For our date last weekend, TYG and I went to the Sick Chick Flicks specfic film festival in Chapel Hill. I’d written about it for The Local Reporter (at the link) and figured it would be fun to catch. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay for more than about 2.5 hours because we had to get back to the dogs. It was still fun while it lasted.
Like other film festivals I’ve been to, most of the menu was shorts. In Tasty Tongue (2024) a pretty Asian woman feeds a dour Chinese American slacker a delicious meal, please don’t ask where she got it from, okay? Of course, he really should have asked … and he should definitely have wondered why she always hides her face behind her fan. “I’m ugly, fat and disgusting.”
The Forest of Dreams (2024) was more upbeat and more fantasy than horror: A young woman on the outs with her Mom ignores the parental warning about the eerie eponymous woods where she eats fairy food and dances with a tree. Charming.
Shrieek (2024) didn’t work so well for me. Despite her husband’s outrage, an abused wife goes out in search of The Thing In the Woods. What follows was too murky and confusing (storywise, not in the camera work) to figure out.
I spotted one twist in the black-humored One Lonely Heart (2025) wherein a plumber makes an evening call on a woman who’s lost her engagement ring down the sink. As they get to chatting it turns out he’s lot someone too, she invites him to dinner … I won’t say more but this was much fun.
All the films, and the feature below are way better quality than we expected. I’m not sure if that’s because the average level of professionalism in indie films is higher than it used to be, the tech available is better, festival selections are above average or a combination of those factors.
The feature film BABY FEVER (2025) stars Allisha Pelletier as Kate, an expectant mother who’s nervous about her and her spouse moving to a small community where they don’t know anyone and have no support system. She’s happy when the local mom’s group admits here — they’re pretty exclusive — even though they don’t seem awfully, awfully perky. And isn’t it a little odd they never have children at these events?
This primed me to expect some variation of Stepford Wives. Instead we’re off on a weird ride where reality itself seems to be crumbling around Kate. Cryptic conversations. Uncertain flashbacks. Horrifying events that may or may not have happened. Is her husband lying to her and gaslighting her? Or did she imagine the horror of what he did? I’m honestly not sure. In the end the lack of clarity or answers proved frustrating but the film was, even so, well-made and watchable. “My husband has spent his whole career in nephrology.”
All rights to images remain with current holders.
