Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: MIDNIGHT SHORTS BLOCK #2 [Dances With Films NY - New York, New York]
The aspect of midnight shorts is using the genre and less restrictions to give the audience a sense of the macabre, the frightened or the just weird. Certain films in Midnight Shorts Block #2 use the essence of perception or perspective but usually that comes in the eyes of the beholder or even a third omnipresent figure. "A.W.A.R.E" begins the progression with a girl losing her cat and a mysterious stranger coming to the door. The perspective comes in the use of security cams specifically one panning back and forth as the victim in question is slowly but surely hunted down. "Blindsided" by comparison is seen from the perspective of a blind woman while bedlam seems to happen around her. Granted the use of the eyes does play it a bit far but the fact that the director is a sound designer made the whole experience, especially when it gets to the end quite worth it. It is by far the most accomplished in this block because of its scale and pace but also its very specific voice.
"Brick Boy" works within a simple revenge motif with a group of kids picking on a nerdy girl but she gets her revenge through a spell that turns her LEGOs (or similar) into a killing machine before coming back to play video games. It has a very Troma-esque angle to it but the effects definitely got the reaction of the audience. "Crowded Out" creates a metaphor for noise in one's head with a guy who can't find a parking spot constantly picking up hitchhikers who think they can help until they subjugate him into the floorboards. It is a very visual manifestation of an idea even though it exists in a reality all its own. The dread it instills is fairly palpable. "Gimme" functions as a Yiddish horror tale using a dreidel spinning. Granted it might speak more to a distant mysticism but actually it function well as a trauma story of a older father who wasn't able to save his daughter and tries to make up for it but trying to educate his granddaughter about their traditions. The visual connotation of the walls closing in are done particularly well with a sense of impending doom.
"Mirror" was brief and interesting visually but being in Chinese with no subtitles, its play on duality never quite hits the mark because there isn't enough context to go on. "Stay In" by comparison is a paranoia-based thriller about a man who is consumed by a curse that he can't go out after midnight because he and his friends caused the death of a woman by accident. His other two friends have met their end because they didn't listen. His girlfriend thinks it is just superstition but the resolution shows better though it is sort of expected. "Tick" is an interesting play on a germaphobe mixed with an insect colony. It is easily the most odd of the shorts. The connotation of mating and the hive (while set in Martha's Vineyard) of a couple slowly changing over the summer break plays it more for the weirdness of the situation versus any overarching narrative about bonding.
By Tim Wassberg
