Alma
Rodrigo Blaas has posted his beautiful, but highly disturbing, clip Alma on the internet as a special holiday treat for those who want to scare children away from toys forever. It's brilliant: "Happy Christmas kiddies, just don't close your eyes while you sleep or your dolls will come alive to steal your souls."

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Zombie Wedding:
Alright, I'm kind of fascinated by this Turkish film. It's like Cloverfield, but instead of a going away party it's a wedding, and instead of a monster, it's zombies. So, ok, not like Cloverfield at all but you get what I'm saying, right? The good folks at Quiet Earth roughly translated the synopsis:

Known each other for a long time friend of the five-person group, partner to attend the wedding of a friend Büyükada'ya expenses. Erhan, together with the wedding and a long range team can record their happy moments brought a camera for receiving and continuous shooting is near. Viewed throughout the entire film, this camera mirrors ones. Later in the hour of the wedding guests and a group of zombie attack, mess turns into the lake of blood.

And here's the trailer. Thoughts?

Re-Wire
This little trailer was brought to our attention thanks to Twitch, and consider our eyebrows highly arched in anticipation of this short film. Re-Wire features a man getting his brain rewired to cut fear out of his life. This decision doesn't seem to be made on a whim, but rather this fear has forced him to take such drastic measures. It stars Brandon McGibbon, who is also in the highly anticipated Splice.

Trailer:

Re-Wire (2009) Trailer from David Fernandes on Vimeo.

2084
Here's an interesting little dystopian film where after the virus was released into the world the entire population was forced into their homes, condos and apartments. But what happens when the people in charge die out?

Jones created The Passenger entirely by himself, doing everything from the modeling to the editing to the musical composition solo. He completed the short in 2006, but just put it online and is offering high quality version on DVD.

[The Passenger via Neatorama]

French filmmaker Paul Doucet shot this short with a RED ONE digital camera, which is the new hotness - Peter Jackson loves the RED, and District 9 was shot using one too. The RED brings a burnished quality to the look of this film, which perfectly suits the retro-futurist environment inside the bunker.

This short is a little bit Sarah Connor, a little bit Twilight Zone, and a whole lot of post-apocalyptic grimness. Perfect for your morning coffee break.

Filmmaker Dan Gaud says he shot the whole thing in two days with a RED digital camera (the same camera that Peter Jackson uses for his work, and which was used to shoot District 9). The short film will be 6 minutes when complete, and Gaud says:

It's a story about a guy that discovers that he can travel between two parrallel worlds, but travelling between the two worlds has deadly consequences.

He's hoping to show it at festivals and get support to do a feature-length film that he says isn't "as epic" as Leap, but is still a superhero story on a small scale. Looking forward to seeing Leap when it's available as the full short next month.

Full interview with Gaud via Joke and Biagio

Here's the text the filmmakers use to introduce the movie, which is what I imagine is running through the main character's mind:

Every time I find myself the recipient of one of these late night phone calls, tramping through some back alley behind another dark abandoned warehouse . . . Stuttering another secret password. . . Entering another hastily constructed operating room. . . Scalpel in hand, performing another indescribable procedure . . . I see another pair of eyes . . . By now in the hundreds . . . Staring . . . Whenever I try to sleep . . . Another member of an unenviable audience. . . Asking a painfully simple question for which I have no answer . . . Why . . . Cranston says I need to "detach". I suppose he's right. I can no longer bear their judgment. I leave them here. . . On the table . . . As I scribble my signature on the confidentiality agreement, I leave them to their fate . . . I say goodbye . . .

The Waterses say they were influenced by 70s and 80s SF/horror like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing and The Fly - which is probably why it is SO AWESOME. We need to see more movies from these guys, stat.

MANIFEST DESTINY from Darrell and Doug Waters on Vimeo.

[via Metafilter]

According to a synopsis of the movie:

Deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence lies a secretive government department identified only as the "DMOA". Just what the DMOA does has been lost in the annals of time –- all that is known is that it's the last line of defence protecting London from total destruction.

Determined to find out more about this strange department, Alexandra, a young ambitious defence analyst, sets off into the rabbit warrens of Whitehall to see the DMOA for herself. Finding two aged public servants in varying stages of senility, Alexandra is convinced that the DMOA is the result of an unfortunate mistake. However, as the conversation progresses it becomes apparent that the old guys may not be as senile as they seem, and more worryingly, they may indeed be London's last line of defence.

Written by respected sci-fi journalist MJ Simpson, "Waiting for Gorgo" is a short comedy with a fantastical twist. Set in present day London, the story pokes fun at the dusty image of Britain's public service and pays homage to the classic monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s.

What sounds intriguing about this flick is that it's giving us a witty, smart version of Cloverfield. While Cloverfield tweaked the classic nutty giant monster plot by giving the film a hyper-realistic style, Waiting for Gordo uses the threat of a giant monster top make massive bureaucracy seem funny.

Both films try to reinvent the giant monster movie for the 2000s, but only Waiting for Gorgo captures those old movies' essential silliness. No doubt this is partly because writer MJ Simpson has spent most of his career writing books about Douglas Adams.

Waiting for Gorgo images via Flipper.

Gorgo is Back! [via Quiet Earth] And of course, thanks to Avery Kaiju Megamind Guerra.

Other than those restrictions, the sky's the limit. Well, there is one other thing. According to the rules:

Use of a time machine or other similar instrument to stop the normal passage of time, giving you say 3 weeks to make a film in what seems like just a weekend to the rest of us - well, that is cheating and we won't stand for it - unless of course you use some kind of mind control and erase any knowledge of this rule or your cheating or the fact that the time machine was invented...

Winners get a video camera. What? No Dalek-shaped chocolate cake?

Sci-Fi London [official site]