A break-in appears to be in process and a young man grabs a camera with a fading light to head out into the darkness of the house to try to find out what is going on.
I am in two minds about this short film. On one hand it does what it does well, in terms of creating a sense of tension and fear, but then on the other hand it does so with a certain level of trickery and gimmick to the delivery. The hand-held camera is effective as a device because it puts the viewer in the lead role. The frightened movement, the darkness, the half-seen movement, all combine to be genuinely unnerving; plus as we feel like we are in our own home, it is unsettling to have the idea of a stranger in there with us, where he does not belong – anyone who has lived somewhere that has been broken into and robbed will know this feeling.
The film plays on this with the darkness, the flickering light, the character dipping into the shadows, the tension of slow movement and sudden movements. All of this it does well. The problem I had is that it does feel very gimmicky in its approach – so yes it is effective, but not original. My bigger issue though is that the film is very deliberate in setting up some misconceptions for the viewer – so although I liked the main twist when it came, it did feel a bit cheap when I thought about how it had previously presented the characters and their movements in the house.
So as a throwaway I did like it and found it pretty tense and effective, but it is hard not to feel there is an element of gimmick there – and that the misdirection is a bit clumsy rather anything else.
I am in two minds about this short film. On one hand it does what it does well, in terms of creating a sense of tension and fear, but then on the other hand it does so with a certain level of trickery and gimmick to the delivery. The hand-held camera is effective as a device because it puts the viewer in the lead role. The frightened movement, the darkness, the half-seen movement, all combine to be genuinely unnerving; plus as we feel like we are in our own home, it is unsettling to have the idea of a stranger in there with us, where he does not belong – anyone who has lived somewhere that has been broken into and robbed will know this feeling.
The film plays on this with the darkness, the flickering light, the character dipping into the shadows, the tension of slow movement and sudden movements. All of this it does well. The problem I had is that it does feel very gimmicky in its approach – so yes it is effective, but not original. My bigger issue though is that the film is very deliberate in setting up some misconceptions for the viewer – so although I liked the main twist when it came, it did feel a bit cheap when I thought about how it had previously presented the characters and their movements in the house.
So as a throwaway I did like it and found it pretty tense and effective, but it is hard not to feel there is an element of gimmick there – and that the misdirection is a bit clumsy rather anything else.
