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jack-869
Reviews
The Clearing (2020)
Great Low Budge Fun w/ Heart
If you're looking for Citizen Kane-- keep looking. This is a fun ride with the filmmakers exceeding their budget in ways that really pay off in fast paced action and gore. It's part horror, part action (like AlienS). Horror is best when it's a metaphor for the internal or relationship conflict of the characters. The Shining, for example, is really about the inconsistency of living with an alcoholic parent passed by "spirits". Alcoholism takes away a parent's consistency. One day you can sit on their lap and type, the next day they throw the typewriter at you for interrupting them. Similarly, in The Clearing, when the father and daughter become separated by a clearing between the camper trailer where he's trapped and the woods where she's hiding, they have to find away across the zombies in between to become closer. It's a metaphor for their relationship where they are struggling to bond, AKA get closer. It's fun. Watch it.
The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon (2008)
Great Short
As of this week my film A LITTLE MOUTH TO FEED will have screened in two shorts blocks with THSMWTEIW, Philly's DANGER AFTER DARK and TORONTO AFTER DARK.
Great short.
It's a great concept that goes for the jugular by not going for the jugular. It really works because the filmmaker goes so far with such a simple ridiculous concept. I mean it mean really, really goes for it beyond the realm of all sanity or reason and the result is brilliant.
I think horror filmmakers are less competitive than other filmmakers, but still, if I'm a "rival" shorts filmmaker screening alongside THSMWTEIW but I'm compelled to go hunt for a bootleg version of it on the internet months later, meaning I'm still thinking about it, then you know it must be a great short.
Excellent concept. Excellent execution. Excellent short. I'd see it again and again ... and again ... and again ... and again, and again, and again, and again, and - those who have seen it know what I'm talking about.