Mallet
2026 · 9m
Directed by Brian Emond
Genres: dark comedy, horror, thriller
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
A man books an unusual massage appointment that spirals into something deliriously unhinged.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A massage appointment that goes deliriously unhinged is exactly the kind of premise that makes people uncomfortable in the best way — it takes a mundane setup and lets it rot from the inside out, refusing to settle for easy horror or easy laughs, just pure absurdist chaos.
Emond's tonal balancing act between body horror and dark comedy lands within a specific lineage of transgressive short cinema, though the film's structural control of when to escalate and when to pull back will be what separates crafted provocation from mere spectacle.
The film's genius lives in the decision to play the massage therapist's affect completely straight through the spiraling mayhem — that choice to withhold any reaction or explanation is what transforms a gimmicky premise into something genuinely unsettling and memorable.
Reviews
MALLET is a deliriously unhinged short from director Brian Emond that starts with a simple transaction and goes somewhere you absolutely will not see coming.