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Someone actually reviewed Thomas's and my student film. Funny, even though they gave it a 2 out of 5, I'm proud that someone took the time to review it. I can't say as I agree to all of the things the writer has to say, but eh whatev.
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Approximately 20 minutes
Director: Thomas Moore, Elissa McKee
Writer: Thomas Moore
Featuring Brad Howson, Lisa Baldwin, Mikah Ballinger, Dylan Wright
Addison: In the Dark opens with a shot of a near naked man (Brad Howson) laying in a field. He's a pale blue colour and has ugly open stab wounds in his chest, so it's easy to assume that he must be dead. Strangely though, the man slowly rises and makes his way towards a small house. He falls against the glass door and flops to the ground, leaving a trail of crimson in his wake. Was it a dream, or did this actually happen?
Apparently it happened, because the fellow, Addison, soon awakens from his slumber and makes his way to a dark room, where he examines his nasty chest wounds under a red-tinted dark light.
As Addison examines himself, we see strangely sporadic, curiously-edited glimpses of a child, also with the same chest wounds. As the man emerges from the dark room, he is confronted by a woman who pulls a knife on him. Thankfully, Paul, the delivery guy (Mikah Ballinger), arrives to calm things down.
The woman is Sylvia (Lisa Baldwin) and the child we saw in glimpses was hers. He was evidently murdered a few years earlier - something we find out from the delivery guy. Suggesting that the child, a 15 year old, was killed by the father, Paul mutters something to Addison about chest wounds, and finding the kid out behind the house in the woods. This astounds Addison, who believes that he might have seen what happened to her kid in his dreams. What about the chest wounds, though?
As the short moves forward, we see that Addison is a peculiar fellow who enjoys lingering in closets, spying on the reclusive Sylvia. There's something not right with him, that's for sure. Addison eventually tells Sylvia that he thinks that he might have killed her son. His dreams might actually be memories. Sylvia is, of course, horrified and urges Addison to leave. Sylvia's iciness enrages Addison, sending him over the edge. Later, after nothing has been resolved, Addison has a heart to heart with Sylvia and begs for her forgiveness.
I had a lot of trouble understanding this little slice of pretentious student film nonsense. Maybe I'm not smart enough to decipher what the director was saying, or maybe, just maybe, I wasn't supposed to decipher what the director was saying, either way, the film is about as incoherent and confusing as it gets.
It seems inspired by the story of Oedipus, the mythical king of Thebes, who, according to history, killed his father and married his mother. He later gouged out his eyes out of shame. It gave Freud the name for the Oedipus complex, a desire on the part of a child to completely control the mother and kill the father.
Technically, the film is fantastic, although the sound tends to waiver at times. The director makes good use of lighting, including dark reddish and bluish tinting to give the various scenes a certain emotional tone. It adds to film's dreamlike quality, however, it still doesn't make it enjoyable.
The performances are very good throughout. Brad Howson, who plays the houseguest/Addison/the father makes an effectively creepy villain early on, and a surprisingly tender father later. Lisa Baldwin as the emotionally vulnerable-to-the point-of-unstable mother is also surprisingly good considering her limited screen time, and the fact that a good portion of that screen time was spent yelling and screaming.
My favourite aspect of the film has got to be the music by Mikhail Lewis and Extra Blue Kind. EBK's "You Keep Me Around," I'm guessing, could probably be a hit if it was properly marketed. It's fantastic.
As a whole, the film left me wanting, and is something I probably won't revisit too often. Its dark tone, and perplexing story, is hardly something that I think people will enjoy... On the contrary, it might leave them feeling the same way I did... stupid.
Two Stars.
