Hey Everyone! As October and Halloween is coming up, I thought I'd change it up a bit. If you love horror and scary films, you're in luck! For this week's reflective response, I'll be sharing with you a short film called, "TELL". This short film was directed, shot, and edited by Ryan Connolly, whom you probably are familiar is as the host of Film Riot on YouTube. Anyways, this short is probably the most intense short film I've ever watched. It is about a man named Taylor who murders his girlfriend out of pure rage and blames it on his friend who 'told him to do it'. As he tries to clean up his mess and avoid the aftermath, he is haunted by his girlfriend's image and his clouding paranoia. However, this short film is a bit of a long one, about 30 minutes long, so if you'd like to watch it, I'll embed it below. If you do choose to watch it, you can read my commentary under the video.
So, you've watched the short film, and I hope you felt somewhat scared throughout the course of it, I know I did. Horror films in my opinion, seems like one of the hardest films to create. You have to make the audience scared, and keep them on the edge of their seat, emerged in the action, wanting to know what happens next, but also not wanting to know what happens next. I feel that this short film meets all of that. It was intense, but kept a good pace. It let us know about what kind of character the antagonist was, and gave us enough information before the film went on to its next action. However, did you notice that this horror film was shot through the antagonist's perspective? I thought this was quite unusual and unorthodox, but resulted well. The acting was fantastic. I could clearly see the antagonist's emotion. I could see his rage during the argument between his girlfriend, and his anger and frustration when his friend hung up the phone. I could see his anxiousness, his fear, his paranoia when he was haunted with his dead girlfriend's image. His performance was very believable, so convincible that I forgot that he was just acting. The lighting in each shot was very well lit. Most horror films are lit dark, radiating a mysterious atmosphere. This short is a good example of that. In the film, it was night, and they had most of their lights off in the house. I wonder how they managed to get each shot well composed, while avoiding the grain from the darkness! This film kept me attentive, and frightened at times. Especially at around 13 minutes, where the film introduces its first jump scare. The scene intensifies, and then suddenly scares you with the girlfriend in the mirror. The house had a lot of mirrors from what I could tell, and they used the mirrors creatively in their shots. I wonder how they managed to get a bunch of their mirror and reflection shots. Do they just strategically place the camera where you can't see the camera's reflection? Or do they edit it out in post somehow? The cinematography was great. I noticed that there were lots of different angles throughout the video, and quite a lot of shots without a tripod that looked handheld. I think this worked for the film, giving it a more of uneasy and tense look. Lastly, I'll talk about the music. There was music throughout the film, building up suspense and anxiousness. It really helped set the frightening mood of a horror film. Overall, the short film, "Tell", had great acting, fantastic lighting, good cinematography, and great music to tie it all together. I don't normally like horror films, but for this one I will make an exception because of how great it is. Well, that is it for this week's reflective response! Thanks for reading! Bye!
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