Friday Horror Short 14, Still Life

BLOT: (12 Sep 2014 - 08:29:45 PM)

Friday Horror Short 14, Still Life

I am a bit sick in the real world, so let's get this done. I found Jon Knaut's (by way of Brookstreet Pictures) short, "Still Life", through Youtube recommending to me a version posted back in 2006. This, however, is the short as linked by the studio's website. Turns out its by the company behind both Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and The Shrine, two movies I can recommend with only a mild amount of guardedness. So, watch this, and then go and find and watch those, in the order given.

As for this one, pill-popping cross-Canada driver [played by Trevor Matthews] drives into a town at the end of his consciousness and gas-tank. When he distractedly hits someone, his panic turns to confusion when he realizes that it's a mannequin. And the people in the diner he runs inside are mannequins, too. Except, as he turns his back, the mannequins move, and they are reacting to his vehicular killing. This is only the start of his troubles.

Generally well shot with everyone's favorite scary trope—the old The Shining topiary trick now better known for being associated with the Weeping Angels—it is a nice little horror short that looks at a different sort of vulnerability, As stuff starts growing out of control, you begin to side with the man who plowed down someone on the street, plastic or not. And while it ends on perhaps the least interesting twist that such a story could set up, it does so by encroaching on real world horror that I suspect will be appreciated more by those not quite so much into Ligotti-esque weirdness as I.