Stranger

I just finished watching ENCOUNTER (2021) and found it to be a pretty good drama-thriller. Since I had not heard of its director, Michael Pearce, I checked on some of his other works on IMDb. I noticed that he has several short movies which are rated under 2, an unusually low rating on this site. This made me curious enough to watch one of them.

In STRANGER, a young man and woman are frolicking outside by a meadow, passed by a stranger. Soon it becomes apparent that the woman is actually blind, and an unexpected tragedy befalls them...

There is not a single word spoken in this short, and the ending is somewhat open. Perhaps people thought that this was too pretentious, but I did not. The moment of the life-altering event is actually delivered quite effectively using the audio, and contributes to a growing sense of unease.

I do not understand how anyone could give this such low ratings. It has an original idea, it achieves what it sets out to do, and while it may not be among the very best that short film has to offer, it is not bad. The IMDb rating of 1.7 at this time is entirely unreasonable.