Dominique Gayle and Tiberius Byrd are stepping into the unsettling world of Morty, a new horror short from writer-director Chandler Crump produced as part of Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions and TIFF’s No Drama Initiative.
In Morty, a teenage girl gifts her little brother a stuffed animal tied to an online counterpart — but what begins as a simple present quickly warps into something dangerous as the boy’s behavior turns disturbingly strange.
The short is one of five films in the inaugural No Drama class, a collaboration between Monkeypaw Productions, TIFF, and Universal Filmed Entertainment Group that gave each filmmaker $50,000 to create a project rooted in horror and fear. This year’s lineup includes:
- Jared Leaf – Spilled Milk, starring J. Alphonse Nicholson, Scott Mescudi, Jerry O’Connell, Brandon Perea, and Rodney Van Johnson
- Charlie Dennis – The Pigs Underneath, starring Josh Tedeku, Vinette Robinson, and Rochenda Sandall
- Helena Hawkes – Thick Skin, starring Keyla Monterroso Mejia and Courtney Eaton
- Ariel Zengotita – Imago, starring Didi Romero and Ada Luz Pla
All five projects will debut out of competition at TIFF next month, followed by industry market screenings. Executive producers include Peele, Win Rosenfeld, Keisha Senter, Dana Gills, and Kesila Childers, with casting by Kharmel Cochrane.