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• Heartpocalypse

Given how eye-poppingly weird our reality has become, it's hard to freak people out with a short film these days. Still, the good folks who've assembled the Druid Underground Film Festival are giving it a shot again with their 10th annual collection on Saturday, Nov. 18 at 7 and 10 p.m. at the Miniplex ($10). It's an evening of low-tech, high-risk, unconventional and subversive short films, and it's bound to get strange. Your ticket also gets you a raffle ticket, the prize for which hopefully won't be anything featured in the films.

So what kind of freaky cinema have the curators culled from a decade of underground art? The promo montage gave us a lot to think about: bug eating, rat cuddling, stilt walking, creepy dolls, a cartoon man pulling his face off, Satan hauling trash, a naked guy hopping over an open flame, rubber troll puppets and some disturbing stop motion. Of course, after checking my Twitter feed, it's starting to look like escapism. Go ahead, D.U.F.F., give 2017 a run for its money.