Night of the Hell Hamsters/Eel Girl
Directed by Paul Campion
Chameleon Pictures

Night of the Hell Hamsters is a short film sure to be a hit with fans of odd ball cinema. Why you ask? Well, any film containing evil possessed undead hamsters is AOK in my book. Taking its cues from The Exorcist, Evil Dead 2 and Braindead, this is 15 minutes of blood drenched hilarity that would have Peter Jackson chuckling wildly.

The basic premise revolves around a couple toying around with a make shift Ouija board while the girl is on a babysitting job. Making up a name while trying to be dramatic the boyfriend mistakenly summons an evil spirit who after scorching two adorable hamsters brings them back as evil blood suckers. Let me tell you there are few things in the world funnier than a stuffed charred hamster with red glowing eyes quoting The Exorcist.

What really makes the movie work is the fact that it is tongue in cheek and despite being rather bloody, it's just plain cute. The floating hamsters and hamster attacks just can't be menacing. Even when the boyfriend is gushing buckets of blood, you are still somewhat grinning because after all it was an evil hamster that bit him.

Despite only being 15 minutes long there is a lot of action in Night of the Hell Hamsters. The gore is hilarious and the acting is wonderfully over the top. If the director ever decided to make a full length movie based on this short, I would die a very happy man.

Eel Girl is only five minutes long but it is a ridiculously solid short film. Of course a lot of plot is left unexplained, but I think this is more of a vehicle to show the director's chops than to explore a lengthy plot. The story is essentially a love story of sorts between a scientist and of course eel girl.

The movie begins with two scientists and what I assume is a military police officer in a lab. After the head scientist is taking off at gun point, the other scientist starts behaving rather oddly. He releases eel girl and what seems to be turning into a love story turns quite macabre in a matter of minutes. I won't spoil what happens but it is quite gruesome and quite startling.

What truly surprised me about Eel Girl was the fact that the CGI in this short film is more impressive than the majority of much bigger budget movies, especially in the horror genre. In fact, the entire short looks fantastic. The lighting is perfect and the makeup used on eel girl is quite impressive. If they chose to expand this idea into a full movie, it could definitely be a slightly different take on Species albeit with an eel girl and not an alien.