Octopus: Slapface
August Maturo, Mike Manning, Libe Barer, Mirabelle Lee, Bianca D'Ambrosio, Chiara D'Ambrosio, Lukas Hassel
After the untimely death of his mother, teenager Lucas goes to live with his older brother. Treated badly by his brother and his peers, the boy spends most of his time alone. One day he is forced to enter an abandoned building, where he finds a strange monster. The creature, however, has no intention of harming the boy, or at least not right away. Slapface is the feature-length version of the short film that delighted audiences at horror film festivals. Jeremiah Kipp uses plot motifs that at first glance might call to mind Stranger Things or Goonies to bring out the underlying, subliminal horror. In effect, it's not so much about the monsters that live in abandoned buildings as it is about the monsters that reside in people. As clichéd as it sounds, Kipp is a director with the intelligence and skill to convey this old truth in an evocative and emotionally honest way.