Happy B-Day

On the outskirts of a remote village in eastern Germany, where the fear of wolves in the surrounding forests prevents locals from straying too far from home, a maniacal sword-wielding figure in a woman’s dress lurks among the birch trees waiting to descend upon the unsuspecting villagers. Desperate to protect his hometown from the bloody onslaught, strait-laced policeman Jakob embarks on a reckless pursuit of the ominous stranger. But as their paths entwine, Jakob becomes increasingly powerless to resist the seductive force of the Samurai’s feral allure, and is forced to confront his own carnal impulses. At once shocking, bloodthirsty, and downright bizarre, director Till Kleinert’s rural thriller is smart arthouse horror at its very best, featuring a euphoric climax you won’t soon forget.

Fresh from the warped minds of global short film art masters, these hilarious and seriously strange shorts are worth staying up late for. Eric Kissack (“Missed Connections,” TCFF ‘12) returns to the festival with “The Gunfighter,” in which a bloodthirsty narrator voiced by Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation”) tries to set off a shootout in the Wild West; the blackly comic “Happy B-Day” shows how a well-intentioned birthday surprise can go horribly, horribly wrong; “Cruising Electric (1980)” imagines a retro ad for a kids’ toy tie-in to the classic Al Pacino serial-killer movie “Cruising;” and two teddy bears go hunting endangered (and delicious!) creatures in the spectacularly twisted “Unicorn Blood.”