By Jonathan Bilski
A packed festival theaters had Palm Springs ready to get it's spook on with a seven story collection of horror for the Thrills & Chills block for Palm Springs ShortFest 2026. Each film had the ladies on either side of me looking away or going "Oh no." All together they made us laugh, cringe and threw a good chunk of sexuality at us.
On that, the film that was on everyone's lips as we were leaving was Scissors by Hannah Alline. This horror short flipped the slasher trope of a redneck man hunting a group of woman in a cabin in the woods to a group of very well prepared lesbians hunting said redneck. With plenty of humor, non-stop lesbian jokes and possibly the best scissoring joke in a horror movie, it was the crowd favorite.
Both Imago & The End is at Hand surprised the audience with the level of creature work. These effects kicked too much butt and really grossed us out. Didn't expect Jordan Peele's named attached as producer to the Imago short about a young woman dealing with a Mom going let's say, kafkaesque. Or the grossest phone repair with some living creature coming out of it in The End is at Hand. Why does it have leave so much slime and why must a smart phone bleed?
What's sure to last as a disturbing nightmare for the audience; with more bug related horror, is the fully animated Praying Mantis that looks like a Japanese OVA lost from the 80's. Though, it's a Taiwan/Hong Kong production finished in 2025. Disturbing bug eating people action anyone?
The directors and some of the crew behind OBEY!, Scissors and The End is at Hand got up for a Q&A afterward.
What was clear, was the each work had a theme behind it and just wasn't made for the sake of... it looks cool. From the Q&A we learned: OBEY! was made to satirize the brain rot we get from all the social media in-take of pet/baby celebs and how bad it is behind the scenes. This was done with a ghost dog back for revenge against it's Dog Mom. Scissors was made to share a different view of the lesbian community and empower the would be prey of a horror film. And, The End is at Hand showcased a grim and utter disgusting look on our use of phone use. Where the phone eventually uses us...or at least the worm living in it uses us for food.
Every film got a nice scare out of the crowd and you could see some of these directors going on to make some longer scarier or comical projects.