Gory greetings horroryearbook alumni! Welcome to another exciting edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, a column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random crap the good folks at horroryearbook decide to throw my way!

This time around it was a trio of short films from writer/director Patrick Rea’s SenoReality Pictures. SenoReality Pictures is a production company out of Lawrence Kansas that has turned out a number of well received short films over the past five years. When I received an e-mail from Molly about reviewing some of these films I didn’t bother doing any research at all about the subject matter. I just chose the three flicks from the list that I thought had the most interesting titles: NEXT CALLER, NOW THAT YOU’RE DEAD, and MRS. BRUMETT’S GARDEN. Since these were short films with running times ranging from 14 – 20 minutes, I decided to tackle all three in one sitting and then do a review for all of them. It turned out to be a wild ride!

NEXT CALLER (2008) is about an obnoxious late night radio personality who goes by the name Handsome Billy Bob Brown (Allan Kayser). Billy Bob’s ratings-hungry producers pressure him to do more shows about the paranormal and schedule a guest for his show who claims she can talk to the dead. After Billy Bob finishes ranting about how he doesn’t believe in the dead, God, or the Devil, he begins to receive some very unusual phone calls.

NOW THAT YOU’RE DEAD (2008) is the story of a woman named Elaine (Jennifer Plas) that catches her husband Ronald (Aaron Laue) cheating on her with a chick named Meredith (Meagan Flynn). Elaine opts not to go through messy and drawn out divorce proceedings and puts bullets in them instead. When she later attempts to dispose of the bodies she discovers that they aren’t bodies at all. Unfortunately for Elaine, her husband and his mistress are both vampires – and they are hellbent on having bloody revenge before sundown!

MRS. BRUMMETT’S GARDEN (2008) is a tender tale about a sweet but seemingly senile old woman named Helen Brummett (Shirley Wagner) who spends most of her days sitting in front of her backyard garden talking to fairies. Helen’s increasingly angry and abusive husband (T. Max Graham) finally gets fed up with her fairie nonsense and decides to dump her in a nursing home. The mystical magic in Mrs. Brummett’s garden then interveins and things turn homicidal in a heartwarming sort of way.

My favorite of the bunch was NOW THAT YOU’RE DEAD. I thought that one was a lot of fun. It took the classic “cheating husband” setup and then gave it a nice twist. There was a lot of action and black humor packed into those 14 minutes. If this one was a bit longer it would have made an excellent episode of Tales From The Crypt. It definitely has the tongue in cheek spirit of the classic EC comics.

NEXT CALLER was also pretty good. I was impressed with the acting of Allan Kayser. I thought he did a good job playing the shock jock. The punchline on this one was a little predictable, but the effects work and overall presentation was still effective. My favorite part of this one was Jennifer Friend. There is an actress I would like to see more of…a lot more, if you catch my drift.

Then there was MRS. BRUMMETT’S GARDEN. I thought that one was a real pisser. It tries very hard to be sweet and syrupy. Being a blackhearted bastard that soundly rejects such things, I was actually rooting for the angry husband to put the old fruit in a home. For some reason I couldn’t help but think about the classic MST3K episode Merlin’s Shop Of Mystical Wonders, especially the line “Believe in magic…or I’ll kill you.” That sums this little slice of saccharine up perfectly. It’s worth mentioning that Harry Manfredini of Friday The 13th and Slaughter High fame provided the music. This is not exactly my cup of tea, but elderly women will likely lap it up like chamomile.

I enjoyed all three of these short films. They have a real “made for tv” kind of quality and I don’t mean that as an insult. I thought these stories would have worked perfectly on an anthology show like Tales From The Darkside or Friday The 13th: The Series. They are all slick looking and well produced. Put a couple of these together with some sort of wrap around host segment and you would have a very entertaining show. These are definitely some of the most impressive independent productions I have seen in a while. Brain Hammer approved!

If you would like more info on these flicks and the other projects that SenoReality has in the works, you can check out their official website here: www.senoreality.com.

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!