3 Dead Girls!

Christopher Alan Broadstone's trilogy of award-winning horror shorts is now available on a single disc. Each film has an intense philosophical tone to them with throbbing soundtracks and little perks on the end of the initial stories. No story has been told the same way. Broadstone makes sure of that.

The first short is entitled "SCREAM FOR ME". The plot ripped from the summary reads as followed. "One killer becomes a victim of another more brutal and insane then himself" You ever watch a film about a serial killer and just want the worst possible outcome to happen? To challenge the irony itself is a big no-no on the cinema screen. What starts off as a tale of "love" (Note "River's Edge for the inside meaning of this) and this boy's murder of someone he "loves". This is when we meet the Madman (Tony Simmons).

This "Madman" is of one of the classic redneck stereotype. Tony Simmons does a horrifying job as playing this maniac. I'd greatly like to see Madman be in a feature length feature. He has enough madness and rage to be one of the great lunatics on screen. Casted perfectly, complimented with amazing camera work, and spiced up with some of the most horrendous sexual torture ever filmed, on screen or not, Scream for Me is a grail to be seen.

Next short film is MY SKIN! Which in my own humble opinion is the most perplexing and rewarding. The plot as described "Death flies in to collect the soul of a murdered young woman, but first takes revenge on her killer". Leave it to Broadstone to churn out great ideas and the re-imagining of the classic figure Death. No longer a cloaked figure with a scythe, he dons the more horrifying bird mask, over-wrinkled face, and black suit. Reminds me of the original Men In Black witnessed during the horrific events that occurred in Point Pleasant (See also; Mothman).

What starts as a regular pickup, he decides to open his great big book of death and make an edit. This then turns into a very perplexing re-visioning of a crime scene. With a game of cat-and-mouse that is similar to the pedophile scene in Running Scared, the Death figure growls his scratchy voice and lets the deed be done and the dead be dead.

Last we have HUMAN NO MORE, the last and my least favorite. Now just because it is my least favorite of the three doesn't mean it is remotely bad. "A private detective consumed by an irreconcilable murder case descends into his caustic underworld one last time". HNM is wonderfully shot from two perspectives, the camera he has set up and an unidentified slithering and hissing entity. With a monologue that is as burdening as it is the truth, it does not leave you emotionally unphased. The points he brings up are true. R. Budd Dwyer himself would have been proud.

This of course ends with a bizarre twist from a master storyteller. Thus ending his sick trilogy of films that rivals Douglas Buck's Family Portraits. Tony Simmons assumes all title roles. He plays a muscled psycho, the whimsically creepy Death, and the tortured detective. What a range of emotions. The situations that these films delve into is a sensitive yet very dark place. The flipside of tragedy. This is the place where fear and vengeance hides. 3 Dead Girls! Is the best compilation i have ever bare witness to. Filmmakers wish they could be as ingenious as Broadstone. As you may have noticed, I have included no screen shots. The reason for this is that i want this experience to be as visually surprising as it was for me. Enjoy!

-mAQ