraft”, “based on (his) personal religious philosophy”, I don’t know whether to run screaming for my mommy or die laughing.  See, I know H.P. Lovecraft.  And I know most of the time, movies made about his stuff are complete wastes of time and effort with only a handful of exceptions, most of which involve Jeffrey Combs.  But I also know Fewdio.  These guys have given me more scares than the Wall Street Journal this year.  If ANYONE can handle a Lovecraft title…it’s GOT to be Fewdio.

This one, called Conviction, asks one simple question:  what happens when the lights go out?

And congratulate them, folks–they made a good Lovecraft short.  This isn’t one of Fewdio’s best, but it does use their classic modality of a seriously huge twist at the end–don’t shut off the video when you see the credits start–to put together a pretty scary package that’ll actually make you think.

It may not be the best of the bunch, but it’ll do for a quick scare, AND for a philosophy lesson, all in the space of just five short minutes.

I may well have found the freakiest minute of horror EVER thanks to the boys out at Fewdio.

It’s called Mockingbird, and it sets up easily enough, with a young father listening to his baby monitor as his baby starts crying, and his wife goes to care for the little one.  But what he hears quickly turns sinister…and all is not what it seems.  Sounds trite, I know…but man…what they did here.

Pay SPECIAL attention to the one minute one second mark.  I don’t usually give timestamps, but it actually took me three times listening to it and a comment from the comments section before I finally understood just what exactly was said there.  And frankly, when you hear it exactly right, the bottom falls out of the whole thing and almost as suddenly, the creepy factor ratchets up by literally ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE.

Keep a change of pants handy, folks…you might need them after a round of Mockingbird.

And Fewdio goes forth to redeem itself from its losses yesterday by presenting Cleansed, a short horror title that asks, just because you clean up a crime scene, can you ever make it truly clean?

A whopping ten minutes of short horror goodness, Cleansed sends a crime scene cleanup expert–just like those you may have seen in Sunshine Cleaning–out to a house where murder has recently been committed.  But her connection to this crime scene will be an amazing surprise.

Seriously, it will.  I can’t tell you any more than that without watching, but trust me, they even managed to take me by surprise with that one.  It, like much of Fewdio’s body of work, is almost gleefully over the top, and will feature as a standard excellent special effects, some good jump scares, and an excellent closing plot twist.

It’s going to be well worth your time and bandwidth to check this one out.

I admit that I was not aware going in to see Russell Crowe’s latest, State of Play, that it was based on a British TV show.  Being that I enjoy British TV, it sort of makes sense now that I really, almost unaccountably, enjoyed the movie version.

State of Play is a political thriller to match them all, with Russell Crowe playing hard-bitten print journalist Cal McAffrey, your classic “white knight” sort of journalist dedicated to the truth…at all costs.  Kind of the Spider Jerusalem of his era, he’s joined by Rachel McAdams as Della Frye, a blogger handling part of the electronic side of things for the Washington D.C. newspaper both work for.  McAffrey and Frye tracking down the circumstances following the recent death of a Congressman’s mistress about to start a series of hearings into a paramilitary government contractor called PointCorp. As McAffrey and Frye continue to follow the various disparate threads, they begin to see a much greater plot forming almost before their very eyes–the sort of plot that could very well destroy several careers and do inestimable damage to the United States government itself.

For those of you who study the current political landscape, you’ll likely notice at least some “ripped from the headlines” sort of incidents, including a very easy connection between fictional PointCorp and current bugaboo Blackwater (who, ironically enough, recently underwent rebranding possibly due to the fact that everyone associated the name Blackwater with undisciplined, unaccountable mercenaries who shot at American citizens in New Orleans and did who knows how much damage in Iraq.), you’re more than welcome to pat yourselves on the back at this point.  Good catch.

But this is part of what makes State of Play such an interesting film.  Yes, it’s your class-X political thriller, but there are so many elements of plausibility included in the narrative that it takes on a life of its own.  Change a few names around and we might well be looking at something that will happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month.  It’s absolutely plausible.  And, given the prevalence of blogging that’s sprung up worldwide—nobody’s laughing at the idea of “citizen-journalists” any more—and in a time when newspapers are going under whilst blogs are flourishing due to the massive disparities in production costs, it’s kind of ennobling to see a blogger like Delia Frye suddenly in a position to make a serious difference, even IF it’s only with the help of a hard-bitten mentor of the print journalism game.

Even better, we’ll also be exposed to intradepartmental bickering at the newspapers, as they struggle to keep up the old ways of print—slow, careful, precise and well supported by fact—when cost containment virtually DEMANDS the new ways of electronic media—fast, dirty, loaded with opinion and commentary, and able to churn out copy in a rapid fashion to keep the short attention span engaged.

Truly, there are several great conflicts going on in State of Play, and we’ll be able to follow almost all of them to at least reasonably satisfying ends. In fact, State of Play itself is a highly satisfying thriller, carefully paced, well put together, and ready to take on the big leagues.  Quite a jump from the old days of TV serials, and I’m glad they made the effort.  State of Play is easily worth your time and your movie dollars.

Thank you, Fewdio, for FINALLY missing the mark for once.  You’ve finally given me something to restore my tattered credibility with, and it’s called Viral.

There’s a very good reason there aren’t any pictures of convicted murderer Albert “The Carnivore” Carneghy, and the Fewdio short Viral, weighing in at a whopping three minutes, will show you why.  Actually, they’ll only KIND OF show you why, and this is why finally I can actually issue something less than a glowing review of a Fewdio work.

The problem with this one is that they didn’t go far enough.  They really needed just a couple extra minutes to fully tell this story, because as it sits, they’re leaving it somewhat open to interpretation.  This is a policy I never fully agree with–a movie, ANY movie, needs to have a complete story; beginning, middle and end.  While I understand the necessity–and approve somewhat–of leaving a few loose ends behind to allow for the possibility of a sequel, the whole should still be whole, and Viral was not.  Instead, you had to guess at what was going on, and though your guess will probably follow one particular path, which I won’t say for fear of spoilering, it’s still just a guess.

So finally, FINALLY, I’ve managed to find a Fewdio horror short to actually warn you off of–Viral is not one of their best.  Oh, I’m not complaining really loud here, especially not over three minutes invested in it, but I AM less than satisfied.  And with Fewdio shorts, that’s downright rare.

The Tale of Haunted Mike, one of Fewdio’s longest shorts, weighing in at nearly a whopping twelve minutes, is another worthy addition to the Fewdio horror lineup, and quite possibly one of its best by virtue of having a full storyline with several choice twists.

Mike makes good money on eBay selling items that he claims are “haunted”, a practice that makes me wonder if he used to read X-Entertainment back in the days of the Infinity Fortuna Spell Kit.  But when Mike finds a particularly unusual antique thanks to his bid-sniping ways, a child’s prosthetic arm, all hell is about to break loose for the “haunted” curio merchant.

This is great for a lot of reasons–one, people are selling this kind of stuff on eBay every day, and probably making a fair living at it, so it’s got the ring of plausibility to it.  Two, it’s got that great Fewdio style to it, featuring lots of gruesome makeup effects and the like–for instance, when you finally see the “ghost”, you’ll be pretty freaked out too.  Also watch for the computer monitor effects.  And three, once again, the twists throughout–not just at the ending–are the kind of thing we’ve almost come to expect from these guys.

There’s a lot to love here, so get it while you can–these guys could EASILY charge for this.

Once again, Fewdio will shoot my credibility in the behind by presenting yet ANOTHER good short horror flick in the form of Shadow Puppet, a minute and a half long romp that takes a concept that’s bothered many of us since childhood–what if the shadows you project decided they wanted to act on their own…and that they didn’t like you?

A special bonus to Shadow Puppet comes in the form of canine cast member Truckee, a little pug dog that even makes ME want to use the word “adorable”, and me a hard-bitten sort.  The bonus I mentioned comes in the form of Truckee knowing what’s going on well before the human cast member, so that adds an extra dash of funny in with the trademark Fewdio talent for twists.

Shadow Puppet is easily one of Fewdio’s better shorts, although that’s a distinction that means less and less with every passing day as they’re ALL turning out to be good, and each day I keep expecting the other shoe to drop and force me to declare one bad.  Today is not that day, and Shadow Puppet is not that film.  Enjoy with full confidence.

Why, Fewdio?  Why must you do this to me?  Every time I pick a new one of your short horror  movies, I hope that just once you’ll make a BAD one so my credibility isn’t completely shattered, because every time I watch one of your movies I end up applauding it.  They’re ALL good.

You bastards.

Anyway, the latest chunk of credibility destruction in the Fewdio lineup is Vargel Geroth, Monster From Hell, and this one is actually BETTER than most, because it’s funny.  See, I’ve always had a thing about putting Satanic imagery in horror flicks–I think it’s unnecessary, as it’s pretty much only done for shock value any more–but today I’ve seen a horror flick with pentagrams involved that actually turned out well. If you’ve seen the movie Spawn, with John Leguizamo, you’ll remember the great line: “Why does God have to hog all the good followers?” And indeed, you’ll see that that becomes downright axiomatic in stuff like Vargel Geroth, Monster From Hell, as a man tries to summon a demon, but can’t quite seem to get it down.

Seriously–this is funny stuff.  You’ve never seen such incompetence since the Three Stooges staged a black sabbath (which would be awesome, by the way–”Now bring over the eye of newt, ya knucklehead!”)  What Fewdio can do with two minutes is downright amazing, and Vargel Geroth, Monster From Hell will be a shockingly funny good time.