Killing Time (Review)
We got a short film on our hands here today from Scott Lake called Killing Time, running at just under 18 minutes, it is a short film of the shorter variety, but that isn't always a bad thing, in fact keeping run times down in short films can often be good moves due to limited budget.
I really dig the opening music, almost kind of Carpenter-esque and even the music that plays at later points of the short film is pretty eerie and effective as it not only sounds pleasing to the ears, it also goes very well with what takes place in this unique blend of film!
We start off immediately in the thick of things, which I love. I like a slow build, wait towards the end reveal as much as the next guy, but given we are working with limited time here, it was smart to jump right into the mix.
That mix starts off with a man in all black, including a black ski mask, in what seems to be a random house, which is sending warning signs at us that this guy should probably not be here as I immediately got Collector vibes, not in a rip off kind of way, but more of a legit kind of way that brought excitement to my senses when I saw it.
Now, as I say that they had to jump into everything right away seeing as it's just under 18 minutes, because they did so they had a little bit of time here to play with your mind a bit, continuing to put the curiosity on edge as you try to put imaginary pieces together that aren't even in play yet as all film geeks do.
As it progresses there are certain red flags that point to confusion on why this intruder is in the house exactly, as little warning signs don't point to your basic home invasion, which I like if we get the answers by the end and we thankfully do.
There are some kills to be had here, nothing to write home about admittedly, but are pretty disturbing in the way that they are handled and that curiosity of trying to figure out what exactly is going on adds to them a bit.
I have to say I wasn't the biggest fan of the acting in this one, particularly in one scene where I just wasn't as sold as I wanted to be by the Actors performance, but obviously we're not going into EVEN mainstream Horror movies expecting Oscar winning performances guys, but I do like to be surprised from time to time.
In the end we do get some kind of reveal that I obviously won't spoil, I wasn't completely on board with the ending, but I give props where they're do for being original and coming up with their own spin on it rather than having some cop out ending we've seen a million times.
Overall guys, this one isn't great or bad to me, it kind of leveled out in the middle somewhere as a short film, but I do believe it is worth a watch to at least see for yourself, cause there are some good ideas here and you can tell that the people behind it have a good grasp on the genre, I think it'll only go up from here for Scott cause this is a serviceable enough first effort.
2.5/5