Cohen Phillips knows how to create a fun atmosphere while still making scares happen. Playing more like a live-action cartoon (think Scooby-Doo) than a hardcore horror film, Voice’s characters have an animated quality to them that is a sign of good acting, and good direction. Amateur, but quirky, fun characters and a fast-moving plot keep things entertaining.

Using war images and stock footage from various black and white films, Voice of the Dead creates a strong and lasting impression on the viewer with images of soldiers marching off to their eventual death. Though sound quality is poor and resolution is not great (it’s available for screening online), Blair Witch-esque video footage makes a great backyard indie genre short even better. Never really frightening, Voice lays off the excessive gore and jokes as well and tries to present some real character development in the thirty minutes.

Charla Phillips steals the show as the witty and mad inventor of the “spook phone,” the contraption that allows the small group to communicate with the dead. Brooke Willhite and Cohen Phillips (the director) star as a couple that gets entangled in the mystery behind the haunting discovered by the spook phone. Cohen has a few great quips he hurls at Barbara’s character, like “Barb, what have I told you about sucking the life out of everything?”

With great sets like a forest and a haunted house, the film culminates in a confrontation with an evil spirit. If you like Scooby Doo, Ghostbusters, and independent horror (don’t we all?) then this film is a thoughtful, well-directed, and entertaining example of the genre short in its purest form.