The 2025 Boston Underground Film Festival ran from Wednesday, 3/19 through Sunday, 3/23 at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, and the Hassle’s intrepid writers Oscar Goff, Alexis den Boggende, and Kyle Amato were on the scene. Click here to catch up with the Hassle’s first dispatch from BUFF, and watch this space for our team’s continuing coverage!
THE DUNWICH HORRORS dir. Various
This year, The Dunwich Horrors—BUFF’s beloved local horror short block—oozed with Lynchian themes, maddening Giallo imagery, and gore-slick tales. Shorts like Coco Roy’s Sogno Rosso (Red Dream) and Nathan Sellers’ Methuselah felt like fever dreams, rooted deep in the darkest depths of the psyche; comedic-tinged horrors like Peter Filardi’s Damn Handy and Seth Chatfield’s Good Looking Out were lighthearted but impactful, offering a smooth balance to the program (the effects in Damn Handy were campy and damn good fun). Mike Canale’s Ache and Shana Figueroa’s Forever War offered unnerving, haunting narratives, the latter infused tastefully with science fiction.
Katie’s Skin, by Stephen Schloss, was a dark, brooding horror that offered plenty of grisly imagery; the reveal and subsequent ending of this short was horrifying—I loved it. It felt like something Guillermo Del Toro would feature on Cabinet of Curiosities.
The final short, Deniz Akyurek’s My Child, was a standout—well-produced and otherworldly, yet ironically rooted in reality for many millennial and Gen-Z viewers. (ADB)
SISTER MIDNIGHT (2024) dir. Karan Kandhari
To describe Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight as a “vampire movie” is a bit like describing Ari Aster’s Midsommar as a film about a cult: the shoe fits, more or less, but it neither adequately describes the tone of the film or, really, what it’s even about. Radhika Apte plays Uma, a young woman shipped off to Mumbai for an arranged marriage to a childhood friend. Unfortunately, she quickly realizes she knows nothing about her new husband, and even less about how to be a wife. She seeks guidance from the older woman next door (“Add enough curry and salt and a man will eat anything”), but still feels unfulfilled; looking to occupy her time, she picks up a job as a nighttime janitor (“I’m a domestic goddess,” she deadpans in an interview), and strikes up a friendship with a group of trans sex workers. Oh, and she also suddenly finds herself repulsed by human food and drawn to biting the jugulars out of birds and goats– and is surprised to later find them rising from the dead as stop-motion animations.
It’s not clear what causes Uma’s transformation, nor is the V-word ever uttered. It doesn’t matter in the least. The story here is Apte, who delivers a brilliant comic tour de force as a woman whose supernatural affliction is completely plausible as an extension of her frustrations with her lot in life. There is more than a little Buster Keaton in Apte’s performance; she occupies the dead center of nearly every frame, reacting to the absurdities around her with a mix of incredulity and resignation. The film itself is gorgeously shot, with Uma’s journey set to a series of stunning classic drop needledrops from the likes of T. Rex, The Band, and Iggy Pop (though, curiously, not the title track). Sister Midnight is a fine entry in the “good for her” subgenre of horror, and will hopefully rocket Apte to international stardom. (OG)
ALMA AND THE WOLF (2025) dir. Michael Patrick Jann
Ethan Embry gives a stunning performance as an alcoholic cop trying to find a killer wolf with his Droopy Dog face at maximum power. Though Embry’s doing all he can, he can’t salvage an “it was all a dream… or was it?” story that’s pulling from far more accomplished versions. The closest comparison I could draw would be Silent Hill 2, but that would be a comparison the film doesn’t quite earn. The silly moments hit, but are dragged under the water by malaise and unthinkable acts of transgression. The wolf suit is fun at least! (KA)
THE UGLY STEPSISTER (2025) dir. Emilie Blichfeldt
This breathtaking but grisly twist on Cinderella analyzes the emotional and physical abuse that women have received from not only society, but their own families, across the ages. Infused with brutal scenes used in the Grimms’ original telling of Cinderella, The Ugly Stepsister wields body horror to enforce its message—and takes no prisoners in doing so.
Emilie Blichfeldt’s Norwegian-language feature spins the story of Elvira, a young woman who yearns for the attention of a prince. Her vain, disparaging mother feels that she is not beautiful nor good enough to win the heart of the repugnant royal and must get prettier to succeed. To achieve the prince’s attention, Elvira—doe-eyed, kind, and lovely—is subjected to horrific quackery and gruesome surgical procedures to alter her appearance, strict dieting and tapeworms to make her skinnier, and endless ridicule by those around her.
As a woman, watching The Ugly Stepsister felt like a kick in the ribs. It’s honest, poignant, and empowers its viewers to look within; to try to heal, and to try and understand that the cruel and judgmental things said to us throughout our lives about our bodies were wrong. It’s a beautiful, intense feature—one I won’t soon forget. (ADB)
TRIGGER WARNING
Trigger Warning, BUFF’s program of proudly deviant shorts, offered plenty of shocking visuals and chaotic (yet enthralling) stories this year. As usual, they didn’t disappoint.
Rejected was the block’s standout short, emanating the energy, story framework, and nostalgic, home video aesthetic of Shudder’s V/H/S film franchise. This one was a blast, and I appreciated the hints of comedy here (and the head-exploding practical effects).
Brothers Beastly—the story of a cannibalistic family trapped in an icy homestead—was another highlight that thrived with its eerie lighting and atmospheric set design. (ADB)
