A well-loved genre piece that took centre-stage at a whole bunch of Britain’s favourite festivals (from Encounters, to FrightFest and the LSFF), Kate Herron’s totally off-the-wall feminist monster short Smear finally makes its online debut, just in time for International Women’s Day. And trust us when we tell you that it’s five minutes of the weirdest, wildest, and most inspired short filmmaking of the year.
Mixing a hefty dose of comedy gold with good old fashioned practical tentacle effects (courtesy of Dan Martin no less, Ben Wheatley’s go-to effects man), Smear is the very simple story of a woman’s routine trip to the doctor’s, that quickly morphs into an absolute bloodbath when she finds a mysterious green monster living inside her vagina. Starring Flowers’ Sophie di Martino and Bridget Jones’s Nick Mohammed, and produced by Shadowhouse’s Douglas Cox (one of the minds behind genius zombie short Dawn of the Deaf), it’s a wonderfully odd and well-aimed addition to the creature-feature canon.
We’ve already raved about Herron’s work before (try our exclusive interview with her from September – or our run-down of all the best shorts from last year’s BFI London Film Festival) and she’s certainly showing no signs of slowing down, pressing on with her plans for the genre feature Miss Universe and delivering one of the Keynotes at the BFI Future Film Fest just last month. Fingers crossed that 2018 will be another big one for her and her team, with bolder and even wackier things on the horizon.
You can catch Smear in its entirety below:
Ben Robins / @BMLRobins
Originally published March 8, 2018. Updated March 7, 2018.
