SXSW ’25: Video Barn (short)

1980s video stores probably did more to spread horror stories than even the campfire. Genre fans are also nostalgic by nature, so it makes sense the old school video store is a staple of retro horror movies. After all, we all remember discovering many of our favorites through VHS rentals. This store has seen better days, so maybe the 1990s have already arrived, but the aesthetic is still very 80s in Bianca Poletti’s short film Video Barn, which screens during the 2025 SXSW Film Festival.

Like usual. Hannah is working late with her friend Jules at the Video Barn, but tonight she will sneak off early to see her boyfriend before he leaves for college. While left alone, a mysterious VHS tape seems to be calling her. She presses play.

When we next see Hannah, she is working the late shift with only her guilt for company. Jules has been missing so long, the media clearly assumes the worst. Her only customer sneaks behind the notorious old video store curtain (so you know what he came to browse).

Throughout Video Barn, Poletti displays a keen feel for the VHS era. Frankly, this is one of the better VHS-themed horror films, of any length. It is not quite as much fun as Beyond the Gates, but it is about on par with Scare Package and vastly superior to its ill-conceived sequel. (Yet, one of the best VHS horror productions was not even a movie, it was the Shudder podcast, Video Palace.)

Sundance ’17: Assorted Pilots

After years of waiting, we will finally get new episodes of Twin Peaks in May. Considering the real thing is almost here, you would think most fans will just sit tight rather than starting a Twin Peaks knock-off. Nevertheless, at least two pilots transparently “inspired” by the David Lynch cult fave screened during the various television showcases at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

By far, the best pilot following in the Twin Peaks tradition was When the Street Lights Go On, presented as part of the Independent Pilot Showcase. During the course of episode 1 (or is it episode 0?) a popular high school student and one of her teachers are murdered at a particularly compromising moment. Oh, the scandal. What really distinguishes Street Lights are the spot-on early 1980s production details, including the era appropriate soundtrack. It is also nice to see the brooding teen lead is actually played by a teenager—the nineteen-year-old Max Burkholder, who could easily pass for sixteen.

Streets Lights might be hoping viewers will be asking “who killed Chrissy Monroe,” but there will be no question who murdered Cecily’s parents in Shit Kids—assuming she and her meathead boyfriend ever get the job done. In fact, we might assume fools’ luck will protect her admittedly annoying and utterly clueless ‘rents, establishing a certain absurdist pattern for the prospective show. Whether S-Word Kids can sustain itself will or won’t be answered over time, but its eighteen minutes were the highlight of the Independent Pilot showcase. Grace Van Dien (daughter of Casper) makes a hot mess of a femme fatale and series writer-director Kyle Dunnigan scores consistent laughs as her painfully square (and completely un-self-aware) father.

Over in the Midnight Episodic Showcase, Pineapple was also trying to channel Twin Peaks, but less successfully. Most of the first chunk screened during the festival focused on the guilt resulting from the sexual assault of a miner’s young daughter and the resentment of the company’s decision to close the mine. However, it is hard to blame them, since it seems some sort of predatory monster lives in the shaft. Frankly, Pineapple is even murkier looking and slower paced than Street Lights, which does not exactly leave viewers eager for more.

In contrast, Snatchers (the other part of Midnight Showcase, trailer here) is all energy and attitude, with more than a bit of gore splattered on top. Shallow, approval-seeking Sara Steinberg finally gives it up to her oafish on-again-off-again boyfriend Skyler, but rather alarmingly wakes up the next morning mega-preggers. Presumably, he picked up something nasty while on Spring Break in Mexico. Understandably freaked, Steinberg turns to Hayley Chamberlain, the childhood friend she had been “ghosting” in her time of crisis. Of course, it is even worse than Steinberg realizes. She is actually carrying twins—and what little monsters they are. As a further complication, one of them still isn’t ready to leave her.

In all honesty, Mary Nepi’s Steinberg is royally unsympathetic, but she is surrounded by a sharp, peppy cast, including Gabrielle Elyse as Chamberlain and J.J. Nolan as her former teen-mother Kate. It would also be nice is Nick Gomez could survive the first episode as Officer Ruiz, but it would be unwise to get too attached to him or anyone else in Snatchers. Regardless, the mayhem is nutty in the right ways and the dialogue cuts just as much as the parasite’s claws.

Not surprisingly, the festival’s mixed episodic showcases were indeed mixed bags. Without question, Snatchers is the one most likely to catch on, with Shit Kids also earning a second look, following their screenings at this year’s Sundance.