The idea of being trapped in a nightmare is a trope of the horror genre, explored in Parker Finn's short film "Laura Hasn't Slept", a short film that revolves around this question and that laid the groundwork for its passage to feature film in the successful Smile.
The short film starts in media res with the protagonist, Laura. (Caitlin Stasey) in the office of her therapist, the calm and kindly Dr. Parsons (Lew Temple). Laura is clearly not in a good state of mind, to the point that she has refused to sleep for several days, due to a recurring nightmare she has about a creepy smiling man who threatens to show her "his true face." The tension of the short is very well executed, slowly building as we learn more about Laura, her nightmares and the monster that haunts them.
This premise is by no means new, it combines the concept of avoiding sleep to avoid confronting a terrifying entity, with the theme of the stigmatization of mental illness in the horror genre. Titles like Them from 2002 come to mind, and above all, any film in the Freddie Krueger saga. With these precedents, the viewer instinctively knows what is to come and it seems inevitable, but the director shows a great ability to smoothly transition from one atmospheric level to the next. With that use of slow panoramas as an element of suspense, which the director has turned into a trademark of the house.
The idea of using the smile as the main concept in a horror film is not new, perhaps its oldest literary antecedent is the short story by H. G. Wells, "Pollock And The Porroh Man", in which terrible visions of a smiling head haunts an English expeditionary in the Sierra Leone of colonial imperialism in the 19th century. An overexploited concept, that year after year, there are constant revisions and variations, especially in the short film genre.
In short, Laura Hasn't Slept tells a brief but terrifying story, where she plays with the dichotomy of madness and demonstrates a good know-how to create tension and propose sequences with a captivating atmosphere.
*A more detailed review can be found on the youtube channel Kristonkino.
