User Reviews

A man alone in his apartment who was set up by his buddy with a hooker or something calls him to complain that the lady had gone a bit crazy at some point and bitten him on the shoulder - and she must have been ailing from something very nasty because the poor guy soon starts getting deathly sick and dies soon after gorily trying to lance the rotten bite wound which had begun to sprout little mushrooms... A few days later his concerned friend comes looking for him and we see that everything the infected man has touched has left a trail of green fungi filth behind and the confused man is soon surprised and attacked by his now undead friend, who has been transformed into a bizarre fungus zombie!!! Now that was a new one right there. OK so this short wasn't anything major but I was pretty happy with it, it was quick and simple and could have done with a tiny bit more plot but it did have a nice eerie little atmosphere and was satisfying and scary enough for it to be worth my while. It features some surprisingly good gruesome makeup work done on the wound, and how it erupts in blood and pus as he tries to cut it away with a knife, it was pretty realistic looking I thought. Also the small touch of computer generated effects was smartly used as the man pokes at one of green mushroom-like growths and it explodes and shoots out a little puff of deadly toxic spores! Something about the transformation of the man reminded me of the space grass story from Creepshow, and also a little of the classic Stephen King short story "Grey Matter." And also I'd say that if you enjoyed this short you should check out the movie "Splinter." Anyway this is a cool creepy and obscure horror short that is well worth a watch, I'm sure that horror fans who enjoy different approaches to zombies as well as effectively done gore effects should get a kick out of it.

My family recently convinced me that I am a neanderthal when it comes to technology, so I've recently gotten an iPhone, a new 3G computer and just got a Twitter account--I am now tool cool. And in a very first for me, I learned about a short film from a tweet. It seems that Teller (of the Penn & Teller fame) suggested his followers try watching THE GROWTH--a short by the same guy responsible for the two wonderful ...AND TELLER shorts.

Well, I can really respect the film as it was well made--even if it doesn't have a lot of plot. The special effects are stunning and it's not a film you'll soon forget. The problem, however, is that the film is so grisly that it's NOT for the squeamish--as it has a lot of fake blood and other nastiness you just have to see to believe! The film is made without traditional dialog, per se. Instead, you hear a series of phone messages being left as a middle-aged man undergoes an amazing metamorphosis after being bitten by a lady he went out with at the insistence of a friend. I'd say more, but frankly it would spoil the film which is highly reminiscent of the old Japanese film ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE (a.k.a. MANTANGO).