Category: REVIEWS

There is something inherently menacing about a person who appears, on the outside, to be completely perfect, almost maniacally in control, but who occasionally shows cracks in their flawless exterior. Behind their gleaming smile, something darker lurks… a person teetering just on the edge of sanity. #eatpretty, a horror short by Rebecca Culverhouse, explores the dark side of social media, and the appearance of perfection that it allows us to present to the world.

Roseanna Frascona plays a product photographer, whose job as she describes it is to ‘capture little moments of perfection.’ Her entire life revolves around creating an appearance of flawlessness in an attempt to lure others into temptation. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that her need to consume the pretty things she pictures is all too literal.

Frascona is incredibly effective in her portrayal of someone whose faultless appearance and huge smile hides dark secrets, reminding us how easy it is to take everything on face value, missing the truth that lies just beneath the surface. Her voice, while sounding eerily level and calm, has a subtle shrillness to it that is perfect for this role. There is a brilliant moment in which she explains her occupation to a date, shyly admitting, ‘I probably sound a bit obsessive’. Loaded words indeed.

The film is shot in cinemagraphs, each frame being almost still except for one moving aspect looping round and round, luring us into a kind of hypnotic state that goes so well with the themes in the film. The obsessive repetition of Frascona accentuates her own madness… she is trapped in the cycle of her fixation. Each shot looks itself like product placement on an Instagram post. The minimalist style and clean white background that seems to be the go-to when advertising a luxury product or idyllic moment in life.

Culverhouse brings us #eatpretty at a time when these issues are incredibly topical. It’s safe to say that most people in society today are somewhat affected by social media. Whether we avoid it or immerse ourselves within it, whether it’s affect upon us is positive or negative, it is an inescapable part of modern life, and that is why this film will get into people’s heads and stay there. The idea of a compulsion to literally consume the things that are advertised to us is an original and brilliantly spooky idea. There has always been a fixation with the secrets kept by seemingly immaculate people, and this film plays on those topics admirably and expressively.

Visual artist Zandashe Brown takes inspiration from gothic horror and classic maternal thrillers for her new short, Blood Runs Down.

Single mother, Elize, gets her daughter, Ana, ready on the eve of her fifth birthday, and they share a tender moment whilst she plaits her daughters hair. They are clearly close, and they appear to have only each other. When Elize undergoes a terrifying transformation, Ana becomes afraid of her mother, and must decide whether to protect herself at her mother’s expense.

Set in Southern Louisiana, the film has a vintage, gothic feel to it, and the ambiguity of era makes their world seem all the more closed in. The focus is solely on this house, this family, this little girl and her mother. Brown fuses elements of religion, with themes of baptism and water recurring throughout, and also alludes to the idea of inheritance and the way we pass down our demons from one generation to the next.  

The film is shot beautifully, and most of it looks as though it is lit by a dwindling candlelight. This transports us back to the archetypal gothic ghost stories, and makes us feel even more cocooned in their little world. The exquisite costumes add to the ghostly quality of the film, especially effective when Ana dances around holding the beautiful white dress that she wants to wear to her birthday party.

Ana is played perfectly with a touching innocence by Farrah Martin, whose terror and anguish at her mother’s transformation brings a palpable emotion to the story. Idella Johnson plays Elize, and does a wonderful job at portraying a person often engulfed by an overwhelming sense of sadness. She makes the transition from nurturing to menacing in the blink of an eye, and does so in a terrifyingly believable way.  

Blood Runs Down is at once haunting, emotional, and alluring. The mother-daughter relationship is played with such a authentic tenderness, which makes it all the more difficult when Ana is faced with decisions far beyond her years and understanding. The unsettling feeling lingers for a long time after the credits roll… and that’s how you know it’s done it’s job.

In her intricate animation short, Cerulia, director Sofia Carrillo explores the effect that our childhood memories have on our present lives.

When Cerulia is told that it is finally time to go and say goodbye to her childhood home, she is confronted by powerful evocations of her past self. She realises that leaving her former life behind will not be as easy as she thought, as these memories have a hold on her in ways that she cannot escape.

The sets are so breathtaking, with painstakingly complex detail added to each and every frame, making the set completely come to life. The final product is so wonderful, and such a feast for the eyes, that you are completely transported into Carillo’s world as if it were real.

She intelligently incorporates ideas of childhood and the imaginary friends we create, the split self, and the way our past haunts us and have a profound effect on the rest of our lives. There is something about childhood memories, whether good or bad, that are particularly difficult to leave behind, and that’s what makes Cerulia so clever.

This film is well worth seeing, if not only for the mesmerising set and incredible attention to detail, but also for the moving story. There is a haunting beauty about the film, and the story will make you think about your childhood habits in a new light. It will appeal to animation and film lovers alike, with its fairytale twist appealing to all ages.

After putting her young daughter to bed, a mother starts to become paranoid that there is something else in the room with her. The little girl tells her that a monster who goes by the name of Billy lives under her bed. She tries to calm her daughters fears, but it begins to dawn on us that this malevolent force is all too real.

GOODNIGHT, a short horror film by Diane Michelle, cleverly explores the way children might interpret truly unpleasant situations. It tackles an extremely delicate subject matter, but plays it out almost through the lens of the childlike imagination, and the way that they choose to cope with situations well beyond their realm of understanding. In doing so, Michelle forces us to confront the very real form that the monsters these children are so afraid of might take in the real world.

The young parents, played by Joseph Kathrein and Athena Isabel Lebessis, bring a great combination of passionate love but also parental instinct, while the little girl (Penelope Piccirilli) combines her innocence and fear with a sense of maturity well beyond her years.

The events of the film take place at night, and the shots have a sort of moonlit feel to them, making the tension all the more palpable. We all remember being young, feeling so scared of the nighttime, knowing that this was when the monsters could come out. We are at our most afraid and vulnerable.

The film cleverly deals with very serious and horrific subject matter but cleverly shifts our perspective, providing an entirely new and rarely seen look at issues that are all too current in the world. Inventing stories and fantasies is the classic coping mechanism for children, enabling them to try to understand something that is beyond their maturity, and Michelle manages to portray this very effectively with her terrifying chiller. Horror fans will love GOODNIGHT, it gets under your skin, but there is also an important message behind it, and a significant conversation to be had, and that is the stuff of great horror.