"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a German live action short from 2016, so this one has its fifth anniversary this year. It is also in the German language, which you maybe would not have guessed given the title, but it is. It's still an easy watch because people actually talking in here does not happen a lot and when it does, it is not really too important to understand exactly what they were saying. It's considerably more about the atmisphere I'd say. Still in order to make things even easier for foreign audiences, this film is really easy to find with English subtitles. The title here reminds me of a song by the way, one I like quite a bit and one I have known for a long time. Probably not a coincidence, maybe the filmmakers like it as well. But isn't there one word missing? An "of"? Anyway, I will get to these filmmakers in a second. Let's take a look at the basics: This movie runs for over 11 minutes and that already includes a solid deal of credits. I liked it honestly, I think it was the right running time, not too long and not too short given the story and material. The writer and director is Nik Sentenza and his co-writer is Johannes Kizler. For both, it is the most recent filmmaking effort from careers that have not been super long or super prolific. Sentenza has done a bit more than his co-director here and a bit unusual too to see two people working on a film this short, even if it has happened many times before of course. Three would be a bit of an exception. Anyway, I hope their careers are not over because what I saw here was not worse than something other filmmakers have come up with, much bigger names, so I hope they can find the money and funding to keep going one way or the other.
As for the cast, we have two female actresses here and that is everybody. Bremermann and Probst have definitely been more prolific than their directors here, especially the former. But Probst has also been in a lot and that is not too shabby given her fairly young age. Now as well as back in 2016. Unfortunately, what these two have been into was is not exactly considered a revelation. Some honestly pretty bad projects in there quality-wise and I am not only talking about Rosamunde Pilcher and Inga Lindström adaptations. So I have doubts about their talent, but here they were alright I guess. Then again, the roles weren't challenging. This film is carried by writing and direction. I thought it was a nicely atmospheric take. A lot done right here. Just. The camera work is one example. I like how it circled around the protagonist and it felt really smooth and fluent how focus switched from one to the other and back in this mother-daughter story. The ways in which light and darkness were included also won me over. Same for the music. It was relatively calm for the most part, not too exaggerated and in the end, when the drama reached its peak with a seemingly horrible crime being commited, it got louder and added further tension to this story.
The ending was good as well. We see the daughter (Probst is pretty stunning by the way and as a hetero male, I won't object to her clothing in the second half of the film and if this was really made in one shot, then also nice ideas here how she had to change clothes quickly before the camera would catch her again) scream loudly at the end and we do not know if it is because of the horror she just witnessed or if it is because of her actually seeing the creature this very moment before the closing credits roll in. A bit of a funny inclusion also to me with how many of these films include uninspired jump scares at the end. This one here stayed much more essential and delivered through doors that are open, but shouldn't be, strange messages written on the mirror and of course also through us seeing the strange creature already very early on. In contrast to the mother. Okay, enough now. I think this film deserves a slightly higher rating than it has here on imdb. It is not a masterpuece or anything or among the best short films from its year, but I liked it and I give it a thumbs-up. Go watch it if you like or even love the genre, unless you are super picky like some of the other reviewers. In any case, this deserves to be seen by more. The talent is clearly there with this take on mother and daughter inside a little house of horror, but there is somebody else out there. Or something.
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