You know what sucks? The realization that once you hit a certain point in your 30s, you can’t eat like you used to in your 20s. It didn’t happen when I hit 30. It didn’t even happen when I hit 32. Nope. 35 was the age for me. It’s hit me like a ton of bricks, and all I want is to eat cake with the reckless abandon of a 21-year-old with the metabolism of a humming bird. Point is, when I see the word “cake” anywhere, I sit up at immediate attention and want to know who you need me to maim in order to collect that sweet prize (for that reason, I’m really sort of surprised that some mafia hasn’t swept me up like the prize I am). Hearing the title Vanilla Cake for a short horror film naturally tapped into that sweet tooth, so I had to check it out. Here’s Crystal Pastis’s Vanilla Cake.

While I feel like it lost some momentum toward the end, I did rather enjoy the performances by Coleton Ray and Julie Mitchell. In fact, it’s Mitchell that really sells this for me because she nails that one completely nasty relative that we all somehow manage to have in our family. You know this person: not a nice thing to say about anyone else (particularly concerning the weight of others), judgy, preachy, wants everything their way rather than respecting the wishes of someone else. In short, this person sucks. In watching her get stabbed and then realizing the irony of her “he gets it from his mother” logic, it’s pretty satisfying, to the point of dismissing the drawn-out nature of the ending. That, and if I request chocolate cake, I don’t care how many sticks of butter the recipe calls for – make me chocolate cake, dammit.

Happy Saturday.