A misty, winter wasteland is the viewer’s first introduction to the film’s world. The image that it invokes is of a liminal space defined by its eeriness. It's further coupled with an intrinsic beauty that lends it a strangely atmospheric quality. Amidst it all is located an unnamed protagonist who is lost, and plagued by strange lights in the sky. As he attempts to find his way, the path only gets more and more mysterious and circuitous. 

The screenplay is beautiful in the construction of this space, alongside its two primary performances - our hapless, confused protagonist, and a woman’s presence in the center of a non-descript realm consumed by darkness all around her. Further, the title of the film is thoughtfully chosen - does it refer to a phone call? Does it refer to the strange space the protagonist is unable to make sense of? It serves to deliberately nestle these questions within the narrative. 

The establishment of the world is achieved with such impact that the short in its current form offers a premise for a longer film. It has all the right elements to capture the viewer’s attention. Taking us deeper into its world would help to expand on the narratorial construction which already presents deep potential, skill, and ease in everything that it wants to convey.

Holding Pattern  | Short Film of the Month

The film weaves a narrative of mystery and horror without taking refuge in the regular elements of darkness or shrill background scores. It takes its time building up to finally achieve a well-formed crescendo and climax. A writer finds himself at an Airbnb which has recently witnessed the death of the owner of the property. Consequently, it is now available for an unusually low rent. The protagonist is quick to make use of this opportunity, and moves in for a temporary stay as he struggles to finish a writing project. However, soon things take an unexpected turn as he finds a stranger lurking around the house and his surroundings. Throughout its duration, the film leads the viewer in a specific direction with its breadcrumb-trail. Will you find yourself going down the correct path or will you be surprised by the twist that awaits you at the conclusion of the film?

Old Haunt | Short Film of the Day

Mimic takes you into a cold, frigid world marked by a complete absence of any other being, save for a man with a dog as his companion. It is the same isolation that would come to consistently pervade the rest of the narrative as well. 

Soon, the film reveals its motivations one by one - an investigator has arrived at the doorstep of an American navy veteran to look into a strange, catastrophic event that had occurred a couple of years ago. However, will he truly find the answers he has come seeking? Whether or not it answers this question, the ensuing conversation between them reveals more details to engross you further, while also heightening the tension and distress, simmering under the surface, threatening to attain overwhelming proportions any minute. 

The physical space of a dim-lit cabin in a nondescript corner of a frozen world allows the film an atmospheric unease. Shadows and lights are employed judiciously in the build-up that is leading to the final reveal, and when it finally arrives, it withholds more than it answers, and it is indeed this specific characteristic that works most notably for the film.

Mimic | Short Film of the Day

The film introduces us to a man in dark clothing, preparing for assumedly a romantic rendezvous. The mood established so far, however, is soon shattered by the arrival of an unexpected, strange guest, a man called Sam. The deliberatelty sudden change and contrast allows the narrative to pull the viewer deeper. 

 The predominant part of the action comes to develop within the same physical space, efficiently used by the lean cast and crew of the film. The two men, Arthur and Sam, sit across the table from one another, slowly sipping on their black coffee. A sense of something sinister being afoot never leaves the progression of events, until it finally allows itself an expression in the final revelation. The film comes to be marked by suspense, intrigue, mystery and terrible secrets simmering right below the surface, much like the coffee itself. 

 In order to enrich the story, there is further the attempt to employ the surroundings which are generously strewn (and perhaps a little too generously) with paper and hardbacks of Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis. The space is established as a private, but foreboding house of pleasures, carnal desires, adopting the setting of a gothic castle for an urban, contemporary twenty-first century counterpart. It is, thus, in this dark realm where the two characters bring into action their own malicious intentions and motives, those that threaten to completely consume the world they have conjured so far for the viewer.

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