Strike!

Creepy, paranoia fuelled chiller, although I'd probably class this as more of a thriller than a horror. The two leads were convincing in their roles, particularly in the first scene they had together. I did think that the writing and delivery of the dialogue in the living room scene before the climax was kinda clunky and not really realistic, but otherwise they drew me into the story pretty well. With dialogue scenes, I'm a big fan of getting lots of coverage, eg. over the shoulder and various other angles and shot sizes, even if you don't use it, so you can control the pacing and emotion of the scene. I got the impression that you only had your two-shot master shot for those dialogue scenes. Some nice editing flourishes such as the quick montage of "sightings" and the multi-take editing of the match strike. Moody use of low key lighting. The ending was a bit predictable, robbing it of it's power to scare simply because you could see it coming. A (more unexpected) twist ending of some sort could have worked better maybe. The only other scene that didn't really work for me was the murder scene. The burning of the body was a shocking turn of events, but the murder itself was not foreshadowed or given any sort of story logic other than "it happened". I also didn't buy that the sister would simply watch the murder unfold in a state of either obliviousness or abject terror - wouldn't she hear it and run into the fray? Overall, well shot, acted and edited, but let down a little bit by the script. However, I still enjoyed this short and wanted to keep watching to see how it played out. Thanks for uploading!

Morgan is suffering from a reoccurring nightmare, forcing her to revisit a dark incident from her past. Overall, this was a pretty good effort. While some of the shot choices were a little uninspiring or overdone they were at least shot consistently. Some of the delivery of lines were unnatural but the film was cast appropriately - despite that fact that you'd probably expect the involvement of adults at some stage. I agree that the lead's somewhat passive observation of the murder was unrealistic - frozen with fear? Self-preservation? Just seemed unlikely! Lighting was used for the most part effectively - especially at the end, although I did find the initial scenes between the two girls a bit dark. I too found the ending rather predictable, and given her fear up to that point, why did they decide to go there at night? I suppose this is how the genre plays out though!