Monster

I saw this short film at the Shriekfest Film Festival in LA. In the story, a young boy believes there's a real-life monster living in his closet. At first, his mother dismisses her son's claims and thinks its his imagination running wild. The mother soon learns the haunting truth of what lies inside the closet. The director has an excellent command of the horror genre. The film is shot in grainy black and white and has a foreboding Gothic feel to it. She knows how to ratchet up the suspense, especially in the incredible staircase scene. The whole audience practically leaped out of their seats. The performances by the young boy and mother were solid and very convincing. I really liked the climatic scene in the film. The director took a different route from the usual gore fest and resolved the film in a creative and emotionally fulfilling way. Overall, its a great film that really scared the crap out of me.

I don't like watching short films. I watched the short film version of that movie before watching The Babadook. It was an average thing. This short film did not surprise me.

AS the title character in DOCTOR WHO once stated " The most frightening place in a universe is a childs bedroom " . True even if it may be stating the obvious . Living on an island as a child I was sometimes worried about an incursion of Sea Devils and worried they could squeeze up the U bend of the loo and come crashing in to my bedroom before I knew what was going on . This short film by Jennifer Kent plays on that fear

The film is somewhat minimalist taking place entirely in one house featuring a mother , her young son and the protagonist of the title . I notice IMDb legend Bob The Moo has reviewed it. . Let me reveal a closely guarded secret about The Moo - he doesn't like horror movies and as he's stated he had hoped for a bit more space and development and looks forward to seeing the feature length film this short started off as . As for myself I can take each and every horror film on its own merit but often lament how difficult it is to do something new with a tired and staid genre . That said yesterday I saw a sci-fi horror called EXTRATERRISTIAL featuring a bunch of horny teens in a remote cabin which had nothing new to say to the audience and yet managed to compel and creep out this audience member . Kent does something similar here . Okay it's down to the obvious cheap tricks of using fast movement and silence followed by sudden loud noise which caused me to jump out of my seat . If I was watching this in the dark late at night I'd be running to switch the lights on and having difficulty sleeping . Compared to the monster in this film the Sea Devils are small fry

This short horror film was pretty good. It had some moments that were a bit creepy and I enjoyed the performances of both the mom and the little boy in this one. The atmosphere was good as the black and white made an everyday house and everyday things seem more sinister than they would have been otherwise. The story has a rather hyper active kid really beating down one of his stuffed toys, a rather ugly doll that to me resembled a witch a bit. Most kids can remember that childhood toy that really did not delight them, but rather scared the crap out of them. Well the boy seems convinced that the thing is alive and really freaks out when he glimpses it in the closet. Well the mother thinks it is just an over active imagination at first, but something seems a bit off kilter. Like I said this one overall was okay, my favorite part was when the mother heard something while she and her son were in bed and she looked out her door. To me that was the freakiest part in the film. The conclusion is a bit strange though, I did not completely care for it, but then I still feel I must give it credit for being original. The final scene is even more strange, but once again it was different. So while not the most shocking or creepy short horror film I have seen, it was an interesting watch and it did things a bit differently than one would normally expect.

A hyperactive child causes stress for his mother, until one day, a toy monster he's been fixated on comes to life.

This is primarily of interest due to it being a sort of prototype for The Babadook, by the same writer and director, the immensely talented Jennifer Kent. It's especially interesting to compare the two, and look at what was already present here in this short, and what is only in the later movie. I won't detail any of it, since doing so would require spoiling both of these, and I'm not going to be doing that in this review. However, it is a stimulating exercise, that I fully encourage anyone interested to do.

This is filmed and edited well. The strain that it puts on this single parent that her son is always running, playing, making noise, screaming, is conveyed well, without us just being frustrated watching. This is 9 minutes long without end credits, and 10 with them.

It is legitimately tense and scary, although other than that, there isn't any objectionable material in this. I recommend this to any fan of the film it was later turned into. 8/10