★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Bianca Poletti
The superb short horror film Video Barn is a valentine to video rental stores and a fine entry in the cinematic subgenre of high strangeness involving videotapes.
Synopsis: Two outcasts who work at a small town’s local video store must solve the mysteries of the town’s dark past when one of them goes missing.
Anyone who ever frequented independent video rental stores back in the day will wax nostalgic over their memories with director Bianca Poletti’s Video Barn. The aesthetic vibe is captured wonderfully in this excellent horror short. Those who still patronize the few remaining shops of that kind will also find plenty to enjoy — as will fright-fare fans of virtually every stripe.
High schoolers Hannah (Reina Hardesty [Barney Burman’s Wild Boar, reviewed here) and her friend Jules (Grace Van Dien, who also is a cast member of Redux Redux, another film that premiered at SXSW 2025, and who guest-starred in three episodes of Stranger Things) are working at the titular establishment and discussing their differing views on a horror movie. Hannah clocks off early to visit her college-bound boyfriend. In fine cursed-video subgenre fashion, Jules watches a tape she shouldn’t have. Distraught over the loss of her missing and presumed dead friend, Hannah will learn the secret of the tape — the hard way.
The throwback setting of Video Barn is beautifully rendered through visual composition and crisp cinematography from Steadicam Operator Devon Catucci and crew. Hardesty and Van Dien are excellent in their roles, and Andrew Bering does solid work in his supporting role as a lone customer who comes in to peruse the store’s curtained adult section.
Director Poletti, working from a screenplay by Allison Goldfarb, has crafted an eerie short that sets the tone for a wider look into the world on display. Here’s hoping that Poletti can make Video Barn into a feature-length work!
Video Barn had its world premiere on March 9, 2025, at SXSW in the Midnight shorts program.