Like everybody else, we were blown away by Adam Green‘s 2006 Fantastic Fest entry, Hatchet. Well, okay, we were more bludgeoned, chainsawed, and edged-weaponed to death than literally blown, but still. Lesser-known but every bit as brilliant is Green’s 2009 short “The Tivo,” which mixes equal (body) parts horror, humor, and tech.

From its opening titles – riffing on John Carpenter’s The Thing – “The Tivo” is 9:16 of pure, unadulterated awesomeness. We especially dig the wealth of genre-themed backgrounding (check out Perry Shen‘s panoply of fantastic T-shirts and the myriad blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em Hatchet plugs) and, natch, the Tivo itself, which frankly reminds us maybe a little too much of our current love affair with our iPhone 4. Yikes. (Even more unnerving: It’s in our jeans’ front pocket!)

Green’s newest, the much-anticipated Hatchet 2, screens at Fantastic Fest on Sunday, Sept. 26, 11:35pm, and Monday, Sept. 27, 11:59pm.

Youtube video

Youtube video

This article appears in September 10 • 2010.

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