The Blue Drum

It has potential to be a quite entertaining horor drama but... hey... who cares about entertaining the audience, right?

Let's just have a nice enough idea, half bake it, get some back-ups and lazily produce it!

An additional 15-20 minutes of nicely put together story will make this still a short film which won't make none of scream, "that's it?!" I can get this way of storytelling for an almost drunk uncle on Xmas.

Well, thank you, maybe they thought we're smart enough to put 2 and 2 together but hey.... we smart people hate it when others waste our time even for a tiny 16 minutes.

"They're smart enough to make a production, I thought they're smart enough to tell a story well," say I who must rant more because... I gotta meet the character limit.

With a runtime of just 16 minutes, this short horror film does a good job. In fact, it could easily be turned into a full-length scary movie, or you could see these 16 minutes as a clip from a pretty decent horror film. Short films, even in the horror genre, aren't usually this scary because building suspense takes time. However, this one manages to create that feeling.

The story follows a young woman who has recently lost her father. She is mourning and feels a deep sense of loss. At her beloved father's funeral, not all the relatives are kind or speak highly of him. Our main character loved her father deeply because he raised her alone. It's revealed that her mother left when she was just a small child, so she never got to know her.

Soon, strange noises start catching the young woman's attention. While trying to find where the noises are coming from, she discovers a stash of hidden family items. This discovery, along with the increasingly louder noises, leads her to uncover something even bigger-something no one would have expected. This is the part where I wished the film had explored more of the backstory and the consequences of her discovery.

All in all, there are many worse and more meaningless ways to spend 16 minutes. For that reason, I consider The Blue Drum an excellent short film in its category.

I don't know if this made any difference to the sound quality that another reviewer here mentioned, but I watched this on Netflix and had no issues with the sound. I WAS watching with headphones on, though, so...

Anyway, it's an intriguing little short film, capably shot and written and acted and all that, my only 'gripe' being that I'd have liked even just another 5 minutes or so? Heck, even something about the length of a traditional Creepshow half-episode would be nice. You know, just to flesh it out a little bit more, give the cast a bit more room to work and the story a bit more room to breathe.

Honestly, though, it's good enough as it is.

I started watching this on my nice Samsung TV that sounds great no matter what I stream on it. Unfortunately the dialogue was muffled, and if I turned up the volume enough to actually hear what they were saying, then the other sounds were way too loud. Did they have pillows over the mics??

To give this the benefit of the doubt, halfway through I switched to the Netflix app on my iPhone + my fancy earbuds. This was no better. I could seriously record better quality audio on my phone - as I assume we all could. What the heck? Ultimately not worth a watch or a listen IMO.

I already see that some other reviewers did not have the same experience, so YMMV. I hope you have better luck than I did!

At her father's wake, Leticia clashes with her Aunt Norma, who criticises her father, claiming him to have been a poor excuse for a brother and husband. Leticia feels a void for the mother she never knew, and searches the house for answers.

I wish I'd checked the running time before I started watching it, by the time I'd gotten into it, and started enjoying it, the end credits were rolling, so just be mindful that this is 16 minutes long, and definitely not a ninety minute movie.

For a short, it's very effective, a good story, good development, and an interesting and surprising conclusion.

My advice is to ignore the negative reviews, this short is worth your time, enjoy it over a coffee. There's nothing here to thrill or shock, but it's a decent watch.

Crystal Hernandez doe as fine job as Leticia.

6.5/10.