WHEN it comes to homegrown festivals, they don’t come anymore zany and grassroots than A World of Dark Comedy.

Now in its seventh year, the annual festival is run by founder Greg Coffey and his motley crew of volunteers, misfits and all-round good eggs.

Coffey also founded The Over the Fence Comedy Festival, which has been running in Fremantle for nearly 30 years and also features shorts.

• Country Roads (above), Are you Down with That (middle), and The Buyer (below) are some of the great films showing at this year’s World of Dark Comedy.

Zany

But A World of Dark Comedy is its darker weirder cousin, you know the one who looks at you funny and dresses up as Herman Munster to go to the shops.

“One of the many things I love about dark comedy is how far filmmakers can push boundaries,” Coffey says.

“Not in a crude rude way, but the level of cheekiness and their intelligence in speaking for humans.

“An example is the gross zombie film Gramps. Zombie has girl tied up, is hungry for brains… But she says something he does not understand… it’s a joke… and the world changes.”

This year the festival is screening 14 shorts from across the globe including selections from France, Canada, Spain, United Kingdom, the US, and of course a good helping from Australia.

Desperate

Highlights include Gourmade, a tale about a late-night emotional eater who tries out the latest health craze – a revolutionary smart oven called ‘Gourmade’.

However, she soon finds out that delicious meals aren’t the only things this AI oven is dishing out.

Fans of spooky Twilight Zone fare will enjoy the Victorian film The Punt, where a seemingly mundane encounter between a weary patron and a desperate intruder in a desolate dive bar takes a philosophical turn.

A nice short-and-not-sweet thriller is The Box, where two police officers lie in wait to ambush their target, however their mission isn’t exactly what it seems.

Coffey says another one of his favourites from this year’s selection is the Finnish Miracle of Christmas.

“Man at night pulls up at a park, looks at photo of his child and wife,” he says.

“He writes a note to them. ‘He can’t go on, he wants to end it, now.’ 

“Then another man walks through the park, drops his pants and poops on the car bonnet. His world is about to change.”

A World of Dark Comedy 6 is at Luna on SX in Fremantle on Friday November 21. Tix at lunapalace.com.au.