Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary!
by Alex Billington
July 20, 2026
Source: YouTube
“Don’t worry, if it goes too far I’ll stop everything.” Uh oh! This sounds bad! This horror short is another clever exercise in cinematic creativity through minimal filmmaking. The Cost of Flesh is a 10 minute short film made by French filmmaker Tomas Palombi, getting into making shorts are tons of other music videos. Au prix de la chair (in French) premiered at numerous film festivals in 2024 and has been playing on the fest circuit for the past few years. Now it’s online – ready to scare everyone! A paralyzed teenage girl can only communicate through the movements of her eyes. Desperate to cure her, her brother and sister turn to an obscure magical ritual –which they hope will free her from the evil that is hindering her. Starring Nayla Berrada as the eye with a freaky eye performance you won’t ever forget. The short is B&W and features one shot of her eye with everything happening in the room via her reflection. It obviously reminds any cinephile of the infamously iconic eye slitting shot from the French classic Un Chien Andalou (1929). The terror also comes from the dialogue & what’s happening in the room without an ability to control any of it. View below.
Thanks to Short of the Week for the tip on this debuting online. Intro via YouTube: “A paralyzed teenage girl can only communicate through the movements of her eyes. Desperate to cure her, her brother and sister turn to an obscure magical ritual.” The Cost of Flesh, originally known as Au Prix de la Chair in French, is a horror short directed by up-and-coming French genre filmmaker Tomas Palombi – you can follow him on IG @tomaspalombi. The screenplay is written by Tomas Palombi and Flores Desbiens. Produced by Marc-Eliel Chouraqui, Willfried Fedida, and Florian Pannetier. This initially premiered at the 2024 Gerardmer Fantastic Film Festival in France, and it also played at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, and many other fests. With cinematography by Tomas Palombi, and Olivier Lechat as the camera op. Palombi explains the choice to film it like this: “It allowed me to subtly distort reality, turn off-screen space into a source of tension, and draw the audience into an intimate and unsettling point of view.” For more info on the film, visit SOTW or head to YouTube. To discover many more shorts (including animation / horror), click here. How was that?
