MicroCinema Scene

From its DVD packaging The Pledge (not to be confused with the Jack Nicholson movie) looks like an interesting horror feature – five young women and Satanism tend to make for a decent genre piece.  Unfortunately, in what seems to be a trend in the micro scene lately, The Pledge is actually only around fifteen minutes long.  While the inclusion of two other shorts and a number of bonus features helps to ease the pain, anyone going in expecting a feature will probably be disappointed.

The Pledge - dir:  Jennifer Whitaker

Five attractive high school girls gather together for a slumber party, where the main entertainment is an initiation into a Satanic cult.  Writer/Director Whitaker knows her way around a production – interesting edits and snappy interaction between the characters keep things moving.  There’s a twist that seems to happen early on to make things interesting – but unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, it turns out that The Pledge is really just a short, taking away from what would have been a nice change of pace from the traditional horror mold and instead falling right into the norm.  There are quite a few effects here, and considering the lack of a budget they look better than average.

It’s a shame that one might go in to The Pledge expecting a feature, especially since as a short it works pretty well on all levels.  What hurts even more is the inclusion of a behind-the-scenes documentary that’s three times as long as the actual short, and shows a crew that’s bigger than what’s used in the vast majority of micro-budget features.

Three and a half stars.

Child of the Apocalypse - dir:  Jennifer Whitaker

Another short from Whitaker, this time tackling the horror comedy genre.  In another riff on Satanists, a reporter takes her crew to interview a woman who claims to be pregnant with the spawn of Satan.  But instead of dark and brooding we get tripped out and excited, which makes for an entertaining change of pace.  It’s hard to tell if this is shot on film or video, but either way the audio dub is done very well (although the headroom is a bit extreme in most shots).  It’s another case of a short that could have been longer to flesh out the story more, but it made me laugh so it was worth watching.

Three stars.

Bloody Mary - dir:  Ron Danford

Bloody Mary is essentially a clichéd horror feature condensed into about ten minutes, meaning we get the set-up (kids summoning a demon by saying its name into a mirror three times ), the killing (various ways, plenty of blood), and the “twist” ending in what feels like a sprint instead of a marathon.  The soundtrack is good, but it looks like the short was shot on two different cameras, making for some jarring scene transitions.  Bloody Mary herself looks decent enough, but with horror movies having a difficult enough time making the audience care about the characters in an hour and a half it’s nearly impossible to do in a short like this.

Two and a half stars.

Overall: Three stars.

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