“Hide Your Crazy” – Can Love Conquer All? – Horror Short Review

Can love conquer all? “Hide Your Crazy”, from writer/director Austin Kase aims to dissect the complexities and realities of modern day courtship with humor and body horror. Snuggle up with your better half and a shaker of salt to watch this entertaining gem on Alter’s YouTube Channel.

Love is in the air! Submit your own script to the next Killer Shorts Horror Short Screenplay Competition. Maybe the judges will fall head over heels for it! In fact, this short originally started as a script that won 3rd place in Killer Shorts (Season 2). Austin took the tools and inspiration his win provided, assembled a stellar crew, and made his short film a reality. How’s that for inspiration?

The Plot

A car screeches into the driveway of a suburban home. A woman gets out and rushes to the front door. A shadow darts past the window. Inside.

This is the viewer’s introduction to Iris—a nervous and anxious person who’s behavior makes the viewer anxious as well. As she enters the dark house, a side room with the lights on catches her eye. She creeps toward the light. A sudden movement from behind startles her.

Dan, Iris’s boyfriend of six months, jumps out of a closet as a heart-stopping birthday surprise—a birthday surprise gone awry. He set up a romantic dinner to celebrate Iris’ birthday – candles, flowers, and Cajun-style pork chops, “pink and bloody just the way you like it”. Dan was meticulous in the planning of his big reveal. Little does he know…

Iris has a big reveal of her own.

This couple will face mounting challenges to their happily ever after when Iris can’t hide her ‘crazy’ any longer.

What Lies Underneath

Iris carries pretty significant baggage, the kind that requires human flesh to satiate it. Luckily for Dan, she can survive on pig’s blood or goat intestines in a pinch. But the act of covering up a problem with a band-aid solution, in this case, intestines, won’t make it disappear so it’s best to talk it out which seems to be a theme throughout. This relationship in particular needs an emergency ‘come to Jesus’ talk before Dan becomes Iris’s next meal.

When Iris and Dan finally address their demons in the room, they experience emotional growth by confronting and sharing their unvarnished truths.

“Hide Your Crazy” cleverly uses Iris’s unusual affliction—unexpected demon transformation—as a metaphor for a few things. First, to illustrate how insecurities can materialize at any time. Next, as a proxy for generational trauma based on Iris’s condition stemming from a decision her mother made. And last, mental health is an overarching theme throughout this film. Dan’s confessions of bipolar disorder and manic depressive episodes contrast superbly with the supernatural element to ground the narrative in a very real way that is extremely relatable.

What Makes It Killer

Writer/director Austin Kase uses the absurdity of the situation and humorous dialogue to build a quick paced story where the messaging doesn’t overtake the entertaining nature of the film or vice versa. And the performances of Amy-Helene Carlson and William Lawrence Toussaint are engaging and balance strong comedic timing with the seriousness of the subject matter.

“Hide Your Crazy” is a substantive look at the effects of mental health within a relationship. The film ends on a wonderfully gross note yet somehow the last scene remains sweet and endearing…because Iris didn’t chew.

Watch it below.