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Dislike (2016) is a razor-sharp, six-minute horror short that distills the psychological terror of the "Saw" franchise into a minimalist, digitally charged nightmare. Filmed in a grimy garage-a far cry from the elaborate torture chambers of James Wan's 2004 original-this micro-budget experiment traps videoblogger Vladislav Koptsev (played by Evgeniy Mishukhin) in a concrete prison with a single, maddening question: "Why are you here?" Stripped of gore and complex mechanics, "Dislike" weaponizes claustrophobia, silence, and the existential weight of online validation to craft a potent critique of internet culture.

The garage is a masterclass in oppressive minimalism. Walls slick with mildew and the whir of a malfunctioning heater replace "Saw"'s industrial soundscape, amplifying isolation. Every echo of the captor's voice-"Why are you here?"-ricochets like a hammer strike. Unlike "Saw"'s relentless ticking clocks and screams, "Dislike" weaponizes quiet. Scenes linger on Koptsev's panicked breaths, the scrape of his shoes on concrete, and the hum of distant traffic. This sonic emptiness mirrors the digital void he once commanded-a stark contrast to his YouTube persona's performative energy. Flickering fluorescents cast prison-bar shadows across Koptsev's face, evoking "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"'s expressionist dread. When the captor finally appears, he's backlit into a featureless silhouette-a nameless algorithm given human form.

Where "Saw" punished characters for ethical failures, "Dislike" targets the emptiness of online existence. Koptsev's captor demands no physical sacrifice-only an answer to why his life deserves attention. The garage becomes a metaphor for the internet's echo chamber: a space where validation-seeking collapses into existential void. Distorted audio glitches-reminiscent of corrupted YouTube uploads-replace a traditional score. Koptsev's own videos play faintly on a phone, taunting him with his curated persona.

"Dislike" taps into post-2016 anxieties: the fear that online engagement is a Faustian bargain. The captor's question-"Why are you here?"-echoes in every scroll through TikTok or Instagram. Sergey A. Suggests the ultimate horror isn't death, but realizing your existence lacks meaning beyond metrics. As Koptsev's screams fade into digital static, we're left wondering who's next in the algorithm's gaze.

In six minutes, "Dislike" achieves what "Saw" franchises diluted over decades: terror born of simplicity. Sergey A. Trades gore for psychological scalpels, transforming a garage into a cathedral of dread. Fans of "Creep"'s (2014) intimacy or "Pontypool"'s (2008) verbal horror will find kinship here. A warning to influencers and lurkers alike: every like has a price, and the internet never forgets.

Psychosis is a visceral, experimental short that weaponizes Moscow's cityscape into a disorienting plunge into mental collapse. Bathed in a corrosive blue filter and intercut with feverish sketches from Pablo Picasso's early work, this hallucinatory journey rejects narrative to simulate the sensory chaos of a psychotic break. Through jarring visuals, aggressive sound design, and symbolic juxtapositions, Sergey A. Crafts a suffocating ode to urban alienation and the fragility of perception.

The Blue Filter - Depressive Reality. The monochromatic cyan saturation drains Moscow of vitality, transforming streets, skies, and architecture into a frozen, alien world. This hue-associated with coldness, melancholy, and digital decay-mirrors the emotional numbness of dissociation. The Kremlin's domes and Stalinist towers become spectral relics, stripped of grandeur.

Insertions of Picasso's early "Blue Period" studies act as visual seizures. Their raw, unfinished lines clash with Moscow's rigid geometry, symbolizing the mind's struggle to reconcile internal turmoil with external reality. A sketch of a weeping woman overlays a metro station-collapsing past suffering into present desolation.

Shots of the UNESCO World Heritage site, filmed through grimy train windows, render its golden domes as fleeting, warped mirages. The motion blur and reflections shatter its sanctity, critiquing how history and spirituality dissolve in the velocity of modern life. This is Moscow as a soul in transit: unmoored, unstable, forever passing through moments of grace it cannot grasp.

A prolonged, static shot of a duck floating in a murky pond becomes the film's most unnerving sequence. Its unnatural stillness (enhanced by the blue filter) morphs the creature into a grotesque rubber toy-a Lynchian absurdity. This symbolizes psychosis' cruel paradox: the mind latches onto mundane details, distorting them into obsessive focal points while the world unravels.

Piercing industrial noise-screeching metal, distorted sirens, sub-bass drones-replicates auditory hallucinations. The lack of rhythm or melody mirrors the disorganized thinking of psychosis, where sound becomes physical assault. When paired with Picasso's sketches, it evokes the "scream" the artist sought to capture: raw, wordless anguish. Brief respites in sound amplify the dread, making the duck's sequence feel like a suffocating pause before sensory relapse.

The city embodies a mind under siege. Its landmarks represent cognitive pillars-faith, power, memory-crumbling under the blue filter's depressive haze. The duck symbolizes fixation, the train windows dissociation, and Picasso's art intrusive thoughts.

Sergey A. Uses the artist's pre-Cubist work deliberately. These sketches-obsessed with poverty, isolation, and distorted bodies-mirror psychosis' deconstruction of identity. A fragmented face screams: "You are not whole here." Beyond depression, the hue evokes digital glitches and surveillance. In a city where history is politicized and privacy eroded, "Psychosis" suggests that Moscow's soul is not crumbling-it's being algorithmically erased.

"Psychosis" distills the director's signature rebellion. Shot on consumer gear, its rawness echoes but trades found-footage literalism for poetic abstraction. The duck's eternal close-up mirrors "Silent Room"'s (2023) static emptiness, compressing eternity into four minutes.

"Psychosis" is Sergey A.'s most potent sensory weapon since "City of Devil" (2020). It offers no solace, only confrontation: with Moscow's ghosts, with Picasso's screams, with the duck in your own mind. Fans of David Lynch's "Eraserhead" or Gasper Noé's "Enter the Void" will recognize its genius. In just 240 seconds, Sergey A. Proves that true horror isn't supernatural-it's the city outside your window, warping into a funhouse mirror of despair.

Sergey A.'s «Effect Inferno» (2022) is a 14-minute plunge into a nightmarish medieval tableau, where a plague doctor (Sergey A.) becomes the hunted in a primordial forest stalked by Death itself (Simon Dark). Shot without dialogue and steeped in gothic atmosphere, this experimental short transcends narrative conventions to deliver a sensory assault on mortality, pandemic trauma, and the futility of escape. With its haunting score, meticulous costumes, and decaying locations, the film evokes a Boschian hellscape filtered through Sergey A.'s signature lo-fi aesthetic .

Mist-shrouded trees, rotting foliage, and suffocating darkness transform the woodland into a psychological prison. Shots mirror «Cemetery Legend»'s (2015) graveyard voyeurism but amplify claustrophobia through tangled branches that resemble skeletal fingers-a direct nod to «Dersu Uzala»'s (1975) wilderness terror .

The derelict cottage, with its collapsed roof and moss-eaten walls, symbolizes civilization's collapse. Sergey A. Lingers on textures: peeling paint mirrors decaying skin, while shattered windows become vacant eye sockets. This visual metaphor critiques pandemic-era isolation, echoing «Silent Room»'s (2023) themes of entrapment .

Flickering candlelight in the plague doctor's lantern battles oppressive shadows, recalling «Inferno»'s (1980) submerged ballroom scene. When Death appears, the frame bleeds into monochrome-suggesting life's chromatic fade into oblivion .

The absence of dialogue amplifies Christian Henson-inspired ambient drones. Low-frequency strings vibrate like a death rattle, escalating as Death closes in. The score's dissonance mirrors «Black Death»'s (2010) apocalyptic chants but replaces religiosity with primal terror. Crunching leaves underfoot, the plague doctor's labored breath, and the «schick» of Death's scythe weaponize silence. Sound becomes a tactile predator, forcing viewers into the doctor's escalating panic.

Sergey A.'s costume-tattered robes, a corroded beak mask, and bloodstained gloves-subverts the figure's historical role as healer. The mask's eyepieces reflect distorted forests, symbolizing his fractured psyche. This design critiques pandemic "saviors" rendered powerless by systemic collapse .

Saimon Dark's entity wears riveted armor under a tattered shroud, merging medieval reaper motifs with steampunk grotesquery. The scythe, welded from rusted pipes, visualizes death as a manufactured inevitability-a stark contrast to «Major Dron»'s (2021) satirical plague doctors .

The plague doctor-a symbol of pandemic control-becomes prey. His flight mirrors humanity's cyclical hubris: we create systems to conquer death, only to be devoured by them. The forest's maze-like structure embodies the inescapability of mortality, echoing «Russian Death»'s (2019) cemetery meditations . Death's pursuit is intimate, not epidemic. Sergey A. Avoids wide shots of devastation, focusing instead on close-ups of mud-caked boots and trembling hands. This personalizes collective trauma, arguing that pandemics are experienced alone . The climax's inferno-shot in searing orange-consumes both hunter and hunted. Fire purifies yet destroys, symbolizing pandemics as societal resets. Here, Sergey A. References «Orbius»' (2020) time-bending hues but replaces contemplation with annihilation .

Shot on micro-budget, its effects rely on practical makeup and natural decay, championing resourcefulness. From «Mordum Plagum»'s (2021) pursuer to «Patients Ready for Admission»'s (2022) clinician, this figure evolves into Death's equal-a tragic antihero .

The film's resistance to narrative may frustrate viewers seeking found-footage literalism. Death's motivations remain opaque, and the finale's abstraction risks alienating those craving catharsis. Yet this ambiguity «is» the thesis: death defies explanation .

«Effect Inferno» is Sergey A.'s most potent work since «Post» (2019). It rejects pandemic clichés-no statistics, no heroes-instead offering a visceral tone poem on decay. Fans of «Begotten»'s primordial terror or «Black Death»'s historical grit will find kinship here. In 14 minutes, Sergey A. Proves that true horror needs no words, only the weight of a mask and the shadow at your back.

A dance macabre for the age of collapse. Sergey A. Doesn't scare you-he buries you in the soil of your own fears.