Grave Shivers – review

Director: Brent Sims

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

Anthology/portmanteau films can be great and ones such as The ABCs of Death show that very short shorts can be magnificent in their own right. Now I didn’t review that film, as the vampire segment was so miniscule amongst the full film. This one I have decided to review.

The might be a tad unfair, as it is the shortest of three shorts in a film under 15 minutes and the film is free to watch/download. But I was really taken with this. The score will be for the vampire segment only, the whole thing is greater than the sum of its parts but I think this deserves some kudos. I do have to spoil the vampire segment, however, to actually make an article out of the review but I don’t think that it is too much of a sin especially as there are two more segments – part two (shhhhh! You’ll Wake the dead) is a magnificent horror short and part one (Teddymare) if wonderfully imaginative.

Howard Hall as Dad

Part three is called Teething Tiffany and sees a dad (Howard Hall) reading to his daughter (Kassidy Hall) at bedtime (different family but the same as the opening to the first story). The difference, noticeable to the initiated, is that he is reading to her from Dracula (the section where the hunters are confronted by the vampire in his Piccadilly house) rather than a children's story. The little girl (again following a similar pattern to the first story) asks for her light to be left on and then her closet checked and then under the bed.

bounce

Here comes the twist (and the massive spoiler) under the bed he sees his daughter who tells him that a vampire is in her bed. Out of shot he is attacked, his guts ripped open and falling into shot and then we see the human daughter under the bed as the vampire version bounces on it – his heart in her hand. That’s it folks; a lovely, effective short that’s only a couple of minutes long but so neatly constructed – especially with the other stories before it – that it deserves a strong 7.5 out of 10 for this segment alone. Add the others in and you have a fantastic horror flick that lasts less than quarter of an hour. The vampire orientated tune King of the Night-time by the Coffinshakers that ends the short and accompanies the credits is the icing on the cake.

The imdb page is here and you can watch the film here.