Slamdance 2022 Film Festival – Writer/director Kenichi Ugana’s short film, Visitors, was everything that I love about horror! It was all at once original but referential to so many beloved horror classics, expertly setting up atmosphere, likable characters, and memorably gory kills.

Screening as one of the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival’s short film selections, Visitors follows three friends —  Haruka, Nana, and Takanori — as they set out to perform a welfare check on their friend, Souta, who has been missing in action. Though Souta was not answering his phone, they are relieved to find him alive and at home, though he and his apartment are unclean. All three friends feel uncomfortable sifting through the mess, and, they also can’t shake the eerie feeling of being watched — they soon find that it is not just in their head.

Visitors stands all on its own, but its cackling undead, splattering streams of blood, unexpected supernatural special effects, and premise of friends being forced to turn on friends reminded me of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. Capturing a similar spirit of indie horror-comedy that leans heavily into the use of practical effects, Visitors is like a modern version of this classic only it achieves this without feeling quite as slapsticky as Evil Dead…despite the slipping in goo and falling on deadly objects.

Visitors is not just disgusting, it is disgustingly disgusting. There was so much blood spattering I felt I needed a parka just to watch this movie. It seemed to follow the classic horror formula of a group of friends dwindling down one by one until a final battered and bloodied girl stands, and I loved this because it invoked a feeling of passionate homage rather than feeling like another cookie-cutter zombie film. It proved itself further unique by seemingly combining supernatural with sci-fi for its creature lore, or, creator Ugana was making his own zombie lore — no matter what Visitors was going for, the visual effects, horror, and comedy elements truly paid off in this short movie.

Visitors had me screaming expletives at its characters, smiling from ear to ear from excellently choreographed fights and kills, and had my jaw on the floor after some surprisingly graphic and grotesque injuries. Visitors will have me visiting more of director Kenichi Ugana’s work, whose passion for messed up horror and humor is apparent even in brief pieces of his art such as this short.

8.75 Out of 10