A man sits with another man discussing something that happened to him recently. See, he as so badly drunk his body was failing then, suddenly, all was well – which only could mean he has died. This is confirmed second later when a man who died as a boy (Danny) in school turned up. See Danny is not the devil but associated with him and he has an offer – if Danny will kill his entire family, he'll let Danny carry on living and give him a time to repent, make a good life and avoid the pit of Hell for eternity. How could the man refuse?
There is a nice idea in here but the story really needed to be tighter for one very obvious reason and it is the reason I opened my plot summary "a man sits with another man". This is the plot device that frames the story being told and while the story is being told you never forget this – and this is important for a reason. Anyway, in terms of the actual story it is engaging but told too slowly and with not enough impact. It has very dark moments but in the second half of the short it is noticeably slower and distracting as it uses the device of the woman to maneuver the story to where it needs to be. This is an issue as the slower pace lets you think more than just absorb the story and this space and time is not the film's friend.
The reason for this is primarily that we know the framing of the film with the "story told to a friend" is clearly where we will close out, so when the twist comes it is really not a surprise even if the very specific details of the twist may be. The second issue is that the relationship with the woman really slows things down when compared to the story of "I murdered an entire baseball team of children", a contrast that makes it feel even slower. It is a shame because the delivery is pretty decent even if, as Theo says, it is really overdesigned at some points (I could have done with the toilets not being quite so vividly visual). The performances are mostly okay and the film has a good (but not great) look, but it is the story that draws us in and ultimately it is the story that disappoints.
It is good in the conception but the delivery really needed to be tighter, faster, sharper and less obvious. It is still OK, but it could have been much more than that.
