Les Toxiques
2025 · 18m · USA
Directed by Libby Hanley
Genres: crime, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, provocative
Three determined best friends set out to engineer the first poison that exclusively kills men with skewed moral compasses, treating revenge as a scientific endeavor. A darkly comic revenge tale dressed up as a chemistry experiment among girlfriends.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most shorts about female revenge play it safe—they want catharsis, they want you to feel *justified*. Hanley doesn't blink; she treats selective murder like a bake sale, and the absurdity is where the real teeth are. This is the kind of premise that makes programmers nervous, which is exactly why it works.
The formal restraint is admirable—Hanley resists the urge to wink at the camera, which elevates what could be a one-note provocation into something that sits uncomfortably with the tradition of feminist revenge narratives. The tonal control, the refusal of easy irony, suggests a filmmaker conscious of what she's arguing.
The genius move is treating the chemistry as *genuine*—not a metaphor, not a joke, but the actual methodology the trio deploys with unflinching competence. That choice—committing to the logistics rather than the fantasy—is what transforms a revenge concept into something that sticks.
Festivals
- LA Shorts International Film Festival 2025
- Big Apple Film Festival 2025