Earlier this year, the people behind the Dead Meat channel announced a project called Fresh Meat, an anthology of short horror films from up-and-coming filmmakers. The collection would get a theatrical and home streaming release, exposure from being promoted on the channel, and a cut of the revenue.
I’ve been one of the channel’s many fans for a couple of years now, and I think this is a fantastic project. The creators of Dead Meat, James A Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, are former film students who decided to ditch the pretentiousness I associate with film students (I’m allowed to say that since I was one briefly) and go all-in on embracing a genre that they love, without much caring whether it’s considered “low-brow.” Their earnest enthusiasm for the process of making movies comes through in their videos and podcasts, and they’ve got a bullshit-free positivity that carries through everything. You can tell that this is a heartfelt project designed to use their platform to give new filmmakers a boost.
I’d reserved a ticket to see it at my local AMC theater for its one night of theatrical screenings, but couldn’t make it. So I was happy to see it come to Apple TV, so I could buy a copy to throw at least a little bit of money at the project.
Even with that enthusiasm, though, I didn’t have the highest of expectations. Anthologies are inherently hit-or-miss, and adding the horror genre and an open call for unknown filmmakers into the mix seems like it’d be practically asking for stuff that was unwatchable with only a few solid attempts. They put up a list of finalists with a trailer for each of their movies and gave the internet a chance to vote for their favorites, and there were only a couple that immediately grabbed me.
So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. They’re not all 100% to my taste, but that’s to be expected of any anthology. In fact, it’s a testament to the curation that went into this one, that there’s such a wide variety of styles and tones. There’s an animated one, a few primarily comedic ones, one that feels like an acting exercise turned into horror, a couple that are new takes on familiar urban legends, and only a couple that feel like the pretentious film student projects I’d expected.
Most surprising is that there’s not really a dud in the bunch. Even my least favorites had some appealing aspect to them, and I’ve seen several reviews on Letterboxd that called those out as their favorites. There seems to be something for all types of horror fans, and the entries are all short enough (I believe they’re all under 10 minutes?) that if you’re not vibing with one, it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
As somebody who’s only started really getting into horror over the past five or six years, I’ve been a little surprised and happy to see the kind of community that’s grown up around it. The vibe seems to have gotten more mature and more inclusive since I first became aware of horror fandom as a thing; it seems to be less about being an edgelord now, and more about being a nice person who can still nerd out over inventively visceral filmmaking.
I think projects like this would deserve support anyway, and it’s just a nice bonus that it’s actually pretty entertaining!
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